Organisational objectives 3 On completing this chapter you should be able to: Know and understand

mission statement:
a statement of the business’s 
core aims, phrased in a way 
to motivate employees and 
to stimulate interest by 
outside groups
vision statement:
a statement of what the 
organisation would like to 
achieve or accomplish in the 
long term

---

Business organisation and environment
36 
1.3
A mission statement is an attempt to condense the central purpose of a business’s 
existence into one short paragraph. It is not concerned with speci
fi
c, quanti
fi
able goals 
but tries to sum up the aims of the business in a motivating and appealing way. It can be 
summed up as a statement about ‘who we are and what we do’.
Here are some examples of mission statements:
• College o
ff
ering IB and A Level quali
fi
cations – ‘To provide an academic curriculum 
in a caring and supportive environment’
• BT – ‘To be the most successful worldwide telecommunications group’
• Nike, Inc. – ‘To bring inspiration and innovation to every athlete in the world’
• Microsoft – ‘To enable people and businesses throughout the world to realise their 
full
potential’
• Google – ‘To organise the world’s information and make it universally accessible 
and
useful’
• Merck – ‘Provide society with superior products and services by developing 
innovations and solutions that improve the quality of life and satisfy customer needs, 
to provide employees with meaningful work and advancement opportunities and 
investors with a superior rate of return’.
An e
ff
ective mission statement should answer three key questions:
• What do we do?
• For whom do we do it?
• What is the bene
fi
t?
Table 1.3.1
 compares the vision and mission statements of three organisations.