A mission, vision, and strategy

Why a mission, vision, and strategy?

Your chance of success increases if you have a clear mission, vision, and strategy for your business. Think about what your company is good at, what it has to offer, and which (potential) customers need that. A company's mission, vision, and strategy must strengthen each other.

What is your company's mission?

The mission statement is a short statement about the reason for your organisation’s existence. The mission answers these 4 questions:

• Who are we?
• What do we do?
• Who do we do that for?
• How do we do that?

You can summarise the answers to these questions in a few sentences. These form the mission of your company. Your mission usually does not change (much) over time.

What is a vision?

With a vision you make your mission more concrete. You predict how your company will develop in the future. In the vision, you describe how you view outside world developments that you expect to happen and are important for your company, but on which you have no influence. Also, you try to gain insight into what will happen to your customers in the coming years by asking questions or doing market research. You record all this in a vision. A vision is often written for a certain period of time. Periodically, you evaluate and adjust it, if necessary. Also, you always check whether the vision is still in line with the mission of the organisation.

Strategy

When it is clear what you stand for (mission) and how you see your role in the future (vision) you need a strategy to achieve this.

Conquer the market

How will you approach the market? How do you make a strategic plan for a market that is changing ever more rapidly? Due to these changes, the time frame for the business strategy within SMEs is a maximum of 3 years. To take an active approach to the market, develop a strategy that sets goals and maps out the course of your business.

Ask for help

You cannot come up with a strategy in 1 day. If your company does not yet have experience in determining a mission, vision, and strategy, it is advisable to hire an external consultant. But also look within your network for companies or experts who have experience in determining a business strategy.

Involve your employees

If the mission, vision, and strategy are clear, then it comes down to converting them into action and mobilising your employees. It is best to involve your employees in the development of the strategy already. This increases the chance that the planned actions will actually be carried out and that the goals will be achieved. If, after evaluation, you adjust your company’s vision, you will most likely also need to adjust the strategy. And check that the changes are still in line with the company’ mission. This way, the 3 continue to strengthen each other.