What is a company’s mission statement?
Your company’s mission statement shows how employees can work to fulfill the company’s goals and satisfy the customers who receive the goods and services the company provides. The mission statement outlines the values a company upholds when achieving its short and long-term business goals.
Employees who feel valued stick with the company for the long term and work hard to protect and preserve your company’s reputation. The mission statement outlines the culture and daily activities employees carry out to help a company to achieve its long-term business objectives.
Why are mission statements important?
A company’s mission statement describes to customers how its products or services are competitive. It gives purpose and value to employees by outlining how their activities help the company to accomplish its business vision. A mission statement fosters unity and inclusivity and encourages employees to collaborate to develop ideas for a company’s new line of products or services.
The statement attracts potential employees who desire to work for your company based on its goals. The mission statement also influences a company’s hiring process, so that the hired candidates are those who prove they fit well to a company’s work culture, and appreciate its professional values.
How to write a company mission statement
Below are the steps for writing a company mission statement:
1. List your company’s products and services
In the mission statement, describe your company’s business, its products and services uniqueness and customers targeted. Use simple, brief and direct language that customers, investors and employees can understand. Some examples include:
- Provide call centre services
- Sell horticultural products
- Buy farmers produce
- Offer security services
- Offer human resource services
2. Describe your company’s core business
State what your company does and refer to the company’s main values and incorporate some in the mission statement. Within the statement describe the values employees will adhere to and be guided by. Create a listing that shows your company’s products and services as unique and competitive, among customers in your niche industry. Here are some pointers a company can follow:
- Streamlining food processing
- Offers green environmental discounts
- Provides low-interest loans
- Inclusive and disability-friendly workplace
- Funds innovative ideas and concepts
3. Emphasise your company’s main purpose
The mission statement shows the purpose of why your company is in the business it is involved in. Top leadership can help define the company’s purpose and how it can be incorporated into the mission statement. Veteran employees can provide insights to include in the mission statement outlining the long-term business purpose the founder had at those early stages. Below are examples of a company’s purpose:
- Provide a credible and stress-free backup service for individual and company cryptocurrency accounts.
- Develop technology that helps car companies reduce their carbon footprint by 20 percent.
- Grow tomato and potato varieties with longer shelf life and reduce food wastage by 25 percent in Sub-Saharan Africa.
4. Popularise your mission statement
After your company develops the mission statement, use internal and external media channels to popularise it. Encourage employees to include the mission statement on their email signature, or the back of their business cards if it’s not long. Publish the statement on the company’s website and all branding materials that market the company’s products and services. Ask your company’s public relations and marketing departments to craft creative ideas to popularise the mission statement.
Examples of effective company mission statements
Below are three examples of effective company mission statements:
Pharmaceutical Company
Our mission is to improve the quality of human life by enabling people to do more, feel better and live longer.
Oil and Gas Company
In all our activities we seek to display some unchanging, fundamental qualities of integrity, honest dealing, treating everyone with respect and dignity, striving for mutual advantage and contributing to human progress.
Telecommunications Company
As a technology communications company, our mission is to connect the UK and build an exciting digital future that works for everyone.
