TABLE OF CONTENTS This chapter is concerned with the fundamental decisions about where the business is moving and how it will develop in the future. It forms the context and key objectives for the subsequent chapters that will focus on the specific policies and strategies (marketing, finance, personnel, etc.) which will facilitate the achievement of those objectives. In terms of the Revised Business Development Standards, it relates to Unit A2: Develop your plans for the business, and Unit D2: Take key decisions that will affect the business.
Over the past ten or fifteen years, much has been made of the need for every organization to have a Vision or Mission Statement which specifies (frequently in a grandiose fashion) the key objectives of the organization. The mission statement is heralded for all to see as a proud emblem of the organization s customer focus and an inspiration for the employees. Lasher (1999, p. 31) summarizes this quite well: The vision (of a company) is reflected in a mission statement which summarizes the overall goals and values of the organization as succinctly as possible. The purpose of the mission statement is to communicate these ideas to interested parties, especially the employees . Cole (1994, p. 18) defines it as a public statement on behalf of an organization which sets out its raison d etre in terms of the customer needs it intends to satisfy, the markets in which it will meet those needs, and the manner in which it will meet them .
In many organizations, the...
