To understand why mission statements are important in business, we take a close look at two mission statement examples, provided by Amazon and Starbucks.
If you look at a few of top mission statements from your favorite companies, you may find that they have a lot in common. For starters, let's look at Amazon.
Mission statement example: Amazon
Amazon's mission statement says:
It's our goal to be Earth's most customer-centric company, where customers can find and discover anything at Amazon.com.
According to their mission statement, Amazon is focused on taking care of their customer for starters. That means they want to ensure that they're going to utilize and use products that can reach people all over the planet. That also means that if you go to their factories and plants, you should see that shipping on a global basis is part of their work goal.
When you look at their employees, as you go further into their mission statement and their website, you should see that they are treated fairly. There should be no issues with wages or problems with long hours. That's because Amazon has said it through their mission statement that they want to focus on the customer and that they want to promise the public they will make them first.
Remember a mission statement is similar to a vow that a company is going to take to let the public know what they plan on doing with their business and why you should buy their products and use their services. When you talk about a marriage, it's a vow that two people take that they're going to honor certain things over the lifetime of that marriage. When you look at Amazon's mission statement, you should see how they are committed to their customers and want to make sure they keep them first. That’s the promise they are making to the public whether you are on this side of the globe or in another region.
Maybe you've used Amazon Prime where you've gotten free shipping on a product that you bought from them, or maybe you have used the Amazon Prime website and bought a movie from there. When they tie customer focus into their mission statement, it's their way of letting you know that they're going to do everything they can to give you a better experience when you shop with them.
Let's look at another mission statement.
Mission statement example: Starbucks
The mission statement for Starbucks reads:
To inspire and nurture the human spirit – one person, one cup and one neighborhood at a time.
Their Target Audience: While you may not notice it from their mission statement, Starbucks targets the globe, employees, and how they will treat their customers. They list the customers first on their mission statement because that’s their target audience. On every cup, though, they mention recycling efforts. When they look at the environment, they know that customers are going to be concerned about the plastic cups and plastic lids. That’s why they want to ensure that to the public that they're using recyclable materials and you can find this on the actual cups that you purchase in their stores. Their mission statement focuses on the human spirit, but this is also shown in how they treat the environment through recycling efforts.
Their Values: If you go to the mission statement on their website, you will see the full-length version of their mission statement, and this goes into detail over each area and how they plan to help the public. They consider this area ‘Our Values’. Look at how they break down how they will help their employees. They want to make sure that you know that they're going to treat their employees fairly. They also target the public by offering a very good cup of coffee. That's a very simple part of the phrase that is letting you know that they're thinking about the customer first. That’s why they use that in their mission statement and everything else in their values and on cups where it’s needed to remind you about their recycling efforts.
Sometimes it's very hard for a big company to still focus on one individual customer when they're selling millions of cups of coffee every single day. But that's exactly what they have to do. By making it a simple statement such as selling a good cup of coffee, this is to remind them why they started the business in the first place.
The Environment: Another area that you will notice that Starbucks focuses on that you should consider when you look at their website is how they treat the environment. This is not just in relation to how they recycle their products, but how they give back to society and give back to different communities.
Social Awareness and Ethical Responsibility: Part of a company should be about social awareness. That means that they should look at how they can help different areas to grow. If a company like Starbucks moved into different parts of Africa to grow beans for their coffee, they want to make sure that they help the environments that they settle into.
There are companies such as Shell and Exxon, who move into countries like Mexico for example. While they set up shop to drill for oil in those particular areas or use natural resources from the land, they give back. They focus on communities and charities and set up schools for children and other areas to help the public in the regions where they have plants, factories, and refineries.
When you look at the Starbucks website, you will see how they do this through different areas. Starbucks helps with outreach projects to ensure that they are hiring people who they will train, treat fairly and they will pay their staff decent salaries and they won't take advantage of their workers.
It is very important to remember to look at a company's mission statement because what they set up in the United States has to also work in other countries. While we have child labor laws here, other countries might not have. That means that kids can only work a certain number of hours or a certain number of days because they are children.
What you set up in one country, has to work in another country, but it may not be accepted or the norm. That means that there are parts of Africa and Asia where they let their children work long hours, but when you set up your business, you don't want to hire children. By focusing on the mission statement that you have in the United States, it will carry over to other countries, as well.
Ultimately, you have to make sure that how you write a mission statement is critical. It should cover different areas like an environment, employees, the public, and profitability. You also want to ensure that laws you set up in the United States are working the same way in other countries even if you have to set them up yourself.
Image: © Wayne Ruston | Dreamstime.com
