The mission is the
very reason and justification for the existence of a firm. Mission is always
defined in terms of the benefits the firm provides to its customers. Thus the
starting point for, defining the mission of any business is its customer..
Since the customer exists outside the business, the mission must
be defined from the outside. The firm must ask the questions "What is our
business?" and "What should our business be?" but seek the
answer from the customer's viewpoint.
"What is our
business?":-
The important thing is to identify the perceived benefit or value which the customer
is actually seeking when buying the product.
"What should
our business be?" - Mission has to seek a
balance between the present and the future, and avoid being defined too
narrowly or too broadly.
Here is an example of how mission can be defined too narrowly.
Example - "Seeking to fulfill the entertainment needs of customers through
distributing films to theatres for exhibiting to actual customer" - With
the increasing popularity of videos and the subsequent decrease in earnings
from theatres this firm was soon faced with the prospect of dwindling business.
With the increasing popularity of videos and the subsequent decrease in
earnings from theatres this firm was soon faced with the prospect of dwindling
business.
Here is an example of how mission can be defined in balanced way
- "fulfilling the entertainment needs through distributing means of
audio-cum-visual entertainment". It
could have undertaken the distribution of video films along with films and
continued to grow.
Here is an example of too broad way of defining the mission.
“"Distributing means of entertainment". The field which the firm had
identified is far too broad to be meaningfully able to concentrate on any
workable opportunity. Consider that books, magazines, records, music cassettes
also constitute means of entertainment. For many people both indoor and outdoor
games are a way of entertainment. Should this firm then include hockey sticks,
badminton rackets footballs, and chess boards also?
The scope of a firm's business flows from its definition of
mission but is described in more specific rather than generic terms. Scope
refers to the choice of the specific products and markets in which a firm
wishes to operate. The definition of product/ market scope has a direct bearing
on the subsequent decisions regarding choice of objectives and strategy.