Mission Statement

Question 5 Briefly explain as to how an organization’s mission influences the management to go global and engage itself in international operations. Give examples.

Introduction: Mission statements are the role that the organisation plays in society. It provides information about what the company offers and the fundamental, unique purpose that sets its apart.It also puts into words about what the company tends to do and where it will be in the future. In this paper I’ll be analyzing how and organisations mission influences the management.Furthermore,I have taken Google as an example and tried to determine how its mission influences its operations.

Definition Mintzberg defines a mission statement as follows: “A mission statement describes the organisation’s basic function in society, in terms of the products and services it produces for its customers”

Nature & characteristics of mission statement: Mission Statement should be clear and succinct, incorporating socially meaningful and measurable criteria which includes •

The moral/ethical position of the enterprise

•

The desired public image

•

The key strategic influence for the business

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A description of the target market

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A description of the products/services

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The geographic domain

•

Expectations of growth and profitability

Influence of Mission statement on an Organisation’s operation 1| Page

The mission statement is an indication of what the company is set to achieve.It indicates the heartbeat of those who formulated the statement and the vision in which they expect the company wants to go.With a proper strategy set for the organisations mission,they are most likely than not to achieve their mission.A strong mission statement helps in providing an outline of how the planning process should seek to fulfil the mission and a means of evaluating and screening the plan. A good mission statement mentions (1) A Purpose Why does the business exist? (2) A Strategy and Strategic Scope - The products or services it offers - The method of competing A business’ strategic scope defines the boundaries of its operations which are set by management. (3) Policies and Standards of Behaviour A mission needs to be translated into everyday actions. Policies and standards should be created and monitored to deliver the envisoned mission. (4) Values and Culture Values of the business like business principles and guidance on expected behaviour are to be mentioned clearly

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Source: Strategic management from theory to implementation

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Analysis of Google’s Mission statement

Google’s mission is “to organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful” (http://www.google.com/corporate/) Google’s mission speaks to their goals. The statement definitely gives the company a future to strive towards and they have already made great strides. The mission statement is broad enough that it allows for Google to use any means possible to organize information. Google’s mission statement point to a definite goal i.e to organize the world’s information and to make it universally accessible, which I assume is that they are not stuck to one way of doing things. And truly google has been an evolving company. It has brought many innovative web products like Google scholar, google books etc Google’s mission statement is quite unique because the goal is not just to organize information, but also to make it accessible and useful. Google mission statement also identifies their business model and policy of “provide the most relevant and useful search results…independent of financial incentives” (http://www.google.com/corporate/) Though the external environment is changing and new search engines are entering the market it’s very unlikely for the time being to knock Google out since Information retrieval is to become more important in the future and there’s none better than Google to churn out good search results. Organization’s mission influences the management to go global and engage itself in international operations

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Google true to their mission statement have tried to organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible .This is very evident by the quality of search results which is much easier and relevant than the other search engines. Also the search options in Google are much better & offers better scope than the other search engines. For

instance

Google

gives

a

user

to

search

for

a

term

in

the

web,images,videos,map,news,products,books etc.It also has the option to search in Scholarly articles(Google Scholar) as well as blogs, documents and other advanced features too.If the results are in a language unknown to the user, options are available for automatic translation. The user interface is very simple and any user can make use of its searching capacities to good effect. It also empowers the user to remove irrelevant search results from the results. True to their word, Google has started on a project to digitalize books which are accessible online. Had it not been for copyright issues and blocking of the project for self interest(probably other search engines, fearing a hit on their service),the project would have been more functional. The gist is that Google’s focus is very much on the mission on hand. Google reader is one rss reader which can collect news from any news web site and present in a single program. The key is accessibility at a single place.Google has also launched Google earth, which allows the user to explore the various sites on our planet and thus have a virtual trip. Google has also not stopped by providing information to the fingertips on a PC.It has also allowed end users to give in their input. For example, in google earth users can add descriptions to certain places or mark uncommon landmarks thus making it complete. The latest sensations are Google voice and Google wave. Analysts predict that google wave could replace emails one day since all transactions are in real time. How has Google’s mission taken them Global ? Google very quickly understood the potential of their product in hand. It started offering search results relevant to their own backyard. For example google India offers search results predominantly from India or related to it.So is the case with all other countries. The results are customized and cater to that particular country with an option of viewing the results in their own language. Google also acquired the blogging company blogger and added it to their portfolio. Today it’s a major source of information than organized websites and google 5| Page

obviously shows them in their search results. Its quest for excellence and global vision has made them open offices in most of the technologically efficient countries wherein the best brains have been recruited to give them a push in their R&D.In addition recently the google van has been roaming in many countries wherein the van with pc and internet connectivity is introduced to the rural masses. This has been a true triumph for Google. Today Google is one of the most respected brands globally and it has a great corporate environment. This has been possible because of good management practices and adhering to their mission statement

Conclusion In this paper I have taken Google’s mission statement and examined how the organization has progressed on the basis of its mission. Google has truly stuck to its task and has helped organize the world’s information and making it more accessible. It still has a long way to go, but it has made giant strides towards it and those strides, the world is keenly watching.

References 1. Strategic management from theory to implementation (David Hussey 4 th ed) 2. A Guide to Strategic Positioning, in the Strategy Process, (Mintzberg and Quinn, Prentice Hall, 1997 3. Concepts in Strategic management and business policy(Thomas L.Wheelan,J.David ( 9ed) 4. http://www.google.com/corporate

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Word count: 1041

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