Vision and mission statements are carefully chosen, inspiring statements portraying the direction of an organization. The main aims of mission and vision statements are basically to motivate organization teams and its intentions towards common prosperity.
Role of mission and vision statements
Mission statements clearly outline the organization’s major intentions. Mission statements measure the organizations prosperity. It plays a key role in internal organization decisive function mainly to the management and its main investors.
Vision Statements on the other hand just like mission statements, define the organizations purpose. However, focuses mainly on values instead of key measures. The organization’s vision statements define its values as well as purpose. It defines the employee’s expectation in terms of conduct and productivity. For customers, it provides an insight on why they should remain customers to the organization.
Vision and mission statements do not contain financial figures and forecasts because including them would mean that the company is only aimed at increasing finances at the expense of others.
Caterpillar and Komatsu mission and vision statements
This paper aims at expansively comparing the vision and mission statements of Caterpillar and Komatsu both of which are heavy equipment manufacturers in the world. In 2001, the aggregate revenue of the two companies was $29.1 billion dollars. Komatsu was established in 1921 while Caterpillar was founded as a merger of two companies owned by Benjamin Holt and Daniel Best. The two companies are currently the global leaders of heavy equipment manufacturers.
Caterpillar
The Caterpillar’s vision is “Be the global leader in customer value” (Caterpillar). This vision statement is concern with four aspects key to the entire organization. The vision conjointly shows a robust concern for survival and growth with a modern vision to the longer term. Additionally, a basic vision like this conjointly drives the idea of the corporate as they try to be the most effective in their market.
Its mission statement states “To steer economic growth through infrastructure and energy improvement, and to provide services that sustain communities and protect the planet” (Caterpillar). This part of the mission and mission statement focuses on social responsibility. It’s evident by commitment that caterpillar plays a crucial role in global environmental and social projects.
The second section of the mission statement further states,” Caterpillar employees will turn around stakeholder value by decisively pursuing growth and profit prospects that control our engineering, manufacturing, distribution, information management and financial services and expertise. We grow profitably” (Caterpillar). This second part of the mission statement basically addresses the shareholders’ value. This is through focus on stating their mission in growing profitability. It therefore depicts a robust concern on the prospect of the organization. The third part of the mission is on its workforce. The company strives to provide extensive training to its employees and also improve on their welfare. Generally, Caterpillar’s mission and vision statement is robust and clear, providing a precise direction for the corporation and other aspects of their operation.
Komatsu
Komatsu has a clear mission and vison that guides the operations of its global business in terms of operations and conduct. Its mission, vision as well as code of conduct is frequently being updated annually to meet the global standard. Unlike caterpillar, the mission statement is the opening statement by the company’s president, Masahiro Sakane.
It states that, Komatsu is committed to maximizing its corporate value through pursuing quality and Reliability (Komatsu). “We at Komatsu believe our Corporate Value is the ultimate trust given to us by community and all shareholders. To develop this trust, we need to not only increase quality of our business results and the reliability and trust of management, but also become an organization which enjoys an even higher level of trust from people. As a result, it is becoming even more significant for us to conform thoroughly to the guidelines of the business community” (Komatsu).
Critical analysis of the company’s code and mission statement reveals its intention on how to conduct its businesses globally. Its crucial aspect of the mission statement is commitment to quality and reliability of their products and services. The management’s section of the code has five strategies for enhancing quality and reliability. The first strategy openly focuses on the customers’ needs and concerns and the product and/or services themselves.
Komatsu’s mission and vision statements also address product safety which is key to its quest for quality and reliability. The employees according to this mission and vision statement have a duty to focus on assurance of safety when conducting the company’s business.
