Mission Statement

12. А mission statement is a statement of the aims, purpose and future activities of an organization. The objective of the mission statement is to define – for the company's employees, its customers and its shareholders – what kind of organization it is, what it believes in, and in which direction it wants to go.

Student A

You and your partner both work for the same international company. You have been given the job of producing an effective mission statement for your company. Your task is to draft a first version of the statement for circulation, about a dozen sentences long.

Your draft could include statements about:

• the usefulness of the company's products and services in the community

• the company's objectives

• the company's values

• the company's policies on quality and on customer care

• the company's principles on personnel

• the company's policy on the environment and towards the countries of the developing world

• anything else you think is important.

You start

Student B

You and your partner both work for the same international company. You have been given the job of producing an effective mission statement for your company. Your task is to draft a first version of the statement for circulation, about a dozen sentences long.

Your draft could include statements about:

• he usefulness of the company's products and services in the community

• the company's objectives

• the company's values

• the company's policies on quality and on customer care

• the company's principles on personnel

• the company's policy on the environment and towards the countries of the developing world

• anything else you think is important.

Your partner will start

Role-play

13. The Benson group is a chain of department stores in the usa. Its chief competitors are Hi-Mark and Levinson Brothers.

Work in pairs. One of you should read article A, the other article B. Then, each person should fill in as much of the company profile below as possible, using the information in his/her article. Finally, find out from your partner the information about Benson which you are missing and complete the company profile.

BENSON FACES UNCERTAIN FUTURE
BENSON Inc., the department store group, announces this year's annual results on Wed-nesday. Once again, profits are expected to be well below ex-pectations. Benson built its first store in 1952. It now owns ten stores in the southern region of the United States, and two in Ontario, Canada. All the stores are on prime sites in the high streets of major cities. The Group's head office is in Petersville. Recently, Benson's perfor-mance has been extremely disappointing. Two years ago, pre-tax profits had fallen to just $8.3m on a turnover of $225m. This year profits are expected to be down yet again. Sales per employee is also much lower than the industry's average. Fortunately for Benson, it still has a number of loyal customers who would not think of shopping elsewhere. How-ever, the Group is facing fierce competition from Hi-Mark and up-and-coming Levinson Brothers. Hi-Mark	are well established, with a clearly defined up-market image. It has a reputation for selling good quality merchan-dise but at high prices. Le-vinson Brothers set up its first store seven years ago. Since then, it has expanded fast. It now has eight stores located in big cities. Levinson Brothers' target consumer is the 16-25 wage-earner. Nevertheless, it attracts to its stores people of all ages and from all income groups. Levinson Brothers' marketing is more aggressive and effective than that of its two main competitors. It often cuts prices, and even offers goods at give­away prices to get people into its stores. It advertises heavily in local newspapers, and on local television. Its special promo-tions are always accompanied by a great deal of razzmatazz. Levinson Brothers' share price stands at $12-its highest rating this year. Even so, the share is still probably a good buy for investors.	In order to compete more effectively. Benson changed its business strategy about eighteen months ago. It began to rent space to outside firms on a concessionary basis. Almost 20% of its stores' space was rented to selected com­panies from outside the organization. Unfortunately, this strategy has not been too successful. Several firms rent­ing space complain that their sales have been poor. Benson's stores were redecorated recently. This 'facelift' has met with mixed reactions from its customers. The layout of the stores continues to confuse custo-mers. Customers complain that departments are not grouped together in a logical manner. As a result shoppers get tired out looking for the goods they want. At present, it looks very much as if Benson has lost its dynamism and sense of purpose. Investors holding shares in the group might be well advised to sell.
TROUBLED TIMES FOR BENSON GROUP Benson announces its annual results on Wednesday, it is expected that the group's profits will be around $6m. This will mean a drop of some 25% compared with the pre- share price fell to just under $7 in anticipation of the results. Two or three years ago, it will be recalled, the share price stood at $10. One of Benson's biggest problems is that it lacks a clear image. Although some well-off customers have stuck to Benson through thick and thin many others have moved on and now shop at Hi-Mark. These customers seem to prefer Hi-Mark's tasteful décor and high-priced, exclusive goods. Another of Benson's disadvantages is that its merchandise does not parti-cularly appeal to younger	buyers. These prefer the self-service, down-market approach of Levinson Brothers-Benson's other main rival. Both Hi-Mark and Levinson Brothers are profitable organizations. Hi-Mark's strategy is, essen-tially, to maintain good profit margins on all its merchant-dise. Levinson Brothers, on the other hand, aim for high volume and lower margins. All three organizations –Benson, Hi-Mark and Levin-son Brothers-face a common problem. They are all aware of the threat coming from the new multiple stores-retailers like Klassic, Marginal and Clique. These are 'muscling in' on the other groups' traditional markets of clothing, home decoration and food. The new multiples have been very successful at attracting to their stores fashion-conscious cus-tomers, both young and old. They seem to have the knack of offering	exciting, stylish goods at prices people can afford. Rising costs have been the main cause of Benson's low profits. Stock levels tend to be high, but very often goods are not available when required by customers. At present, goods are kept in warehouses at each store. Benson are considering changing this system. It may build one or two huge distribution centers which will supply all the stores. This could be a less costly way of organizing its warehousing facilities. In addition, it has been suggested recently that service at Benson's stores is not what it used to be. It is believed, also, that staff turnover and absenteeism is too high. Unless Benson's management take action soon to revive the group's fortunes, it would seem that the outlook for the organization is bleak.

COMPANY PROFILE – Benson Inc.
	MOST RECENT YEAR	PREVIOUS YEAR
Turnover Pre-tax profits Share price
No. of stores
Major strengths
Major weaknesses
Opportunities
Threats
Image and business strategy
Recent and future developments

The Benson Group

The Benson Group is a chain of department stores in the south of the USA. Its performance over the last five years has been poor. It has lost market share to its two main rivals, Hi-Mark and Levinson Brothers. This year’s annual results, just announced, have again been bad. Its pre-tax profits have fallen to $6.6 million, causing the share price to drop to $7. When David Klein, Group Chief Executive, holds his next management meeting, the atmosphere is gloomy.

K lein comes straight to the point: “I don’t need to tell you how serious the situation is. We’re losing market share, our profits are down two million, sales per employee are far too low, and our profit margins are declining over a whole range of merchandise. Frankly, we're in a mess.” He looked grimly at his management team. Then his eyes fell on Sally Blake, the group’s Marketing Director. “What are we doing wrong, Sally?” he asked her.

“As I see it,^” she answered, “our turnover hasn’t been rising fast enough. We should be achieving sales of 30CM-00 million by now, then it wouldn't matter if our profit margins were low. But in fact our turnover was just over 200 million this year.”

“So what's our real problem?”

“The market's become too competitive. Levinson are taking away a lot of our younger customers, and Hi-Mark seem to be appealing more to our older ones. And then of course, there are these specialist stores springing up all over the place. They’re undercutting us half the time and often offering better goods - or at least more fashionable ones.”

David Klein looked thoughtful. “Up until recently, I always thought we had the loyal support of the middle-class buyer, the 30 45-year-old man or woman, with a good income and a family to look after. Surely, that’s our target buyer, isn’t it? What do you think, Dan?” Klein turned to Dan Rozell, his Financial Director.

Rozell had been waiting to be asked his opinion. “Our problem is we’ve no real image. The public have no idea what Benson really represents. And let’s be honest, David, we've no clear idea where we’re trying to go. Should we compete against Levinson or Hi-Mark or even against both? On the one hand, we know that young people are pouring into our sales areas because business is booming. So, should we try to grab a share of that market, or leave it to Levinson Brothers? On the other hand, would it perhaps be better to compete more aggressively against Hi-Mark?”

David Klein nodded in agreement. “An interesting contribution, Dan, thanks. Let’s hear what you have to say now, Sonia.”

Sonia Liebermann, head of the Corporate Strategy Unit, was one of the youngest and newest members of the management committee. It’s true we've got no image, but that’s not our only problem. I mean, have we ever really worked out our strategy properly? We always seem to be reacting to what our competitors are doing.”

“How do you mean?” asked Klein, a little puzzled.

“Well, if Levinson or Hi-Mark have a carpet sale, then we do the same. We seem to have a me-too approach; we never take the initiative.”

David Klein frowned, but admitted to himself that there was truth in what she had said. “'Go on,” he said.

“There are so many other things I could mention. We spent a million on re-decorating the stores. But I still think our colour scheme is wrong. Cream and brown is ... so safe, so traditional.”

“Maybe,” said David Klein coldly. He could see that nothing would stop Sonia from making her points.

“Anyway,” she said. “What’s the use of re-decorating if customers can’t find their way round the store, and when they can’t get decent service from any of our staff?”

“Absolutely, Sonia,” cut in Des Morris, Company Secretary. “And may I say, we ought perhaps to try to find some way of persuading customers to go up to the higher floors of our stores. I’ve no need to remind everyone, sales revenue per square foot decreases sharply, the higher the floor.”

At that point David Klein looked at all the members of the management committee. An idea came to him. “OK everyone,” he said. “May I suggest that we adjourn this meeting today, and that we meet again first thing Monday morning. I’d like you to think carefully about the position of our group, and about the problems we face. I would ask you also to come up with ideas for our future strategy. We can’t go on as we have done in the past – that’s clear. The question is, where do we go from here? I look forward to hearing your views on Monday morning.”