walmart company

Any organization exists to accomplish a specific purpose. Many organizations and their founders extend their mission statement to everything they do. This involves hiring the right people and devoting money and effort to defining their mission. Organizations focus their activities on two major issues to accomplish their goals: mission and vision. The mission of an organization explains how it can accomplish its objective, while the vision describes the task that the organization aspires to achieve. It is important to remember that vision and mission statements differ from one organization to the next since different organizations pursue entirely different strategic goals. This essay aims to analyze, compare and contrast the vision and mission statements of Walmart and Apple, two companies listed among Fortune 500 companies.

Walmart vision statement emphasizes that the company should be the best merchandizing entity in the minds and hearts of employees and customers. Walmart principle value aims to attain a leading position in the retail industry. The company is aware that the most critical stakeholders of the company are employees and customers and thus aims to create a leading notion among the company them. On the other side, Apple principle value of vision statement is based on the notion that Walmart is the face earth on making great products through innovativeness, ownership and control of the basic technologies. Apple vision statement portrays the company’s broad strategy of maintaining continuous growth and prosperity by being innovative and utilization of the available technology.

Walmart mission statement entails offering products to customers at affordable price. This vision statement puts emphasis on selling products to customers at reduced prices so that they can live better. The company’s “Save money. Live better” slogan creates the perception among the customers that Walmart goods and services are cheap. Alternatively, Apple mission statement is that the company is the global leader in manufacturing the best personal computers. Apple’s mission statement explains what the company does and what it will continue to do. The inclusion of several products in the company’s mission statement shows a variety of the products that the company offers.

The comparison and contrast of both Walmart and Apple vision statements bring it clear that organizations make their statements based on their objectives. For example, Walmart being a merchandising entity its vision statement gives priority to the customers and employees. Customers are the most important stakeholders for the company as they contribute to the generation of the company revenue. Similarly, employees implement the policies and thus contributing to the success of the organization. The importance of Walmart principle is to recognize customers and employees as the important people in the organization. On the other hand, Apple vision statement comprises of company products status, innovativeness and technology. Apple’s vision statement aims at making the company products great. The analysis of both Walmart and Apple vision statements shows that Walmart is focusing on maintaining its customers and employees whereas Apple aims to maintain the greatness of its products.

Walmart’s mission statement entails of selling products to customers at fair prices. On the other side, Apple’s mission statement focuses on making the best products to improve the experience of its customers. Both mission statements seem to concentrate on customers. Therefore, it is evident that both mission statements are customer based. However, the two mission statements use different approaches to meet the needs of the customer satisfactorily. Walmart uses discounted prices strategy while Apple uses quality products approach.

From the analysis of both Walmart’s and Apple’s vision statements, it is debatable whether broad mission statements are associated with high performance. Even though Apple has detailed mission statement, according to the Fortune 500 companies ranking Walmart performance is better than that of Apple. However, Apple being ranked number three it is a clear indication that detailed mission statement tends to perform high. Therefore, this essay argues that comprehensive mission statement can partly lead to high performance of the company. But before this conclusion is arrived at, it is important to put into consideration the industry the company is operating in. Companies’ sets up mission and vision statements based on their industry. For example, Walmart is operating at merchandising industry and therefore the use of price reduction strategy has worked for the benefit of the company. Alternatively, Apple is operating in the manufacturing industry, and adoption of quality products approach has maintained the company as the global leader in the manufacture of computers.

Company mission statement covers a wide scope and thus specifying a certain element to achieve will limit the creativity of the organization (David & David, 2015). Mission statement aims at realizing all feasible objectives and alternatives which the company can adapt to attain its vision. Again, organizations comprise of diversities exhibited by different stakeholders, and therefore a mission statement should be a reconciliatory (Papulova, 2014). Finally, revealing company objectives and goals in the mission statement will make it look premature. The mission statement is supposed to guide the operations of the business in the foreseeable future. Company’s goals and objectives should be determined by both external and internal analysis of the organization.

References

David, F. R., & David, F. R. (2015). Strategic Management: A Competitive Advantage Approach, Concepts, and Cases. New York: Pearson.

Papulova, Z. (2014). The Significance of Vision and Mission Development for Enterprises in the Slovak Republic. Journal of Economics, Business and Management, 2(1), 12-16.