1.3 Objectives and strategies of large-scale organisations This lesson: Vision Mission Objectives Strategies

Vision and mission statements often used interchangeably seek to clarify an organisations purpose and expectations. The vision statement broadly expresses what the organisation hopes to become; it is future oriented. The mission statement formally expresses the reasons for an organisation's existence, its purpose and its method of operation. A clear mission statement should be concise, creative, focused and realistic. It may contain special features of the organisation, the things that it values and what it hopes to achieve. The main purpose of these statements is to guide and direct the organisation's owners, managers and employees. Most organisations include their vision and mission statements in a prominent position in their annual reports.

Objectives Every organisation aims to achieve an objective, or goal. gives an organisation direction; it provides the organisation with a path to follow, increasing its chances of being successful. Objectives differ between the different types of organisations Government business enterprises and government departments will have objectives reflecting the provision of services to the community. VicRoads' objective is to deliver social, economic and environmental benefits to communities. It does this by managing Victoria's roads and transport. not-for-profit organisations exist to achieve objectives other than making a profit. For example, beyondblue is a not-for-profit organisation; its objective is to raise community awareness of depression.

Organisational strategies Once an organisation has established a set of specific objectives, the next step is to determine what needs to be done to achieve the objectives.  Strategies outline how the organisation will attempt to achieve its objectives — they are a series of actions undertaken to achieve an end result. For example, a strategy to achieve the objective of increased profit may be the introduction of a new product range. Successful LSOs are those that develop a range of different strategies to achieve objectives in different operational areas. A marketing objective, for example, might be to increase market share by 10 per cent. Strategies to achieve this might include: targeting a new group of customers increasing sales by using a new promotional campaign increasing the number of distribution outlets improving the performance or quality of the existing product. An LSO needs to make sure all the objectives and strategies are linked. Money will be required, for example, to implement the marketing strategies, so the finance strategies need to reflect this link.