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How to Create an Effective Company Mission Statement

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The GoCardless content team comprises a group of subject-matter experts in multiple fields from across GoCardless. The authors and reviewers work in the sales, marketing, legal, and finance departments. All have in-depth knowledge and experience in various aspects of payment scheme technology and the operating rules applicable to each. The team holds expertise in the well-established payment schemes such as UK Direct Debit, the European SEPA scheme, and the US ACH scheme, as well as in schemes operating in Scandinavia, Australia, and New Zealand. See full bio

Last editedSep 20202 min read

All businesses are striving towards some common goal that unites the entire organisation. One of the best ways to push that goal from theory into action is to create a company mission statement, a kind of guiding light for big-picture strategy and company culture.

Want to create a company mission statement but aren’t quite sure how to get started? Find out everything you need to know, starting with our company mission statement definition.

Company mission statement definition

A company mission statement is a simple declaration that explains your company’s goals and tells the world why the company exists. It shouldn’t be any longer than a couple of sentences (if you’d prefer, it can be just a couple of words) and should clearly and consistently encapsulate the values and ethics that are important to your business. All businesses should create a company mission statement as a way of unifying the organisation and concisely delineating the overall purpose of the business.

What should a company mission statement include?

There are three main points that your company mission statement and vision should cover:

What does your business do?
How does your business do it?
Why does your business do it?

Of course, it’s not strictly necessary to hit all three points, but by and large, most effective company mission statements cover these questions in some capacity.

How to produce a great company mission statement and vision

Follow this step-by-step guide to explore how to create an effective company mission statement:

Firstly, you need to describe what your business does. There’s no need to get complicated at this stage – simply note down what product or service your business provides. For example, if your business sells women’s clothes, simply write down “Sell women’s clothes.”
Next, you need to think about how you do what you do. This doesn’t mean you need to provide a comprehensive summary of your business’s supply chain and physical operations, but rather give a general description of how your business operates. For example, if you’re a sustainable women’s clothes supplier, your company mission statement and vision would now read “Sell women’s clothes made from environmentally-friendly materials.”
Now, you need to incorporate why your business does what it does. This part of the company mission statement is all about your values and passions, so think about why you started the business in the first place. At this point, your company mission statement may now read something like “Sell women’s clothes made from environmentally-friendly materials to help promote sustainability.”

Once you’re finished, feel free to tweak the exact wording of the statement until you feel like it accurately represents your company’s goals and ambitions. Then, start putting the statement into action. Everyone who works for your business should be familiar with your company mission statement and vision, and it should be the key document that grounds all of your marketing and PR efforts.

Famous company mission statement examples

When you’re crafting your business’s own mission statement, it may be helpful to look at a few well-known company mission statement examples for inspiration. Here are several company mission statements from major businesses, including GoCardless!

Google: “Our mission is to organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful.”
Twitter: “The mission we serve as Twitter, Inc. is to give everyone the power to create and share ideas and information instantly without barriers. Our business and revenue will always follow that mission in ways that improve – and do not detract from – a free and global conversation.”
GoCardless: “GoCardless is on a mission to take the pain out of getting paid for businesses with recurring revenue.”

As you can see, these company mission statement examples provide a clear declaration of the aims and ambitions of these companies, giving a concise description of their stated purpose.

We can help

GoCardless helps you automate payment collection, cutting down on the amount of admin your team needs to deal with when chasing invoices. Find out how GoCardless can help you with ad hoc payments or recurring payments.