Every company in the world has a mission and vision of its own. It is unique for each company. The mission and vision statements may sound the same but they have different meanings and motives. In this article, we will discuss Microsoft’s mission and vision statement, break it up and analyze it. We will also try to know how it affects the company and the nation.
A mission statement of a company, organization, or individual is the formal statement of their aims and values. A mission statement is crystal clear, easily memorable, and concise. It provides attention and boundaries to the employees for efficient working. It also works as a selling point for staff and partners. They help the company in evaluating its ideas and its next course of action. In simple terms, it tells what the company is all about or what it does, and who its audience is.
A vision statement describes the company’s aim for the future. It provides focus on the mission statement that the company has to accomplish. It is always written in the future tense. It shows what they are striving for and want to achieve. A company without a mission and vision can never exist in the competitive market because it shows that the company has no plans for its future or any worries about its survival.
Microsoft’s Mission and Vision Statement
The mission of Microsoft is to empower every person and organization on the planet to achieve more. Now, on dividing the whole sentence we get:
- Empowering people: If we see the mission of Microsoft, we can see that “empower” is the keyword in this whole sentence. “Empower” primitively means giving powers and responsibilities to somebody to do or for something. If we see it then the keyword “empower” has several meanings from our country’s perspective. Microsoft has an array of services for its customers. It wants everyone to be benefitted from its products. The free Office online and 5 gigabytes of free cloud storage for all its users proves it. Other multinational companies use products from Microsoft for organizing their office. Microsoft PowerPoint presentations for plans or presentations or financial statements through excel spreadsheets or even me while writing this article was using Microsoft word. Its services are used to improve a firm’s managerial systems. All of us know that the company has believed in making the world a better place to live. Nobody reading this article would decline from what I am saying. The company provides its services for free in many of its laptop models for consumers so that nobody is left untouched in the course of artificial intelligence evolution.
- Going beyond expectations: We know Microsoft is a software company but the company didn’t limit itself to information technology. It stepped into automobiles and also a very delicate sector called healthcare. Everybody in the United States knows about one of the famous foundations in the world “The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation”. It not only works for eradicating diseases like cancer and AIDS but also finishes poverty and inequality, not across the globe. Its aims seem very impossible to reach but each step a dream becoming reality has to be taken by a small step up the stairs leading to our dream.
The founder and ex-CEO of the company Bill Gates donated more than half of his wealth for the welfare of the people of the United States. The company makes several donations each year for the welfare of its people. All of us are aware that studies have predicted that approximate figure of 39.8 percent of the United States population undergoes cancer once in their lifetime. The company also works for developing medicines that will eradicate cancer from this world. For Microsoft, serving the people has been of its utmost importance. It wants to give human beings the power to control their lifestyle, living choices, employment, and curing of illness.
- “Every person and organization:” This whole part is the boundary of the consumers it serves its services to. The empowerment and going beyond expectations are vague if it leaves its consumers behind. The success of Microsoft lies in its broader thought. It is the well-wisher of any company or individual. It has never partialized between any of its customers. All have been given the same leverages and rules while using its products showing equality as the company’s basic principle. This is a lesson to the United States that its citizens are from various ethnicities and societies so we should respect and treat them equally. Racism should be thrown away from America because that is the only obstacle between America and success today.
- Belief in unity: America is the major exporter of goods in the international market. It comes second after China in the net profit gained through exports. All the companies based in America are not just generating revenue for the nation but also data of the customers. The companies use Microsoft’s services for their calculations and comparison of data. Excel is the easiest tool for any kind of computation. The last part of the mission statement of “on the planet to achieve more” has not only to refer to the world but also to the American sub-continent and for itself too. The data with American companies and Microsoft is used to determine their future products and ideas for people. This not only provides revenue to America but also employment to many people.
Now after combining all the points, we conclude that the mission statement of Microsoft has many hidden meanings. The content suggests that the company gives its utmost for the welfare of the American citizens. They work for uplifting the country’s impoverished people without forgetting their marketing strategy. They provide their goods at big leverage but the data they get access to through cloud storage helps them to analyze who are their target customers and what should they do for gaining those customers. It kills two birds with a stone. They gain customers and profits through minimal efforts.
Microsoft’s vision is to help people and businesses throughout the world realize their full potential. We need to divide it similarly as we did it with the mission statement for better analysis. The vision statement has 2 key points. They are:
- “Help people and businesses”: Microsoft knows the value of trust. The customers gained from the DOS were given to IBM Computers. IBM Computers developed trust among the people who helped it to launch its next products Windows 3.0 & 6.0. These were pretty basic models but were the building blocks for Microsoft to reach a billion-dollar mark in its entire history. Its switches were used by people and loved by them. We must consider that the products developed needed the help of companies like IBM for hardware on which Microsoft’s software could work. This made the company relies on other companies’ hardware. It provided new advanced services to people. The tasks became easier for people and increased efficiency. The company gained its importance because of the help it received from other companies and maybe this could be a reason it believes in helping others too. Due to its increasing popularity, the jobless received jobs, and the IBM computers were successful.
Today, Microsoft has something or the other for everyone. Xbox for the gamers, teams for online meetings, the outlook for mails, and many more. Microsoft has so many essential services that it provides to the people and businesses that make it customizable. It has everything according to the choice of the customers.
Realization of full potential: In this part of the statement there are multiple hidden meanings. It has motivation for everyone associated with Microsoft. The companies who use Microsoft’s products have been assured that they would receive the best services from them and to its direct customers, it promises the same. It means that the company considers equality to be supreme and will strive for attaining it until it achieves it. It wants to connect to the whole world under a single platform so that nobody remains untouched by its services.
For any company or person to succeed, they need to evaluate what can they do and what should they do to achieve it. If one is unknown about it, then they can’t achieve what they can or can. The company aims to give its customers access to the world and this is not only beneficial for Microsoft but also to the American economy. The more the reach the more is the data collected. The data which Microsoft collects can be used for various purposes. Today, people want better services and that is only possible when we record it. Databases are there for recording but not everybody knows its programming codes but the simple tools of Microsoft make it easily accessible to the masses. The better is the service more would be the income of the company.
Conclusion
The conclusion of the whole vision statement analysis is Microsoft has a very broad definition of connecting its people and its services. It focuses on reaching the whole world and giving services to all the individuals for a better life. It not only focuses on information technology but also medical and education. They want the overall growth of the world around them. It has donated several computers to schools and provided the funds to get their education system on track. Their vision seems that they have accomplished it but there is still a long path to be traveled. This feeling gives energy to all its employees to work harder and smarter in the way of achieving what they want to.
Frequently asked questions
Question 1: Is a mission and vision statement really necessary for a company?
Answer: Yes, it is necessary for any organization because the mission statement keeps the company on the right track and helps them track their activities. It also reflects what they should do and establish consistency within the organization. A vision statement on the other hand keeps the employees motivated and helps them understand better what the company wants to achieve.
Question 2: How does the mission statement keep Microsoft motivated in achieving their goals which they have achieved already?
Answer: Nothing is still in information technology. Each day brings with new sunshine of hop and evolution. The company as its mission keeps itself on track to evolve with the changes taking place. All these changes must reach the whole globe and its mission statement motivates it to do so and its employees too.
Question 3: How did the mission and vision statement affect the Unites States of America?
Answer 3: Microsoft and International Business Machine had launched the first computer in the world. A step that changed the whole human race. It was the development of computers that made California know as Silicon Valley and made it a technology hub. Microsoft provided its software which would run on IBM’s hardware. It changed the destiny of America and made it powerful than any other country. Today, the country is benefitted by its software export and several other applications and contributes to the G.D.P. of the nation.
Question 4: Why is a vision statement necessary when the mission statement indirectly focuses on the vision statement?
Answer: A mission statement is a concise statement focussing on the present while the vision statement guides the company in what it aspires to be in the future. The mission statement helps in evaluating ideas while the vision statement articulates what has been achieved and what we need to achieve.
Question 5: How did the mission statement help Microsoft in its path of progress?
Answer: The mission statement of Microsoft clearly stated that it wants to empower humankind and help them. The company wanted all people whether from the medical or managerial field should use its products. The mission statement helped it to make sure what was the common need of its customers and what they would need the most to get their work done at an affordable price. This helped Microsoft gain customers and all-around growth.