Sunday, May 27, 2007

Company’s vision : An entrepreneur’s thoughts

I remembered during my university’s HRM course, we were taught about the importance of having a company’s vision and mission statement. A company’s vision is basically where the company foresee itself to be in the future, whereas a company’s mission is basically what the company is now. For example, "We deliver cost-effective, mission-critical and reliable system for military training" is a mission statement. Whereas, “To be the world leading provider for military training system” is a vision statement.

When we first started the business venture 2 years ago, we didn’t really have any mission or vision statement. We created a product which we thought was useful for a few target segments. However, sales wasn’t as good as expectation in the initial stages. Over the years, I had refined and enhanced the product according to customers’ needs into a relatively matured and comprehensive one.

Now that the product and sales have become somewhat stable, I begin to think about where the company would be in the future. That is, the company’s vision. In fact, this thing had always been in my mind for the past few years, even before I ventured out.

Where do I hope to bring my company to, in the next 5-10 years ?
What type of company do I foresee it to become in the future ?
Simply put, what exactly is my company’s vision ?

I am still not too sure about my company’s vision. But to say that I am in a lost would be an overstatement. A more apt description would be, there’s a fog between me and my company’s vision. A fog that I believed would eventually disperse in time to come. However, the presence of the fog caused some feeling of anxiety. The anxiety of not knowing where I would be heading towards. The anxiety of not knowing whether I am walking in the correct direction.

To be fair, I do have some plans for the near future. I have plans for another two new products, one being related to my existing product while the other is kind of experimental towards an area which I feel having good potential. In addition, I also have plans for bringing my existing product to another level, targeting to launch by end of the year. However, all these are only individual product roadmaps, not the overall company’s roadmap. They are parts of the jigsaw puzzle, but at the moment the links are missing.

Maybe I had been thinking too much. But it is better than not realizing the problem, or realizing the problem but pretending it doesn’t exist by sweeping it under the carpet. At the very least, I realize that something critical is missing. The next thing I have to do, would be to continue learning and enriching myself, and hope that in the process I would find the missing links. The links between now and the future.

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