Kroger's (KR) Mission Statement

OUR MISSION is to be a leader in the distribution and merchandising of food, health, personal care, and related consumable products and services. By achieving this objective, we will satisfy our responsibilities to shareowners, associates, customers, suppliers, and the communities we serve.

We will conduct our business to produce financial returns that reward investment by shareowners and allow the Company to grow. Investments in retailing, distribution and food processing will be continually evaluated for their contribution to our corporate return objectives.
We will constantly strive to satisfy the needs of customers as well as, or better than, the best of our competitors. Operating procedures will increasingly reflect our belief that the organization levels closest to the customer are best positioned to serve changing consumer needs.

We will provide all associates and customers with a safe, friendly work and shopping environment and will treat each of them with respect, openness, honesty and fairness. We will solicit and respond to the ideas of our associates and reward their meaningful contributions to our success.

We value America’s diversity and will strive to reflect that diversity in our work force, the companies with which we do business, and the customers we serve. As a Company, we will convey respect and dignity to all individuals.

We will encourage our associates to be active and responsible citizens and will allocate resources for activities that enhance the quality of life for our customers, our associates and the communities we serve.

David B. Dillon
Chief Executive Officer

Tags: Kroger, KR

AllFinancialMatters.com

GE's (GE) Mission Statement

Although it isn't labeled a mission statement on their website, it is still a pretty good indicator of what their mission is:

Values - Imagine, solve, build and lead - four bold verbs that express what it is to be part of GE. Their action-oriented nature says something about who we are - and should serve to energize ourselves and our teams around leading change and driving performance.

For more than 125 years, GE has been admired for its performance and imaginative spirit. The businesses that we invent and build fuel the global economy and improve people's lives.
Today, we are 11 technology, services and financial businesses with more than 300,000 employees in 160 countries around the world.

What unifies us? Our Actions and Values.

What we do and how we work is distinctly GE. It's a way of thinking and working that has grounded our performance for decades. It's a way of talking about our work and ourselves that takes the best from our past and expresses it in the spirit and language of GE today.
It's about who we are, what we believe, where we're headed, how we'll get there. It's how we imagine, solve, build and lead.

Imagine.

From the very beginnings of our company, when Thomas Edison was changing the world with the power of ideas, GE has always stood for one capability above all others - the ability to imagine.

Imagine is a sense of possibility that allows for a freedom beyond mere invention. Imagine dares to be something greater.

At GE, Imagine is an invitation to dream and do things that you didn't know you could do.
Because at GE the act of imagining is fused with empowerment - the confidence that what we imagine, we can make happen.

Solve.

Every business has to have a reason to exist - a reason that answers the fundamental question of "why are we here?"

For GE, the big question has a simple answer: We exist to solve problems - for our customers, our communities and societies, and for ourselves.

Build.

From 0 to 60 in six seconds? Try zero to $5 billion in five years.

It's not so much a vision for our future - where we're headed is in many ways a reflection of where we've already been. It's not a destination. It's a quest. A quest for growth. And when we look to the future, we know that for us, there's only one way to get there. Build.

Lead.

Imagine. Solve. Build. Each of these is merely a word without one vital element. Lead.
GE is already synonymous with leadership. But with this mantle comes responsibility. And it's not just a responsibility to maintain the status quo or manage what worked yesterday. It's the bigger responsibility to change.

Because change is the essence of what it means to lead.

It's a call to action that engages our unceasing curiosity, our passion, and our drive to be first in everything that we do.

We Are a Company to Believe In.

Imagine.

Build.

Solve.

Lead.

In the end, our success is measured not only by our ability to think big, dazzling thoughts, but by our commitment to sweat the small stuff that brings ideas to life. It's a way - thinking and doing - that has been at the heart of GE for years.

The worth of this framework is how we translate it into our own personal work ethic and then extend it to our teams, businesses, cultures and different regions of the world. It's permission to cast aside any approach that seems dated - to imagine, solve, build and lead a better way of doing things.

Values
While GE has always performed with integrity and values, each business generation expresses those values according to the circumstances of the times. Now more than ever the expression and adherence to values is vital.

More than just a set of words, these values embody the spirit of GE at its best. They reflect the energy and spirit of a company that has the solid foundation to lead change as business evolves. And they articulate a code of behavior that guides us through that change with integrity.

The words reflected here represent a revitalization of our values. They are a call to action that asks every GE employee to recommit to a common set of beliefs about how we work in our world today. And while some of these words are new in their expression, they are based on a continuum of how GE has grown and performed through generations.

They are our words and our values... in our own voice.

Passionate
Curious
Resourceful
Accountable
Teamwork
Committed
Open
Energizing

Always With Unyielding Integrity

The GE Values Card

Tags: General Electric, GE

AllFinancialMatters.com

My Personal Mission Statement

I thought with this post, I'd share my own personal mission statement and the way I went about creating it.

The first step is to develop a personal mission statement. Questions one might ask may include the following:

• Why am I here?
• What do I want to accomplish in life?
• What or who is important to me (also known as "values")?
• What are my priorities?

Before I wrote my mission statement I read Stephen Covey's Seven Habits of Highly Effective People. Although I don't agree with everything Mr. Covey writes, I do agree with most of this book. I highly recommend it for everyone to read! In order to effectively write a personal mission statement, one must know what is important to them. What's important to me is:

• My relationship with God
• My wife
• My kids
• My job
• Charity
• Myself

Once a person knows what is important to them, they then need to know what their different roles are in life. My roles are:

• Follower of Christ
• Husband
• Father
• Financial Planner
• Den Leader

Of course these aren't all the roles I play in life. I listed just those that are most common to me. Once a person knows what's important to them and their roles, they can begin composing their mission statement. Here's my mission statement (altered a bit for privacy purposes):

My mission in life is to first and foremost live for Christ. A man must decide whom he is going to follow. I will follow Christ and seek God's will in all that I do. I will do this by studying the Bible and by praying on a daily basis and by walking in His ways.

Secondly, I will be a loving husband to my wife. I will strive to love her like Christ loved the church. I will practice selfless love, striving to put her needs before my own.

As a father, I will strive to be loving and accepting. I realize that my kids are different, each possessing different talents and abilities given to them by God, and I will strive to treat them accordingly. I will discipline them with love. I will strive to be a good role model for them.

As a financial planner, I will always strive to do what's best for my clients, even it if might not be what's best for me. I will study and keep up on what is happening within the financial planning field. My goal is to help my clients achieve their goals and dreams. With proper planning and God's blessing, it can be done.

As a successful financial planner, I will give back to my community. I will teach classes on financial planning and will dedicate myself to worthy causes. I will also strive to be the best Cub Scouts Den Leader that I can be.

Finally, in order to live out this mission, I must be healthy. Therefore, I will eat a proper diet and exercise daily.

I will read this every day!

That's my mission. That's what I'm about. Now, that's not saying that I ALWAYS act in a way that is congruent with my mission. After all, I am human. But, by having my personal mission statement, I can refer back to it daily and it brings me back to where I need to be.

Tags: Personal Mission Statements, Developing Your Own Mission Statement, Mission Statement

AllFinancialMatters.com

Writing Your Own Mission Statement

Below are some resources I found on the internet that will help you write your own mission statement.

How to Write a Mission Statement by Janel M. Radtke

About.com - Management

Entrepreneur.com

BPlans.com

These are all pretty good sites. I'll add more as I have time. This will give you a good start.

AllFinancialMatters.com

Microsoft's (MSFT) Mission Statement

Mission and Values
June 25, 2003

Over the last three decades, technology has transformed the way we work, play, and communicate. Today, we access information and people from around the world in an instant. Groundbreaking technologies have opened the door to innovations in every field of human endeavor, delivering new opportunity, convenience, and value to our lives.

Since its founding in 1975, Microsoft has been a leader in this transformation. As a reflection of that role—and to help us focus on the opportunities that lie ahead—we have established and embraced a new corporate mission.

Microsoft's mission: To enable people and businesses throughout the world to realize their full potential.

Delivering on Our Mission
The tenets central to accomplishing our mission stem from our core company values:

Broad Customer Connection

Connecting with customers, understanding their needs and how they use technology, and providing value through information and support to help them realize their potential.

A Global, Inclusive Approach

Thinking and acting globally, enabling a diverse workforce that generates innovative decision-making for a broad spectrum of customers and partners, innovating to lower the costs of technology, and showing leadership in supporting the communities in which we work and live.

Excellence

In everything we do.

Trustworthy Computing

Deepening customer trust through the quality of our products and services, our responsiveness and accountability, and our predictability in everything we do.

Great People with Great Values

Delivering on our mission requires great people who are bright, creative, and energetic, and who share the following values:

Integrity and honesty.
Passion for customers, partners, and technology.
Open and respectful with others and dedicated to making them better.
Willingness to take on big challenges and see them through.
Self-critical, questioning, and committed to personal excellence and self-improvement.
Accountable for commitments, results, and quality to customers, shareholders, partners, and employees.

Innovative and Responsible Platform Leadership

Expanding platform innovation, benefits, and opportunities for customers and partners; openness in discussing our future directions; getting feedback; and working with others to ensure that their products and our platforms work well together.

Enabling People to Do New Things

Broadening choices for customers by identifying new areas of business; incubating new products; integrating new customer scenarios into existing businesses; exploring acquisitions of key talent and experience; and integrating more deeply with new and existing partners.

At Microsoft, we're committed to our mission of helping our customers scale new heights and achieve goals they never thought possible.

Tags: Microsoft, MSFT

AllFinancialMatters.com

Google's (GOOG) Mission Statement

Google's mission is to organize the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful.

As a first step to fulfilling that mission, Google's founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin developed a new approach to online search that took root in a Stanford University dorm room and quickly spread to information seekers around the globe. Google is now widely recognized as the world's largest search engine -- an easy-to-use free service that usually returns relevant results in a fraction of a second.

When you visit www.google.com or one of the dozens of other Google domains, you'll be able to find information in many different languages; check stock quotes, maps, and news headlines; lookup phonebook listings for every city in the United States; search more than one billion images and peruse the world's largest archive of Usenet messages -- more than 845 million posts dating back to 1981.

We also provide ways to access all this information without making a special trip to the Google homepage. The Google Toolbar enables you to conduct a Google search from anywhere on the web, while the Google Deskbar (beta) puts a Google search box in the Windows taskbar so you can search from any application you're using, without opening a browser. And for those times when you're away from your PC altogether, Google can be used from a number of wireless platforms including WAP and i-mode phones.

Google's utility and ease of use have made it one of the world's best known brands almost entirely through word of mouth from satisfied users. As a business, Google generates revenue by providing advertisers with the opportunity to deliver measurable, cost-effective online advertising that is relevant to the information displayed on any given page. This makes the advertising useful to you as well as to the advertiser placing it. We believe you should know when someone has paid to put a message in front of you, so we always distinguish ads from the search results or other content on a page. We don't sell placement in the search results themselves, or allow people to pay for a higher ranking there.

Thousands of advertisers use our Google AdWords program to promote their products and services on the web with targeted advertising, and we believe AdWords is the largest program of its kind. In addition, thousands of web site managers take advantage of our Google AdSense program to deliver ads relevant to the content on their sites, improving their ability to generate revenue and enhancing the experience for their users.

To learn more about Google, click on the link at the left for the area that most interests you. Or type what you want to find into our search box and hit enter. Once you do, you'll be on your way to understanding why others say, "Google is the closest thing the Web has to an ultimate answer machine."

Source: Google

Tags: Google, GOOG

AllFinancialMatters.com

Hewlett Packard's (HPQ) Mission Statement

I thought it was only appropriate to start with HP's mission statement since they have fired their CEO. I guess her leadership wasn't living up to the company's mission!

Customer loyalty

To provide products, services and solutions of the highest quality and deliver more value to our customers that earns their respect and loyalty.
Underlying beliefs supporting this objective:
Our continued success is dependent on increasing the loyalty of our customers.
Listening attentively to customers to truly understands their needs, then delivering solutions that translate into customer success is essential to earn customer loyalty.
Competitive total cost of ownership, quality, inventiveness, and the way we do business drives customer loyalty.

Profit

To achieve sufficient profit to finance our company growth, create value for our shareholders and provide the resources we need to achieve our other corporate objectives.
Underlying beliefs supporting this objective:
Profit is the responsibility of all.
Balance of long-term and short-term objectives is key to profitability.
Profit allows us to reinvest in new and emerging business opportunities.
Profit is highly correlated to generating cash, which brings more flexibility to the business at a lower cost.
Profit enables the achievement of our corporate objectives.

Market leadership

To grow by continually providing useful and significant products, services and solutions to markets we already serve—and to expand into new areas that build on our technologies, competencies and customer interests.
Underlying beliefs supporting this objective:
There are more places we can contribute than we will be capable of contributing: We must focus.
To be average in the marketplace is not good enough, we play to win.
We must be No. 1 or No. 2 in our chosen fields.

Growth

To view change in the market as an opportunity to grow; to use our profits and our ability to develop and produce innovative products, services and solutions that satisfy emerging customer needs.
Underlying beliefs supporting this objective:
Growth comes from taking smart risks, based on the state of the industry—that requires both a conviction in studying the trends, but also in inducing change in our industry.
Our size (and diversity of businesses) gives us an ability to weather economic cycles and turn them to our favor.

Employee commitment

To help HP employees share in the company's success that they make possible; to provide people with employment opportunities based on performance; to create with them a safe, exciting and inclusive work environment that values their diversity and recognizes individual contributions; and to help them gain a sense of satisfaction and accomplishment from their work.
Underlying beliefs supporting this objective:
HP's performance starts with motivated employees; their loyalty is key.
We trust our employees to do the right thing and to make a difference.
Everyone has something to contribute: It's not about title, level or tenure.
An exciting, stimulating work environment is critical to invention.
A diverse workforce gives us a competitive advantage.
Employees are responsible for lifelong learning.

Leadership capability

To develop leaders at every level who are accountable for achieving business results and exemplifying our values.
Underlying beliefs supporting this objective:
Leaders inspire, foster collaboration and turn vision and strategies into action—with focused, clear goals.
Effective leaders coach, relay good news and bad, and give feedback that works.
Leaders demonstrate self-awareness and a willingness to accept feedback and continuously develop.
Leaders speak with one voice and act to eliminate busy work.
It is important to measure people on the results they achieve against goals they helped to create.

Global citizenship

Good citizenship is good business. We live up to our responsibility to society by being an economic, intellectual and social asset to each country and community in which we do business.
Underlying beliefs supporting this objective:
The highest standards of honesty and integrity are critical to developing customer and stakeholder loyalty.
The betterment of our society is not a job to be left to a few; it is the responsibility to be shared by all.
This objective is essential to delivering on the brand promise.

Tags: Hewlett Packard, HPQ

AllFinancialMatters.com

A Blog About Mission Statements

A sense of purpose! We all seem to do better when we are on a mission. Having a mission gives us sense of purpose. That is why I started this blog. I'll be posting various personal, business, and non-profit mission statements on this blog. Hopefully, it will inspire my readers to develop their own mission statements.

- A Man on a Mission

AllFinancialMatters.com