Mission, Vision, and Core Values
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Kyle Ashcraft, CPA · 2019 CPA Exam Scores · 95 FAR · 98 BEC · 91 REG · 90 AUD
Strategy and objective-setting is one of the five components of COSO's enterprise risk management framework, and it starts with three ideas that are easy to define individually but often get tangled together: mission, vision, and core values.
Picture a hypothetical driverless car company called Hands-Off Cars.
What is a company's mission?
The mission is why the company exists. For Hands-Off Cars, the mission is to revolutionize the transportation industry by implementing driverless cars.
What is a company's vision?
The vision is the future picture of where the company aspires to be. For Hands-Off Cars, the vision might be a society in which no one is in the driver's seat.
What are core values?
Core values define what matters to the company. For Hands-Off Cars, that might mean high-quality customer service, transparency, and cooperating with like-minded businesses.
How does strategy connect to the vision?
A strategy is how the company plans to reach its vision. For Hands-Off Cars, the strategy might be partnering with every major car manufacturer to co-produce driverless cars.
What are business objectives?
Business objectives turn a strategy into specific, quantifiable targets. "Partner with car manufacturers" isn't measurable on its own, so Hands-Off Cars might set objectives like:
- Enter into five partnership agreements within three years
- Submit one patent per year on driverless technology
- Increase R&D spending by 25% within two years
Every layer has to stay aligned. Suppose Hands-Off Cars' management decides to pour money into marketing instead, aiming to outspend competitors and boost sales. That might work in isolation, but it pulls away from the core value of cooperating with like-minded businesses. Mission, vision, core values, strategy, and objectives all have to point the same direction — a new strategy that contradicts a core value is a signal something's off, not just a tactical choice.
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Kyle Ashcraft, CPA scored 90 or above on every section of the CPA exam in 2019, including a 98 on BEC. He is the founder and sole instructor of Maxwell CPA Review, a complete CPA review course covering all six sections, where he creates every lecture, textbook and study outline himself.