[TYPE THE COMPANY NAME]

Case #1

Kraft Foods

Chyanne Thomas

[Pick the date]

[Type the abstract of the document here. The abstract is typically a short summary of the contents of the document. Type the abstract of the document here. The abstract is typically a short summary of the contents of the document.]

Kraft Mission, Vision, and Values
Kraft Food Groups is a household name in America, “98% of North American households have Kraft brands in their pantries and refrigerators.” According to the Kraft CEO Tony Vernon the company’s vision is “… to be North America’s best food and beverage company, and we’ll get there by continuing to offer products consumers love, creating a performance-based culture that motivates and excites employees and becoming the best investment in the industry.” The mission of the company is “to be North America’s best food and Beverage Company.”(Kraft) The company has a long list of values to include; compliance &integrity, nutrition &well being, corporate governance, community involvement, sustainability, and food safety and equality. The company seems to use the terms mission statement and vision statement interchangeably as they both seem to be extremely similar, the mission statement being an abbreviated version of the vision statement. The company values seem to be what the company put the most thought into. As upon closer inspection one can see the subcategories and descriptions that the company lists for each of its values.
Vision
First lets evaluate the company’s vision statement, “…..to be North America’s best food and beverage company, and we’ll get there by continuing to offer products consumers love, creating a performance-based culture that motivates and excites employees, and becoming the best investment in the industry.” A vision statement is designed to be forward thinking which in fact this statement does include several forward thinking terms, such as continuing and becoming. On the one hand it is good that the vision statement identifies the company’s target market, however the target market seems to be very broad considering that the company is targeting all of North America. One of the requirements for a vision statement is that it be as specific as possible. Another requirement of a company vision statement is that it outlines how the company is going to go about accomplishing their goals. Kraft’s vision statement states several different ways in which they will go about accomplishing theirs; continuing to offer loved products, creating performance based culture, and becoming the best investment in the industry. Although technically the list meets the requirements it seems very vague which specificity in a vision statement was previously mentioned as being a significant characteristic. The portion about becoming the best investment sounds more like a goal rather than a way to accomplish a goal and therefore it would seem that they would group it with the portion of the statement that discussed becoming the best food and beverage company in North America.
Which once again, in itself is exceedingly vague it opens the company up to an excessive amount of competition having to take on every food and drink company in North America. Overall Kraft’s vision statement has all of the characteristics of a good vision statement, but it could be improved by being more specific. For example, narrowing their target market to specifically North American Family’s or identifying becoming the best investment as a goal and not a course of action. Besides that, the statement is future oriented, it outlines the future goals of the company, and it offers a course of action for the company to take to achieve those goals.

Mission
The mission statement for Kraft is simply “to be North America’s best food company,” as far as mission statements go this one is extremely lacking. It is very vague, although it identifies a goal it does not specify how to reach that goal, and it does not set any standards for employees to follow on a daily basis. The mission statement is supposed to be something that employees can live by on a daily basis. The mission statement is supposed to be a constant reminder for employees as to what they are there to accomplish and how they should go about accomplishing it. Kraft’s mission statement gives the why but not the how. Even the why is very broad. As with its vision statement the mission statement seems to be lacking in specificity. The Kraft vision statement is just a snippet from the vision statement, which although it is good that the vision and mission statement relate to one another it is not beneficial to the company to provide such generalizations to its employees. Although generalizations leave room for the company to be flexible about its goals it also leaves to much room for people to go off in several different directions which could eventually put a halt to the company’s progress.
Values
Although the Kraft vision and mission statements appear to be underdeveloped the company values are very well thought out. Each of its seven listed values has its own set of subcategories that are specifically related to upholding that company goal. The first of which is “Compliance and Integrity”, this category includes a code of conduct as well as an outline of human rights according to Kraft. The second is “corporate governance” this category provides an outline of the attributes of good governance. Then there is “community involvement”, here Kraft outlines the many different ways it contributes to their communities to include disaster relief efforts and charitable partnerships. After that comes “sustainability” in this section the company goes into details about the things that they are doing to have less of an environmental impact. Following that is “Food Safety & Quality”, under this section there is a brief statement but no subcategories, this could be because when it comes to this part the company demonstrates how they uphold these values through quality checks of their products and recalls when they are not up to standard. Next is “nutrition and well being”, here the company outlines a plan for educating people on proper nutrition. Lastly is “workplace and culture” this section also only includes a brief statement it is specific about the type of culture the company is looking to establish.

Stakeholder Concerns
Since the company values is so detailed; between the values, mission and vision statements, they are the section that most takes into account each individual stakeholder. For instance, it takes into account the concerns of their consumers in the sections titled; safety& quality, nutrition and well being, community involvement, and sustainability. The company also takes into account the needs and concerns of shareholder and employees in the section titled; workplace and culture, compliance and integrity, and corporate governance. Each element of the company values provides the specificity that the mission and vision statements were lacking as well as taking into account all Kraft’s stakeholders in one way or another.

Recommended Changes
As far as changes are concerned the most significant things that Kraft should address are the mission and vision statements. Although, they are functional and for the most part contain all of the elements of proper vision and mission statements there is still room for improvement as far as providing specifics is concerned. The company’s list of values is very in depth in most sections; however there is one or two that could use a little more detail. Overall, despite the lack of detail in some elements, the company seems to have set itself up in such a way that employees will be able to use these statements and lists as a guide throughout their daily routines as well as map to the company’s future. In the company’s most recent financial statements it stated that it would be using several forward thinking phrases such as focus, continue, and expect. This shows the stakeholders that not only is the company looking at what is right in front of them, but that they are also looking beyond at what the future holds for them.
Some of the significance of the statement is lost however because next the company puts a disclaimer stating that these words are no guarantee for results and that there are several things that could affect the ability if the company to perform. This statement provides an out for Kraft if they do not reach their goals but as a stakeholder in the company it can prove to be a discouragement before the company has even begun to work towards their goals.