Executive Summary. Mission Statement. Business & Marketing Essay

just need Executive Summary.

Mission Statement: start by stating an organization's purpose of existence. Mission statements consists of 3 essential components: [The Mission Statement is a Group/Company grade. Presentation to class.]

1.  Purpose: why and what product or service (or hybrid) are you providing?

2.  Audience/Customer: who is your target client/audience?

3.  Uniqueness:  what makes your product or service unique, so that the client would choose you?

Examples of Mission Statements: The following website provides a general listing of the Mission Statements created by various domestic and global companies:

http://www(dot)missionstatements(dot)com/fortune_500_mission_statements.html  

From this website: CVS Corporation

Slogan: Expect something extra.

Description: CVS Corporation, a pharmaceutical company whose headquarters are in Woonsocket, Rhode Island, distributes healthcare products such as pharmaceutical drugs in over 5,375 stores in 36 states. Besides this, they also offer child care products, cosmetics, diet and nutrition products, medical supplies and equipment, etc.

Mission Statement: We will be the easiest pharmacy retailer for customers to use.

Executive Summary Due Wednesday, January 23^nd, BEFORE CLASS: Each student will select 2-3 topics (bullets below) and develop a one (1) page (250 -300 words) Executive Summary. MLA Format, Block Paragraphs, Double Spaced.  These summaries will be graded on an INDIVIDUAL basis. Please submit your document as an MS Word (.docx) document attachment.

• Please remember, your company has been in existence for at least 2-years.
• An expanded mission statement:  purpose statement.  "Why do we exist?" “The purpose of our company is to [e.g., provide, service, join,]  . . . .”  What problem or gap are you solving? Why now?
• A company description overview. The company has been in existence for at least 2-years. [Suggestions: Who was the founder and his/her background? Who and how was the company funded?] 
• Product, Service, Product and Service (Hybrid Company) Description
• Goal(s) of the organization or company
• What problem or situation does your product or service (or both) resolve? Information that is targeted to the organization's primary users and/or consumers. How the organization provides value to those that will read the report OR utilize the product, service, or both (hybrid: product and service). This section may include defining the target audience?
• Location: Where is the company headquartered? If relevant: where are significant manufacturing, sales, or distribution centers located? Are there international offices? [Limit to 2-overseas locations]
• What are your plans for the next five years?  For example: Are you strictly domestic? Do you plan to expand to other locations? If so, where (domestic/overseas)? What kinds of partnerships do you anticipate?

Inc. Magazine, http://www(dot)inc(dot)com/guides/2010/09/how-to-write-an-executive-summary.html

How to Write an Executive Summary.  By, Eric Markowitz, Senior Reporter

When you're trying to sell an idea to a potential investor, you'll need to craft the pitch-perfect executive summary. Here's how to write one that will get your business plan read and your foot in the door.

Whether you've put together a business plan or an investment proposal, you're going to need an executive summary to preface your report. The summary should include the major details of your report, but it's important not to bore the reader with minutiae. Save the analysis, charts, numbers, and glowing reviews for the report itself. This is the time to grab your reader's attention and let the person know what it is you do and why he or she should read the rest of your business plan or proposal.

The executive summary is also an important way for you, as the entrepreneur, to determine which aspects of your company have the clearest selling points, and which aspects may require a bit more explanation. Akira Hirai, founder and CEO of Phoenix-based Cayenne Consulting, a firm that helps entrepreneurs develop business plans and financial forecasts, says the process of distilling the essence of your business down to a page forces you to think hard, decide what's important, and discard things that aren't essential to the story line. "By doing this," he says, "you develop a better vision of what your business is all about, and you become better at telling your story."

How to Write an Executive Summary: Why Write It?

Investors, lenders, executives, managers, and CEOs are busy. Always. That means the executive summary is an essential gateway for your business plan to get read. Think about it this way: If you had an endless list of things to do, and someone handed you an 80-page document and said, "Read this!" you'd probably first want to know why.

"The most important reason to include an executive summary is that in many cases, it is the only thing the reader will read," says Pablo Bonjour, founder and CEO of Katy, Texas-based SMG Business Plans, a company that offers entrepreneurs assistance in writing business plans. According to Bonjour, investors will read the executive summary to decide if they will even bother reading the rest of the business plan. It's rare for an investor or lender to read an entire business plan, at least in the initial stages of analysis and consideration for funding, so having a strong executive summary is key.

When you're writing your business plan, your goal is to get your foot in the door and face time with the investor. "Assuming that your business is a good fit for the investor, a strong executive summary will get you invited in for a meeting," Hirai says. "A poor executive summary will leave you standing in the cold."

How to Write an Executive Summary: The First Paragraph

Just as a movie might begin with a fight scene or a magazine article open with a funny anecdote, you'll need a strong hook for your executive summary.

"The most important part of an executive summary is the first paragraph that clearly explains what the company does," according to Dave Lavinsky, president of Growthink, a Los Angeles-based company that helps entrepreneurs develop business plans and raise capital. "Most business plans start with a story that tries to create excitement, and this doesn't always work."

One way to think about it, says Hirai, is that your executive summary needs an executive summary. The first paragraph needs to compel the reader to read the rest of the summary. Perhaps you have a compelling aha! moment, so you might start with that. If you've identified a problem in the marketplace that isn't being adequately serviced, you might start with that.

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How to Write an Executive Summary: The Nuts and Bolts

There is no set structure for an executive summary, but there are guidelines you must follow to ensure your business plan or investment proposal gets the attention it deserves. First, think about your core strengths. Use bullet points to present your ideas, and make sure you always use concise language.

"You need to match your story to your audience, your business, and your desired outcomes," says Hirai. "If you have an exceptional management team, you might start with that."

Ask yourself what's unique and exciting about your company. After you've explained what your company does, it's time to sell why you believe you're uniquely qualified to succeed.

Lavinsky recommends addressing these questions when putting together your executive summary:

• Do you have a unique partnership?

• Do you already have customers and traction?

• Do you have patents or technology?

• Is your marketing plan special in some way?

Depending on your audience, you can also try a more rigid approach to the executive summary. After the first paragraph, Bonjour says one effective structure is to summarize each section in the same order in which the items are presented within the full business plan. To make the structure as relevant as possible for the reader, typically an investor or a lender, he suggests considering these categories:

• A Company Description Summary

• The Problem

• Your Solution

• Why Now 

The Why Now category is one of the most important questions to answer, because it makes your executive summary timely. The last thing you want is to leave the reader feeling like there's plenty of time to act. Chances are, if there isn't any urgency to your executive summary, your business plan won't get read.

After describing the elements above, the executive summary should also have a brief financial summary. For your financials, Bonjour suggests including the valuation of the deal, so that the reader knows right away what the risks are, and what the returns can be. [For this assignment, please skip this step.]

How to Write an Executive Summary: Strictly Professional or Humorous? What's the Tone?

This depends on who your readers are. Do your research. If you're presenting your plan to investors, make sure the language of the executive summary caters to their backgrounds. For example, if you know your investor has a degree in chemical engineering, your language might be different from that in the executive summary presented to an investor who studied philosophy.

In other words, "use language that will resonate with your target audience," says Hirai. Don't be afraid to change your executive summary when you present it to different investors. Consider creating different versions for each audience, he says, but make sure that it's always kept professional, crisp, and free of any embarrassing errors. Another good tip he gives is to use personal pronouns (e.g., "we" and "our") over general nouns (e.g., "the company"). Your reader will feel a stronger personal connection with you, your brand, and your idea if you can relate to the reader in the first person.

Don't forget to be confident, either. If the writer does not clearly believe in this company, says Bonjour, why should the reader believe in it? Put yourself in your reader's shoes, and ask yourself why you would want to invest in a company. "Think about it like a job interview or asking a girl out on a date," he says. "If you are not confident and don't act like you want it, chances are you won't get anywhere."

How to Write an Executive Summary: The Length

Remember, every executive summary is--and should be--unique. Depending on the size of the business plan or investment proposal you're sending, the executive summary's length will vary. However, the general consensus is that an executive summary should be between one and four pages long. [For this assignment, the Executive Summary should not be more than 2.5 pages.]

Think logically. A two-page summary can be printed on the front and back of a single page, which can feel like a professional brochure. And if you can't tell the essence of your story in a page or two, says Hirai, then you probably haven't thought things through well enough. . . .

How to Write an Executive Summary: What to Avoid

"The reason most business entrepreneurs get executive summaries wrong is that they believe the goal of the executive summary is to get the investors to give them a check," says Lavinsky. "The goal of the executive summary is to get the investor to read the business plan or to meet with you."

With that in mind, clear your vocabulary of any superlatives, clichés, or claims that can't be backed up, he adds. Avoid using terms like "the best," "groundbreaking," "cutting-edge," and "world-class." "Investors see those words day in and day out," he says, "and eventually they lose meaning."

How to Write an Executive Summary: Is It Any Good?

The most important element to any executive summary is a clear, concise, and relevant explanation of what your company does. Obviously, you should devote a good portion of your time to reading and rereading the summary. But there are some tricks. Lavinsky shares his litmus test: Have a fifth grader or any non-investor read your executive summary, even just the first paragraph. Then ask the person to explain to you what your company does. If he or she can explain it with ease, you're good. If you hear crickets, you'll need to rework it.

From:

Kolin, Philip C., Successful Writing at Work, Tenth Edition. Boston, MA: Wadsworth Cengage Learning,

Chapter 9, Pages 435 – 438.

Executive Summaries

An executive summary, found at the beginning of a proposal or a long report, is usually one or two pages long (four to six concise paragraphs) and condenses the most important points from the proposal or report for a busy manager—the executive. Your employer wants bottom-line conclusions, not all the technical details. An executive summary is written to help the reader reach a major decision based on the report or proposal. Your job, in an executive summary, then, is to concisely tell your employer what findings the report includes, what those findings mean for the company or organization, and what action, if any, needs to be taken.  . . . . an executive summary of a report on software for a safety training program, directly advises a decision maker to purchase a safety software package. Managers use executive summaries so they will not have to wade through entire reports. An effective executive summary is like a report itself— self-contained and able to on its own.

What Managers Want to See in an Executive Summary

Executive readers are most concerned with managerial and organizational issues — the areas over which they have supervisory control. These readers will look for information on costs, profits, resources, personnel, timetables, and feasibility. Your summary must supply key information on the executive’s four E’s: Evaluation, Economy, Efficiency, and expediency.  Executive readers will expect you to summarize large, complex subjects into easy-to read, easy-to-understand information that they can act on confidently.

Organization of an Executive Summary:

An executive summary must be faithful to the report while giving readers what they need. First, read the report carefully, plan what you want to include, and then draft and revise using valuable connective words. Clearly, you cannot write an executive summary of your report until after you have written the report itself.

Follow this organizational plan when you write an executive summary:

1. Begin with the purpose and the scope of the report. For example, a report might be written to study new marketing strategies, to identify obsolete software, or to relocate a branch store.
2. Relate your purpose to a key problem. Identify the source (history) and seriousness of the problem.
3. Identify in nontechnical language the criteria used to solve the problem. Be careful not to include too much information or too many details.
4. Condense the findings of your report. Relate what tests or surveys revealed.
5. Stress conclusions and possible solutions.
6. Provide recommendations. For example, buy, sell, hire more personnel, relocate, or choose among alternative solutions. You may also indicate when a decision needs to be made.

The order of information in an executive summary does not have to follow strictly the order of the report itself. In fact, some executive summaries start with recommendations.