yes mission statements are critical , 1- for a public listed company , to attract outside investments , the basic view

point of major shareholders depends on the mission statement of the company , eg: apple's mission statement (refer apple mission statement - search on google) 2- internally the mission statement provides basic motivation to employees 3- for CSR purposes , certain companies have mission statements aligned with corporate social responsibility so that they assure investors of the direction of where the company is headed 4- it provides a guiddline for where the company is headed and a target for each individual in the company that they need to achieve 5- Defines the fundamental purpose of an organization or an enterprise, succinctly describing why it exists and what it does to achieve its Vision. It is sometimes used to set out a 'picture' of the organization in the future. A vision statement provides inspiration, the basis for all the organization's planning. It could answer the question: "Where do we want to go?"

A vision statement indicates who the organization is, what they do, and where they see themselves in the future. The mission statement indicates how they plan on getting there. Thus, a vision statement without a mission statement means nothing unless you can back it up with a clearly articulated plan. That's why the mission statement is so important.
Against 1- for CSR purposes companies may just use it as a marketing tool to attract outside investors 2- marketing organisations' mission statements are mostly anticipated by customers/clients to be fake and not carry any meaning and they would rather do a complete analysis of the company before they do business with them
- Show quoted text -