Volkswagen Mission Statement

This is Volkswagen Group mission statement overview in 2013. For more information on how to write a mission statement, please refer to our article.

Company Background

NameVolkswagen Group
LogoVolkswagen Group logo
Industries servedAutomotive
Geographic areas servedWorldwide
HeadquartersGermany
Current CEOMartin Winterkorn
Revenue€ 192.7 billion (2012)
Profit€ 21.7 billion (2012)
Employees549,763 (2012)
Main CompetitorsBayerische Motoren Werke AG, Chrysler Group LLC, Daimler AG, Ford Motor Co., General Motors Company, Honda Motor Company, Nissan Motor, Tata Motors, Ltd., Toyota Motor Corporation and many other automotive companies.

Volkswagen Groups is a German corporation that manufactures passenger cars, commercial vehicles, motorcycles and engines. The company was the largest automaker by output in the world in 2011. Volkswagen Group also offers financial and leasing services. The company owns 13 vehicle brands, including Audi, Volkswagen, Bentley, Porsche, Skoda, Lamborghini, MAN, Scania and motorcycle brand Ducati. It operates in more than 150 countries and is one the largest companies in the world by size and revenue.

Mission

Volkswagen mission statement 2013

Volkswagen Group doesn’t have an official mission statement. The closest statement that could be called VW Group’s mission is expressed as company’s goal:

“The Group’s goal is to offer attractive, safe and environmentally sound vehicles which can compete in an increasingly tough market and set world standards in their respective class.”
Evaluation
Does it include…?
CustomersProducts/ ServicesMarkets
NoYesYes
TechnologyConcern for survivalPhilosophy
NoYesNo
Self-conceptConcern for public imageEmployees
YesYesNo
Does it mention values like…?Customer or product-oriented?
CitizenshipTeamworkProduct-oriented
NoNoScore
ExcellenceIntegrity
NoNo1.6/4.5

(This evaluation framework is composed of the guidelines listed in our article: Mission Statement for Success)

Overview

There are many versions of VW Group’s mission around the web. Yet, none of them is coming directly from VW Group. One of the versions is popularized by About.com Retail Industry website, but it is incorrect to think that 6 principles, which were set as national guidelines for German vehicle companies could serve as primary mission for each individual company, including VW Group. We identified VW Group’s goal statement as their mission because it most closely resembles the true mission statement.

We have evaluated the statement 1.6 points, indicating a poor level of the mission. It doesn’t include 4 out of 9 essential components and doesn’t mention any of the 4 values used in our evaluation, so it is unclear as to what guides Volkswagen Group’s actions and decisions. The statement is product-oriented, which reveals that the company focuses on what products to produce and services to offer rather than on how to satisfy customer needs.

The purpose of the mission is to communicate business’ core purpose to its stakeholders and VW Group poorly achieves this with their statement. It addresses too few stakeholders and provides little important information about their business.

Sources

  1. Volkswagen AG (2013). The Group. Available at: http://www.volkswagenag.com/content/vwcorp/content/en/the_group.html

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