I truly believe that change cannot be avoided if you intend on your company to grow. I also believe it’s important to communicate those changes first to your employees, and then to your clients, so that everyone has a clear understanding of our purpose and reasons to exist.
That usually starts by developing your company’s Mission Statement. A mission statement is a single sentence that describes what your company does, and why it does that.
We sat down last week, and reviewed the mission statement that we had created several years ago, and came to the conclusion that it’s not the best description of what we do (now), and what we want to do, so we spent a few days (2 sessions, actually) to come up with the right words.
Our new mission statement:
Our mission is to help your business increase profits and productivity by developing custom software applications to improve management of people, process, and production of goods and services.
This has become a big deal for a few reasons, but most importantly, I found that each time someone asked me or our employees or our clients, “What does Palm Beach Software Design do?”, we all had a different answer…or we fumbled and said the wrong thing. Maybe too technical, maybe citing examples of software we’ve written, or maybe our lack of having a clear, concise, MEMORIZED response that we could say with conviction. I’ll go with “All of the above”.
I think the new mission statement, is a clear answer for both my employees, clients, and even our vendors as to what we do, and why we do it.
- We develop custom software
- We do this to improve all aspects of your business
- You want me to do this for you, because we’re interested in increasing your profits and productivity
Wow, that was simple, wasn’t it? LOL! No way. You can’t imagine the iterations we went through, how many times we rearranged words on the whiteboard.
Just like anything in life, it’s a PROCESS. This process went in several different steps and iterations until we all agreed it was correct. I hope you like our mission statement – I do, and I’m so happy that I have a single “canned” response to fall back on when someone asks me “What does your company do?”
We use the same type of process when discussing our client’s business issues and needs, so that we come up with the right solution to allow the client’s company to improve and prosper, while also considering the future needs as well. This is one of the most important reasons as to why there’s an advantage of working with a smaller company, located in the USA, with all their employees under the same roof. You can’t buy this kind of care and consideration when outsourcing around the world, basing everything on price. At the end of the project, we always beat our competitors that setup a business office in our country, but send the work out to “software-sweatshops” around the world. We deliver faster, we have direct communication between developers and clients, and we produce World-Class Software Solutions that work for the specific business – your business.
When working with onshore/offshore business models, there are major losses in translation, understanding of the requirements, and most importantly, the understanding of relationships between your company and your clients and vendors. At Palm Beach Software Design, Inc., we get it. We specialize in learning about your business and your needs, and responding with the appropriate processes and technology to prepare your company for success.
My name is Mark Turkel, and I am the CEO and Senior Software Architect at Palm Beach Software Design, Inc. After 30 years of developing software to make my clients more successful, I am ready and excited to help you grow your business too! I’d love to hear about your business, and of course I’d love to get involved and help.
