New Challenges of the Digital Transformation: The Comeback of the Vision-Mission System

As a rule, organisations establish a vision-mission system in order to create orientation, identity and identification. With some effort, they condense it into a vision-mission statement and communicate it to internal and external stakeholders. But if one looks at everyday practice, one will not find many employees who keep the vision-mission statement alive. Looking at the process of digital transformation, we discover a new dynamic of markets. Digital transformation affects the entire organisation. Today, organisations have to speed up their ability to rapidly change if they want to find successful answers to the challenges of Industry 4.0, the Internet of Things and Big Data. However, working within liquid structures creates a new need for a sustainable and long-term working identity. In consequence, people start asking about the new persistent idea of their specific organisation. Where are we going? Which principles and values do we share? How is the big idea linked with my daily work? This chapter discusses possible approaches to a vision-mission system that creates opportunities for relevant and meaningful orientation in the digital age.