1. Introduction
a. Briefly explain the concepts of vision, mission, and strategy statements.

A vision statement is used to express an organization’s fundamental aspirations and purpose: This is typically accomplished by appealing to its employee’s hearts and minds. Thus a vision statement encompasses the basic characteristics that shape an organization’s view of the future and its strategy (Palmer, 2008). A vision should be brief, focused, clear, and inspirational to an organization’s employees.A Mission Statement can be defined as an announcement of what the business does today and why it exists. A Mission Statement captures the uniqueness of theorganization and its purpose or reason for existing (Evans & Lindsay, 2011). Strategies are broad statements that set the direction for the organization and state how the organization intends to achieve its mission and vision. Strategic objectives are important to an organization if it is to remain competitive (Biznik, 2012).

2. Statements
a. History.

Beckman Coulter began its history as two separate companies; Beckman Instruments and Coulter Electronics. Beckman Instruments was established by Dr. Arnold O. Beckman who invented a way for determining the precise measurement of pH in lemon juice which he called the acidometer, or more commonly known as the pH meter. Separately, the Coulter brothers, Wallace and Joseph, had invented an instrument that could measure cell size through electrical impedance- known today as the Coulter Principle. Coulter Electronics was acquired by Beckman Instruments in 1997 and the new organization was called Beckman-Coulter, Inc. The newly formed company covers the full spectrum of biomedical instrumentation for both the diagnostic and the research markets including hematology, cytometry, lab automation, centrifugation, immunochemistry, and a series of Life Science products such as capillary electrophoresis and genomics. The combined organization has a world-wide employee base of over 20,000 professionals that support the needs of the various geographies. Beckman Coulter is currently a two billion dollar company that plays within the biomedical and healthcare industry (Beckman, 2012).

b. Vision, mission, and strategy statement:

Vision Statement:Beckman-Coulter will be a recognized leader in the Healthcare Industry.
Mission Statement:Beckman-Coulter will provide the highest quality medical instrumentation through our core values of Quality, Customer Service, Innovation and Teamwork.
Strategy Statement:Beckman-Coulter will become number one in the healthcare industry by providing high quality medical instrumentation at competitive prices and by meeting the needs of each market segment- low, mid, and high complexity testing – using customer driven needs as the basis for innovation. Furthermore, Beckman-Coulter will provide a continuous stream of products to meet the challenges of a rapidly evolving and dynamic marketplace along with a branded service team that can respond to customer needs and ensure that customers are contacted/responded to within 24 hours of a down-instrument situation.

3. Statement Validation

a. It is imperative for an organization to have a vision, mission, and strategy statement if it is to succeed. These statements each serve a different purpose but all of them guide an organization and provide direction; from the highest and most emotional level down to the nuts-and-bolts of how the organization will achieve its goals. The vision statement for Beckman Coulter, as stated above, allows employees- at the highest level- to understand where the company is headed and what executive management expects everyone to focus on. Thus, ‘To be a recognized leader in the healthcare industry’ frames the picture for everyone of what the expectation is. The mission statement, meanwhile, is a little for pragmatic in that it states that this will be achieved by providing the highest quality medical instrumentation and further points out that this will be achieved by using the core strengths of Beckman Coulter; Quality, Customer Service, innovation, and teamwork. Lastly, the strategy statement points out, more specifically, the strategy that will be used to realize this quest. The strategy statement for Beckman Coulter points out several initiatives or strategies to achieving the number one position.By providing instrument platforms that fit the low end, mid-end, and high end markets at competitive prices and providing a strong support base to keep customers up and running Beckman Coulter can differentiate itself from its competitors and gain market share.
b. The vision, mission, and strategy can drive change in the organization by giving the direction needed in order to steer the organization. Every time that an organization changes its vision, mission, and strategy employees need to understand what the new direction will be and what the expectations are. The work force needs to embrace the new way of doing business and redirect their efforts and energies towards accomplishing the new goals.
c. The vision, mission and strategy statements can put limits on the organization when it comes to change by narrowing the scope of what is important to the organization. For example if the organization is interested in becoming number one in customer service then the vision, mission, and strategy will focus on things that will help the company achieve its goals. If, on the other hand, the corporate direction changes to being number one in sales then the new goal will limit the activities of being number one in customer service and augment the goal of being number one in sales. Thus, the vision, mission, and strategy set the upper and lower boundaries of what is expected from employees and what is need to achieve the overall corporate goal.

References:

Beckman Coulter, Inc. (2012). Retrieved March 20, 2012, fromhttps://www.beckmancoulter.com/wsrportal/wsr/company/about-us/our-history/index.htm Biznik (2012).Retrieved March 21, 2012, fromhttp://biznik.com/articles/mission-statement-vision-statement-definition-and-purpose Evans, J. R. & Lindsay W. M. (2011).Managing for Quality and Performance Excellence.8th Edition.South-Western, Cengage Learning.

Palmer, Ian.(2008). Managing Organizational Change, 2nd Edition.McGraw-Hill Learning Solutions.