Key Ingredients For Long-term Business Performance

By Author: Alan Williams
Total Articles: 4
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The growing importance of topics like brand identity, employee engagement and the customer experience are a sign of a changing business landscape. Today, values-driven businesses that focus on how these important areas are connected have a clear advantage over companies that have a more traditional approach.

Many organisations simply fail to achieve their desired growth targets as a result of irrelevant or ‘behind the times’ business strategies. For example, authoritarian type management systems or rigid organisational structures now fail to deliver the kind of experiences people expect from their products and services.

Today, these types of companies are rapidly being replaced by enterprises that foster a culture of shared beliefs with its employees and customers. Within this context, we explore what it takes to build long-term business performance.

Benefits of a values-driven business

One of the most important things you can do to achieve consistent business performance is to build an organisation that is centred on genuine values. Decisions are increasingly made on a deeper, more personal level where values play an important part in whether your customers choose to connect with you.

The current reality is that people expect the companies they interact with to stand for something and the perception of an organisation is increasingly based on personal experience with the people who represent it. Many of the most successful companies of this generation have been spearheaded by charismatic leaders with a clear vision for their future, using distinct values to shape their core business strategies.

As well as creating a strong brand image that their audience can trust, these companies are also reinforcing the framework and principles they will adhere to. For instance, in a values-driven business culture, employees are more able to align their personal values with those of their organisation, creating a unified and motivated workforce.

Core components of a strong values-driven business

Brand Identity
Having a strong brand identity helps your customers understand what you represent and the level of quality they can expect when purchasing your products or services. It also gives your employees a greater sense of purpose and values that will guide various internal processes and activities.

Employee Engagement
Engaged, motivated workers are naturally more enthusiastic about their role. As well as creating a positive work environment, this contributes to company growth in the form of higher retention and lower turnover of employees, among other things. With the right involvement, incentives and autonomy, employees can be your company’s strongest brand ambassadors.

Customer Experience

A brand aligned customer experience delivered consistently, irrespective of time, geography or channel.

The three areas above need to be aligned strategically and then executed in a co-ordinated way, rather than in silos and can be supported by:

Systems and processes
To continue growing, you will need to address your core systems and processes to make sure they align with your values and support the employee and customer proposition. As organisations evolve, these processes should be evaluated and improved in order to achieve clear goals that connect internal systems to business value.

Measurement and insight

One of the most important and often underrated aspects to be considered in relation to performance is progress tracking and measurement. This should be performed to provide you with useful information about how your products, processes and services match up with your wider brand, business goals and values.

Key drivers for sustained performance

When it comes to achieving long-term growth, there are two key drivers:

Strategic implementation
This addresses the who, where, when, and how of reaching desired goals and objectives. But more than this, you need to have the right values culture in place to underpin your various strategies and achieve integration across your business.

Organisational alignment
This refers to the harmony between your business’s various processes and functions as well as integration across your organisation’s different departments.

Making the change

In order to be a values-driven company and achieve sustained performance, your values must be clearly defined and communicated to your customers as well as your internal teams. Starting with good leadership and example setting, these values need to translate into everyday business activities and goals.

Addressing issues such as brand identity building or customer experience improvements can be a complex task depending on your sector and business, but the various benefits such as a more loyal customer base, more engaged employees and better long-term business performance certainly make it worth the effort.

SERVICEBRAND GLOBAL is a market-leading provider of services for companies that want to improve their performance and have sustained performance as well as adapt to new challenges. Drawing from an extensive knowledge of several commercial markets and an understanding of the Values Economy, it provides solutions for companies of all sizes