Companies today are seeking to find a good balance between employee engagement and organizational strategies that work together to achieve smart goals and objectives.
A significant factor for success is a company culture that aligns with business strategies.
Culture, in this sense, is not just about congenial work environments, but also an organizational structure which incorporates the right harmony between employees and company mindset.
Recent studies have shown that company leadership that feels its culture and business goals are aligned also has higher profit margins.
Reporting participants indicated profit margins more than double, from 4.8% to 11.5%, when culture lines up with strategy.
Organizational Structure Takes A Variety of Forms
The first step in coordinating culture with business objectives is deciding what type of environment a company wants to build. Depending on the goal, companies can then put strategies into place that support the cultural ideal. Each type attracts its own adherents among leadership and staff, and a company can certainly have overlaps.
Innovation
An company striving for a culture of innovation needs to include a business strategy that uses new ideas to keep ahead of the competition.
Meanwhile, the overall culture should aim to encourage diversity in approach and support risk-taking. Leadership should keep its eye on future priorities and encourage its staff to explore.
Efficiency
The business strategy for a brand focused on efficiency should strive to be a well-oiled business machine that focuses on delivering quality services and products. It’s often data-driven, with clear lines of responsibilities.
The culture aspirations should be to make staff training a priority. Workload and assignments are optimized for definitive performance measurement.
Custom Service
- Business Strategy: A customer-focused firm that produces high levels of satisfaction in products, services, and customer response among clients.
- Culture: Team building and information sharing to achieve satisfied customers. Provide deep understanding of products and services to address client desires and goals.
Quality
- Business Strategy: A company that centers on best practices, services, and materials to produce in-demand products and services.
- Culture: Localized decision-making that improves products and processes. Keen attention to data-driven analytics in order to refine and deliver best products and services to clients.
Branding
- Business Strategy: A firm that has a strong brand identity and takes that into consideration with all its strategies.
- Culture: Reputational awareness that drives pride in products and services. How the company is perceived is as important as the products and services it delivers in keeping with industry leadership goals.
No company needs to make strict choices among culture identity options. Depending on the size of the company, multiple cultures can come into play. Retailers, for instance, can have strong brand-identity and customer service in its customer-facing divisions while a quality-focus might be more in tune with its research and development teams.
Another key to success is guiding employee performance to align with the corporate goals. Free-thinkers thrive in innovation, while data analysts might prefer efficiency-driven settings. Regardless of the culture, providing the proper tools and support for staff to achieve within their job roles, the company hierarchy, and personal and professional goals is critical.