Research is at the core of every successful business. If you don't know what your customers and employees want, how can you give it to them?

If you don't know who your competitors are and what they're doing, how can you compete with them? And if you don't understand the market in which your company operates, how can you succeed? In a world of opportunity, research is vital in aligning stakeholders and focusing priorities. It’s therefore imperative when you’re developing strategy, navigating challenges, or making any critical executive decision.

Around 50% of company strategies fail (Candido & Santos, 2015), which is startling given the time, energy and resources companies pour into their development. Perhaps it’s no surprise, then, that a 2018 Gartner study found that 56% of executives believe that time spent on strategic planning is wasted.

So, what’s the cause of this? In a word…focus.

While it may seem like an overly simple question, the importance of asking, ‘why is customer experience important’ cannot be overstated. Firstly, let’s outline the core understanding of great customer experience.

The process of clarifying your mission, vision and values with an effective purpose-driven strategy should not simply be a box-ticking exercise. When done effectively, it builds motivation and meaning for your customers and employees, making your company the one that people want to buy from and work for. In this article, you’ll discover the five most important factors you need to create your purpose-driven strategy to stand out as a company, to attract employees and customers without competing on price.

According to a recent report by Accenture, companies can outperform their industry 6.5X if they organise their whole business around the delivery of exceptional experiences.

The experience that any employee, customer, shareholder or stakeholder has with your company determines what they think about you. That perception guides their behaviour towards your company – including whether they choose to work for you, buy from you, recommend you or buy your shares.

One unsurprising finding is that employers’ expectations and their employees’ reality often have a “sizable gap” between them. In other words, employers are not focusing on what matters most to employees. For instance, on-the-job learning was ranked 13th for employees, whilst employers ranked it second in terms of what they think employees valued most.

Many organisations make the mistake of making marginalising their employee experience (EX) strategy as an HR-specific initiative, disconnecting it from the company strategy. But employee experience is the foundation of company culture…and therefore attraction, retention, and performance of people.