Budget Week Reminder: Strategy First, Spending Second

This week, all eyes are on the numbers.

As the Government prepares to announce the national budget, it’s a timely reminder for business leaders—large and small—that the discipline of budgeting only makes sense if you first know what you’re trying to achieve. A budget is not a vision. And it’s certainly not a strategy.

It’s a tool.

The challenge governments face is the same one facing many businesses: every line item has a constituency. Defence or education? Infrastructure or mental health? Climate adaptation or economic productivity? The answer, unfortunately, is always “yes.” But “yes” without alignment is how we end up with ballooning costs and underwhelming results.

Everything costs. So what counts?

In business—as in government—trying to make everyone happy leads to incoherence. You end up managing money instead of managing progress. That’s why purpose, when used properly, is a vital financial management tool.

As Larry Fink, CEO of BlackRock, reminded shareholders: “Purpose is not the sole pursuit of profits but the animating force for achieving them.” When purpose is clearly articulated and embedded, it helps leaders make tough calls—not based on popularity or proximity, but on alignment.

The Single Organizing Idea (SOI®) was created precisely for this reason. It brings strategy, operations, governance, and brand into alignment around a central, practical expression of purpose. That alignment allows leaders to allocate resources with confidence. Not because everything is easy—but because everything is intentional.

If it’s not aligned, why fund it?

In our work with clients, we often find that 15–25% of internal expenditure—marketing budgets, ESG reporting, even product innovation—is misaligned with the business’s real direction of travel. Not maliciously. Just habitually. Without a unifying idea to challenge assumptions, budgets become backwards-looking. They reward inertia, not intention.
That’s why investment in strategy isn’t a one-off exercise. It’s a system. Like the public purse, your business needs an active feedback loop between ambition, allocation and accountability.

This is where the SOI methodology offers more than purpose rhetoric. It offers a practical governance structure. It ensures your purpose is not only visible but viable. It helps boards and executive teams ask the right questions: Does this decision advance our SOI? If not, why are we funding it?

Purpose is not a luxury—it’s the lens

Some might argue that in tight times, purpose must take a backseat. But as McKinsey has repeatedly shown, companies that integrate purpose into their core operations see stronger financial resilience and long-term returns. In fact, their recent global survey found that “companies with a strong sense of purpose outperform the market by 5–7% annually.”

In uncertain times, the best investment any business can make is in clarity. Clarity of vision. Clarity of governance. Clarity of spend.

Governments might struggle to balance the books—because everything and everyone needs something. But your business doesn’t have to. You get to choose. And if you have a Single Organizing Idea that guides those choices, you won’t just survive budget week—you’ll thrive beyond it.

So here’s the question: what’s your SOI? And is your budget aligned with it?