Walking the purpose talk: A series exploring how leaders bring purpose to life by aligning what they do with what they say their organisations stand for.

Products and services

If purpose is real, it ultimately shows up in what an organisation chooses to sell.

Not in its statements, not in its campaigns, but in the products and services it brings to market, the problems it chooses to solve, and the needs it decides are worth meeting. This is where purpose moves from philosophy to consequence. It is also where it becomes most visible, and most exposed.

Many organisations claim to be purpose-driven, yet continue to offer products and services that sit uneasily alongside those claims. The tension is often rationalised. Legacy revenue streams must be protected. Market demand must be met. Transition will take time. All of which may be true. But taken together, they reveal a more fundamental reality — that purpose has not yet been allowed to align and organise the enterprise, and remains siloed in the communications department.

In a genuinely purpose-driven organisation, products and services are not simply commercial outputs. They are expressions of intent. They reflect a clear point of view about the role the organisation chooses to play in the world, and the kind of future those that run it are helping to create.

This has two immediate consequences. The first is focus. Purpose acts as a filter, shaping which opportunities are pursued and which are declined. It forces choices. Not every customer segment is equally attractive. Not every revenue stream is worth retaining. Not every innovation deserves investment. When purpose is working as a Single Organising Idea (SOI), it narrows the field in a way that sharpens both strategy and execution.

The second is innovation. Contrary to a common misconception, purpose does not constrain creativity; it directs it. By defining what matters, it creates a clearer brief for innovation teams. The question shifts from “What can we build?” to “What should we build, given what we stand for?” The result is often a more distinctive, differentiated pipeline of products and services, and one that is harder for competitors to replicate.

Unilever has long provided one of the stronger illustrations of what happens when purpose drives an organisation and is allowed to shape a portfolio rather than simply decorate it. Brands such as Dove, Lifebuoy and Hellmann’s have all been positioned around forms of social or environmental relevance that are directly connected to what they sell, rather than appended to them as a marketing device. Whatever one makes of the detail, the broader strategic intent is clear: Products are being developed not simply to capture demand at Unilever, but to express a broader role in people’s lives and in society, aligned with its core purpose to make sustainable living commonplace.

The opposite dynamic was visible in BP’s infamous Beyond Petroleum era. The branding implied a company in strategic transition towards a cleaner, more responsible energy future, but the underlying business remained overwhelmingly anchored in the same core extractive model. The result was not simply a communications problem, it was a products-and-services problem. The gap between what was being implied and what was actually being sold created a credibility deficit that became impossible to ignore. It remains one of the clearest reminders that purpose cannot be claimed meaningfully if the offer itself tells a different story.

This is where the commercial case for purpose becomes particularly clear and most compelling. Products and services that are aligned with a credible and consistently applied purpose tend to build stronger trust with customers, attract more engaged employees, and create more resilient forms of value. They are less vulnerable to shifts in sentiment because they are grounded in something more enduring than short-term demand. Over time, this can translate into more stable revenue, stronger margins, and a clearer basis for growth.

Of course, none of this suggests that transition is straightforward — it’s not. For many organisations, the current portfolio reflects years, if not decades, of accumulated decisions made under different strategic assumptions. Moving towards a purpose-aligned portfolio requires careful navigation. Some products and services will need to be evolved. Others may need to be retired. New capabilities may need to be developed. But the challenge usually runs deeper than the offer itself. If purpose is to shape what an organisation sells, it must also shape the chain of decisions that sit behind it, such as where materials come from, which suppliers and partners are chosen, what standards are enforced, and what compromises are no longer acceptable. In this sense, product and service alignment is never just a front-end exercise. It reaches back into procurement, operations and governance. Companies such as Nike and IKEA have both, in different ways and with varying degrees of consistency, shown how difficult and necessary that work can be. Once purpose starts to influence decisions across the supply chain, it ceases to be a positioning exercise and starts becoming an operating discipline. Measurement systems aligned with the enterprise’s core purpose, in turn, need to track not only financial performance, but also the broader value being created or eroded through those decisions.

This is where leadership and courage matter. Leaders who see the value of purpose must be willing to confront the gap between what the organisation says it stands for and what it actually sells. They must be prepared to make trade-offs, to explain those trade-offs clearly, and to manage the transition with both discipline and transparency. Perhaps most importantly, they must recognise that credibility is built not through perfection, but through clarity and determination when it comes to the direction of travel.

For leaders prepared to act, particularly where inertia has long held sway, there is a substantial prize to be won. Those who move first do not simply respond to changing expectations, they actually help shape them. As more organisations follow and begin to align their products and services with a clearly defined purpose, markets themselves start to shift. Customer expectations evolve. Competitive dynamics change. What was once considered acceptable becomes questionable. What was once differentiated becomes expected. In this sense, purpose does not simply reshape individual organisations — it reshapes the context in which they operate and often rewards those bold enough to lead in the first instance.

Alignment of products and services is not a peripheral exercise. It is central to the transition towards a more purpose-driven form of business. It is also, in many ways, the most revealing test. Because when all is said and done, an organisation is defined less by what it says than by what it sells.