What should guide a change in our brand purpose?

A clearer brand purpose is a commitment to shape the business around a consistent direction. Achieving that simplicity can mean leaving behind initiatives and decisions that made sense when they began. It may even mean shutting down or selling parts of the business. Before changing the wording, consider which business choices the proposed purpose would require and whether the organisation is prepared to make them. The difficulty lies in choosing what to support and what to stop, rather than finding a simpler description alone. Among employees covered by Anthesis's 2025 purpose research, 61% of respondents say their company's actions do not match its purpose statements.

Bring the relevant people together to explore possible directions before choosing a new purpose statement. The B2B Reinvention framework starts from the view that successful change comes from within: people face the business's most pressing challenges and opportunities by recasting them as a shared question. They then work together to imagine different ways of answering that question and devise tests to inform which possibility fits best. For a purpose decision, use that sequence to keep discussion focused on the direction of the business rather than competing versions of a sentence. Give alternative answers room to develop, then use tests to inform the choice instead of settling immediately on one formulation.