Tap water must be safe, reliable and high-quality. The purpose of the Drinking Water Inspectorate (DWI) is to ensure that public water supplies in England and Wales meets those standards.

Delivering on that purpose has required solving a set of complex interrelated challenges, and developing a new approach to regulation.

Marcus Rink, Chief Inspector at the DWI, describes the journey on this episode of The Purposeful Strategist.

Cambridge Building Society turns a branch refurbishment programme into an opportunity to provide practical help for struggling first-time home buyers.

CEO Peter Burrows tells the story, and explains why purpose is like “the force” in Star Wars, on this episode of The Purposeful Strategist.

Purpose can unlock the potential of Artificial Intelligence coupled with the Internet of Things, to help businesses reach their sustainability goals.

That’s according to Dr Elisabetta Castiglioni, CEO of A1 Digital, the European technology services provider. A1 helps companies globally to translate digital potential into business results.

Learn how the belief in digitisation as a force for good powers her organisation’s purpose, in this episode of The Purposeful Strategist.

How can you cut the high re-offending rate among UK ex-prisoners? Max Dubiel decided that the answer is coffee.

Max co-founded Redemption Roasters and opened an industrial-scale coffee roastery and barista training academy inside the UK prison system. Then he and his business partner set up a chain of retail coffee shops across London.

Learn how he did it on this episode of The Purposeful Strategist.

Once your business has discovered its purpose, it’s tempting to launch it with great fanfare and a three-month communications campaign. But some corporate cultures, particularly those that are analytical and problem-solving, will reject that approach.

What happens to your purpose when the people who buy your product or service are not the people who use it?

Joel Ratnasothy, Managing Director of Interneuron, founded the business to “to provide the health record for every citizen in every country.” The company, now part of Answer Digital, provides professionally managed open-source software as a service to the healthcare sector.

Managing through the unintended consequences of Procurement is just one of the challenges the company faces as it strives to deliver its purpose. Learn how they deal with it on this episode of The Purposeful Strategist.

Sustainable companies deliver better returns on investment and lower risk than extractive businesses. And Paul Herman, founder and CEO of HIP Investor, has almost 20 years of data to prove it.

HIP Investor uses a proprietary zero-to-100-point system (the HIP Index) to measure which companies are more sustainable or impactful and which are more extractive. After 18 years of using the index to advise investors, the results show that it pays to invest in purpose.

Purpose can help solve a common dilemma in professional services firms: how to reconcile the freedom that their professionals and practice areas need to be successful, with the consistency needed to build a meaningful brand.

Sarah Walker-Smith, CEO of law firm Shakespeare Martineau and its parent group Ampa, uses purpose to connect and manage the individual brands owned by the group. In the five years since Shakespeare Martineau first clarified its purpose, the firm has almost doubled in size.

Learn how she does it on the latest episode of The Purposeful Strategist.