The existential question every business must ask: Why do we exist, and what is our shared purpose?

By:
Ankush Malhotra
President at Fluke Reliability

It should come as no surprise that at Fluke, gathering data—measurement—is in our DNA. But perhaps the most critical data we collect is about ourselves. What do we stand for? Why do we do what we do?

I am privileged to lead the Fluke Reliability organization within Fluke Corporation. Our brands include Fluke Connect, Prüftechnik, and eMaint, and our team is spread across the globe, from Europe to Asia and North America.

With the team coming from all those different perspectives, I had to ask: What unites us? Are we connected to a broader vision, and how do we as a business make an impact in the world? We needed a North Star, a shared purpose that crystalized the advantages of our combined organization and helped us stay focused and true to our goals and ambitions.

So, we got to work.

Defining a shared purpose isn’t about putting together a few words that catch everyone’s attention.  You’re not just making up something that sounds good.  A shared purpose is an indelible mark that communicates your reason for being. It has to come from all of the employees as a collective, to speak to what we do every day and why.

Being Fluke, that meant collecting data. Voice of the employee data.

Following the advice of Jim Collins, the famed author and teacher of leadership and growth, we asked our employees why they felt their work was important. What are the deeper reasons for us to exist beyond just making money? What are the ideological motivations?

When we take time to define our purpose, our reason for existing, we develop something bigger than any one person and much more powerful than driving revenue. Making money isn’t a purpose; it’s the result and goal of business.

Our Shared Purpose at Fluke Reliability is –
We simplify connected reliability solutions for the people who keep the world up and running.

Every time I read that statement, it gives me a boost of energy.

We simplify connected reliability solutions for the people who keep the world up and running.

Simplify: Our solutions are easy to use, intuitive, and designed with the end user’s pain points in mind. We democratize workflows and make it simpler to get insights so that customers can do their best work.

Connected Reliability Solutions: Our goal is to help customers navigate the digital transformation required for the IIoT with a broad selection of asset management solutions designed to grow and adapt with them on their reliability journey. We offer reliability and maintenance teams the tools, software, and services to optimize asset performance.

For the people: Our solutions are focused on our customers’ processes and critical machines to enable them to run efficiently, reliably, safely, and smoothly.

Who keep the world up and running: We help make the world better by keeping essential machines operating efficiently while helping our customers build better businesses. Our solutions help teams increase machine longevity, avoid unplanned downtime, improve safety and reach their productivity goals.

The effort of creating a shared purpose statement solidified our direction. We now see ourselves as a solution provider and less of an individual product provider. We’ve been engineering connected tools for over a decade, while at the same time, our customers have become more digitalized. Everyone now demands connected solutions. Furthermore, a business like ours must operate as part of a larger partnership ecosystem. Some problems take an entire village to solve.

Our Shared Purpose unifies Fluke Reliability Solutions—Fluke, Prüftechnik, eMaint—as one. It gives us a sense of identity and is a unifying force for good. It gives meaning to why we do what we do and how our extraordinary teams get it done. It tells customers why they should trust us.

We are building a great business, where we as employees enjoy our work and feel engaged, and where we know we are creating value for our customers and solving difficult problems—including problems that haven’t even been recognized yet. We are making a difference to the world.