Every organisation can move fast – if they choose to, or have to. Most have access to the same or similar technology. So why do some transformation programmes produce lasting results while others fade as soon as the next priority lands? The difference, consistently, is purpose. Not a mission statement on a wall, but a clear, felt understanding of why change matters and who it serves. 

Tracey Jessup, our latest guest in Concentrix’s The Experience Equation vodcast series, has led change in two of the most complex environments imaginable – the UK Parliament and higher education. Her view is direct: “It shouldn’t be digital for digital’s sake. It should be because it fits the purpose of what people need and what they want.” 

That principle held when she was steering Parliament through Covid-19, and it holds now as she drives transformation at De Montfort University. Purpose is the common thread. 

When the “why” is clear, the “how” follows 

In March 2020, the House of Commons faced an extraordinary constraint. A chamber built for face-to-face debate could safely hold 40 people instead of 650. The democratic requirement was non-negotiable: MPs had to be able to hold the Government account. Within four weeks, Jessup’s team had built and deployed a secure electronic voting app, approved by the National Cyber Security Centre and used by every sitting member. 

Before the pandemic, electronic voting had been dismissed as impossible. Not technically, but culturally. “I had politicians tell me that electronic voting wasn’t possible in the UK Parliament, that it literally wasn’t possible,” Jessup recalls. “And obviously I knew that it actually was possible.” What changed wasn’t the technology. It was the purpose. When the reason became undeniable, years of institutional resistance collapsed in days. 

This echoes something we heard from another guest earlier in The Experience Equation series. Helen Ashton made the point that the organisations that stay ahead are those that “listen and adapt really quickly” and that being “a bit ahead of the game” is the only alternative to perpetual catch up. Purpose gives that urgency direction. Without it, speed is just an activity. 

Purpose survives where plans don’t 

Jessup is candid about the reality of change: “change isn’t linear, and progress isn’t linear.” Parliament’s voting system is a good example. During Covid-19, MPs could vote from anywhere in the UK. Afterwards, the system was deliberately pulled back. Members now vote in person by tapping a card rather than walking through a lobby and saying their name. The net position is vastly ahead of where they started, but the path there was not a straight line. 

This matters for any leader running a transformation programme. The temptation is to treat change as a project with a defined end point. The reality, as Jessup describes it, is more organic. Things move forward, then adjust, then settle at a new level that is better than before even if it isn’t where the original plan said you would be. 

What keeps the organisation moving in broadly the right direction through all of that is clarity of purpose. Not the plan, which will change. Not the technology, which is just a tool. The purpose: why does this matter and, who benefits? 

Peter Goggin made a similar point from a commercial lens in an earlier episode. His test for any initiative is blunt: “Does this improve the customer’s experience with our brand? And if it doesn’t, why are we doing it?” That question works because it is a purpose filter. It cuts through politics, pet projects and shiny technology. If the answer is unclear, the initiative probably shouldn’t be funded.  

The perfect storm is also the perfect catalyst 

Jessup talked about a particular challenge at De Montfort University, which is a case study in purpose driven change. The higher education sector is in what she calls “turbulence.” Student expectations have shifted. Funding is under pressure. Admissions are declining. The operating model that served universities for hundreds of years is under strain. 

“You can’t just make incremental change,” she says. “You actually have to relook at what is the model that we’re going to use. How are we going to do this? Because we need to do some things differently.” 

That kind of rethinking only happens when the purpose is felt across the organisation. As Jessup points out, today’s 18-year-olds were four when the iPhone launched. Their expectation of what a service should feel like bears no resemblance to what many institutions currently offer. The gap between what students expect and what universities deliver is itself a statement of purpose: close it, or become irrelevant. 

Jessup’s response has been to focus on the levers that matter. She has people, process and technology all reporting into her role, and the ambition is clear: a first ever digital strategy, modernised processes and a transformed experience for students and staff. But she is clear that you have to “meet the sector where it is, rather than constantly thinking, “I wish you were more like where I used to be.” 

That’s a lesson in purpose applied with humility. It isn’t about importing a playbook from another industry. It’s about understanding the specific context, respecting what works and focusing change on the gaps that matter most to the people you serve. 

Purpose crosses sectors 

One of the strongest themes across this series is that the fundamentals of experience transfer across industries, even when the context looks completely different. Jessup experienced this first hand early in her career through a two week placement at Tesco. “I could have gone into that thinking, well, why am I going to Tesco? What possible correlation could there be?” she says. “But fundamentally, there was huge correlation. There was huge commitment to developing their people. There was real desire to understand what customers needed.” 

The language might be different. The stakeholders certainly are. But the core purpose, what Jessup characterises as “seamlessness for your end user, things just working really well,” is universal. Whether you serve MPs, students, shoppers or passengers, the test is the same – does this work well for the person it’s meant to serve? 

A future guest in the series made a similar point from a brand perspective in the series: every function plays a role in delivering the promise, not just the teams closest to the customer. Peter Collyer put it in people terms, when colleagues feel valued and understand their impact, the experience follows naturally. The common thread is purpose. When everyone knows why they are doing what they are doing and who it is for, alignment happens without needing to be engineered. 

Purpose also means inclusion 

One aspect of Jessup’s perspective that distinguishes it from a purely commercial lens is her focus on access and inclusion. The Parliament Print to Web project, which she describes as a defining moment, started as a cost saving exercise during austerity. Parliament was printing 650 copies of every document daily when only a handful were taken. Moving that information to the web saved roughly six million pounds a year. 

But the outcome that nobody had planned for was more significant: citizens could access parliamentary information freely for the first time. “If you as a citizen had waanted to have that particular paper, you would have had to go to a bookshop or write out a chit and pay money to have it sent to you,” Jessup explains. Putting it online “undoubtedly opened a door in a way that it hadn’t been opened before.” 

At De Montfort, inclusion remains central. Hundreds of students use the university’s laptop loan system every day, either because they don’t own one or because they don’t want to risk their most precious item on the commute. Designing for the user means designing for all users, including those who face barriers that others don’t. 

For commercial leaders, the parallel is direct. Purpose that extends beyond the core customer to include accessibility, ease of use and fairness builds trust that is hard to replicate. It also tends to simplify things. When you design for the user who has the most constraints, the experience usually improves for everyone. 

What senior leaders should take from this 

If Element 1 and Element 2 of the series are about the speed and tools of change, Element 3 is about its foundation. A few principles worth embedding: 

• Make the purpose test explicit. Before funding any initiative, answer two questions: who benefits and how will they know? If the answers are unclear, the initiative isn’t ready. 
• Expect non-linear progress. Plans will change. What matters is that every adjustment still points towards the same purpose. Measure direction, not just milestones. 
• Meet your organisation where it is. Don’t import a playbook from another sector or company. Understand the specific context, work with the culture you have and focus change on the gaps that matter most to the people you serve. 
• Include the edges. The users with the hardest constraints often reveal the biggest design flaws. Solving for them improves the experience for everyone. 
• Use pressure as a catalyst, not an excuse. Financial squeeze and rising expectations are uncomfortable, but they are also the conditions that unlock genuine rethinking. Don’t waste a burning platform on incremental fixes. 
• Purpose isn’t a soft concept. It’s the filter that tells you what to fund, what to stop,, and how to keep people moving in the same direction when plans inevitably shift. Without it, agility becomes noise and technology becomes overhead. 

Or, as Jessup puts it simply: “it should be because it fits the purpose of what people need and what they want.” The organisations that hold on to that through the turbulence are the ones that stay ahead. 

If you’d like to explore how Concentrix helps organisations turn strategy into better experiences, get in touch.