Why culture strategy: driving business transformation and growth through organizational culture.
Publications
WHY CULTURE STRATEGY
Driving business transformation and growth through organizational culture.
For executives, aligning culture with strategy isn’t just a matter of defining values and posting them on the wall – it’s about deliberately shaping the operating system behind how your company makes decisions, executes strategy, and adapts to change.
No longer just a matter for HR to deal with, culture has become a boardroom issue. In a recent Integration study of 100 business leaders, 85% said culture is among their company’s top-three priorities. Yet many still underestimate how pivotal culture is for bringing strategy to life – or struggle to turn cultural aspirations into daily business reality.
Even organizations that value culture often hit roadblocks: it’s easily deprioritized amid operational pressure, cultural inconsistencies show up across the employee experience, and efforts lose momentum without clear ownership paired with reinforcement mechanisms.
In this report, we present 5 essential pillars for accelerating business strategy through culture, illustrated with real-life examples from companies supported by Integration:
Understanding culture as a strategic lever
Many companies treat culture as an intangible concept or internal artifact. But in reality, culture is the operating system behind how your company makes decisions, executes strategy, and adapts to change. It’s the underlying “how,” “why,” and “what for” that set behaviors and approaches across every level of the organization – which need to be constantly nurtured and adjusted when needed.
There’s no such thing as a right or wrong culture: it’s about consciously defining which culture is most suitable to the business at hand – for its strategic goals, values and essence. Organizational culture can be shaped to support the business strategy and transformation, calling on executives to pay close attention to whether the prevailing “personality” is advancing the strategy or perhaps hindering it.
Take culture from theory to practice
Through our work across 3,630+ projects and engagement with 500+ CEOs annually, we’ve found that while nearly 9 out of 10 executives recognize the importance of developing and aligning their organizational culture, many get lost when tasked with translating the theory behind culture into reality. Nearly half of executives we surveyed admit that their organizations lack specific tools to measure culture, while a third lack supporting rituals.
Download the full report to access our Cultural Transformation Disruption Matrix, the Cultural Redefinition Cycle, practical instruments for embedding culture into day-to-day operations, and real case examples from M&As, industry transformations, and strategic pivots.
FIND OUT MORE BY READING THE FULL REPORT
TALK TO US
André Farat
André Farat is a senior manager at Integration’s Professional Enhancement Center. Part of the company since 2013, André specializes in organizational & cultural transformations, post-merger integration, change management, organizational structures, leadership development and go-to-market implementation. He holds a degree in production engineering from the Federal University of São Carlos and a degree in psychology from [...]
Andrea Aun
Andrea Aun is a founding partner at Integration and is recognized as an important female leader among Brazilian executives, participating in the LIDEM (Group of Leading Entrepreneurial Women) Executive Committee. She is an expert within the field of Marketing & Sales and Retail and has led over 100 projects in these areas. She continues to [...]
Constanza Alves
Constanza Alves is a senior manager within Integration´s Implementation and Leadership & Organization Practices and has been working in the company since 2013. Her experience includes Change Management, Culture Transformation, PMO, Process Redesign, S&OP, PMI and Logistic Networks in sectors such as Retail, Consumer Goods, Healthcare, Technology and Industrials (Paper, Oil and Gas, Construction materials).
Gauss Antar
Gauss Antar is a senior manager in the Finance & Management Practice at Integration, where he has been working since 2015. His main areas of expertise include go-to-market management, post-merger integration and market-entry projects in retail, industry and education. Gauss received a degree in economics from INSPER, including international experience at Queen's University in Canada [...]
Guido Solari
Guido Solari is a partner at Integration and the head of our LATAM offices. Guido joined the company in 2006 and is part of the Marketing & Sales Practice. He has carried out over 250 projects across Latin America, North America and Europe, serving clients in the areas of mass consumer goods, agribusiness, pharmaceuticals, media [...]
Jéssica Pavão
Jéssica Pavão is a senior manager in Integration's Finance & Management Practice and has been with the company since 2016. During her career, Jéssica has focused on leadership & organization as well as change management projects in the retail and consumer goods sectors – including post-merger integrations, organizational structure implementation, recruitment & professional development program [...]
Marília José
Marília José is a Sr Director at Integration and has been with the firm since 2014. With expertise in Supply Chain and Finance & Management, she specializes in S&OP, retail supply chain, efficiency and cost reduction, and transformation projects. Her experience spans post-merger integration, strategic planning, organizational model development and process design, across the retail, [...]
Rodrigo Seabra
Rodrigo Seabra is the partner at our Office in Munich. He joined Integration in 2006 in Brazil and led the Mexico Office, before taking on responsibility of the Munich Office. Rodrigo is part of our Implementation Practice, has amassed international experience in industries such as consumer goods, retail, food & beverage, pharmaceutical and healthcare and [...]
- On 29 January 2026
