In 2014, a group of six entrepreneurs met together with a vision to revolutionize IT services. Simplus, as we called ourselves, would help companies simplify problems and enhance productivity with platform solutions like Salesforce. We created our guiding values–critical thinking, stewardship, and an “underdog” spirit. And we agreed to focus on a niche market offering, which we later decided was improving “CPQ,” or the “configure, price, quote” portion of the sales cycle. 

Fast forward to 2020. In six years, Simplus has grown from 0 to 600 employees, acquired seven companies in four regions of the globe, and become the #1 Salesforce partner by rating and customer satisfaction. In February 2020, we were acquired by global IT giant Infosys. And we now have plans to take our company from a $320M practice to a billion-dollar operation in the next few years. 

My colleagues ask, “How has Simplus achieved these huge milestones? What is the secret sauce to growing quickly in such a short time?” The answer is always the same: our company’s caring culture. 

Meaningful, authentic company culture lies beyond ping pong tables and unlimited snacks. Instead, a company culture focused on core values that are reinforced by an aligned leadership team and a clear vision throughout the company will help you achieve better business performance, employee engagement, and agility. Let’s take a look at how company culture affects each of these areas. 

Business performance

There’s a strong connection between effective work culture and successful financial performance. Nearly 80 percent of surveyed CEO and CFO respondents in a study by the Fuqua School of Business at Duke University cite culture as one of the top five things making their companies valuable. 

Many business leaders understand this correlation intuitively. But not as many leaders take the time to execute definitive steps to improve the employee experience. And they should. “It shouldn’t come as a surprise that companies with healthy and well-realized cultures tend to innovate better and more often than companies that do not,” said Forbes contributor and entrepreneur William Craig. 

At Simplus, our business growth is directly correlated with our culture. We attribute our 150% year-over-year growth from inception to acquisition directly to…

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