Improving your competitive edge
As a business owner, I’m always on the hunt for ways to be more competitive by improving my bottom line, delighting my customers, and staying abreast of developing trends. One of the sure fire ways to do all of these is in cultivating a diverse workplace. Being someone who generally appreciates culture, I initially thought diversity would only improve creativity or innovation. Now, I have come to learn that diversity has positive implications throughout many aspects of a company.
Diversity in hiring
If workplace diversity is your goal, unfair hiring practices and their resulting lawsuits are immediately reduced. Seeking diversity also ensures that your applicant pool is not only broadened, but deepened as you accept candidates with various backgrounds.
Sales and diversity
The “American Sociological Review” published a study in 2009 which stated that the workplaces that have diversity among employees brought in 15 times more in sales revenue than companies with the lowest levels of racial diversity. As we shift from a pure B2B (business-to-business) selling model to a P2P (person-to-person) model, it would make sense that a diverse team could solicit and win more business from diverse clientele.
Diversity’s impact on productivity
Oddly enough, as employees are encouraged to understand cultural differences, conflict is less likely to arise. As a result, managers and the leadership can focus on more pressing issues. When each team member feels valued for their unique contribution, instead of in-fighting, team members will perform had a higher level.
Your company’s image
With increased diversity, your company image improves. This goes without saying (unless your market is of the xenophobic variety). Most people choose to purchase goods or services for only a couple of reasons. The first, brand loyalty. The second, how the brand makes them feel. Studies have shown that image affects a consumer’s desire to purchase second only after brand loyalty.
General advantages
These other advantages fall into one of the aforementioned categories but are still worth mentioning:
- Increased market share
- Increased creativity
- Increased customer understanding
- Increased source for product/service offerings
- Reduced employee turn-over rates
Monica Moffitt, founder and Principal Cultural Consultant at Tianfen Consulting, Inc., has traveled the world and enjoys linguistics and all things culture. Having split her career between project management and business analytics, Monica merges logic, fluency in Chinese and creativity in her new role as cultural consultant. She received a Bachelor of Arts in East Asian Studies/Chinese from Vanderbilt University and a Master of Business Administration (International Management and Marketing) from University of Texas at Dallas.
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