Diversity in business is often what drives growth in modern climes, and studies have shown that companies with diverse teams experience more revenue influx. Thus, businesses and entrepreneurs that fail to incorporate diversity in different facets of their business will find it hard to evolve or record optimal success.
To many, diversity relates to race, ethnic background, and sexual orientation — but this is not always the case. This article will help you have a broader understanding of what diversity and inclusion in business means and suggest why entrepreneurs need it.
A diversity network in business is an organization or association that brings entrepreneurs, business leaders, and business peers together to learn, improve, and attain transformational growth. Diversity in its entirety refers to every parameter that establishes people's unique traits, strengths, and weaknesses.
While race, color, and gender often top the chart, renowned diversity networks have gone the extra mile to promote industry diversity, ensuring that they embrace professionals and entrepreneurs from all walks of life under one umbrella.
In the same vein, such networks have people of different skill sets, backgrounds, and connections that would benefit one or more people in the group. Essentially, a diversity network in business preaches the mantra of “being different makes you valuable.” EO Boston, for example, is a dynamic group of like-minded but diverse business owners who lean on each other for support, experience, and advice for business and professional growth.
The heart and soul of this diverse peer entrepreneur network are its forums, through which its members can learn and gather life and business experience from peers and experts in diverse fields. These forums allow members access to one-of-a-kind learning opportunities, breakthroughs, and the possibility of establishing long-term business relationships and friendships. Through this diversity in business, entrepreneurs can set their businesses up for growth.
Here are some factors that make diversity and inclusion in business necessary:
Diverse Businesses See Better Results
Entrepreneurs who prioritize diversity and inclusion in business tend to see better results than their counterparts. Research shows that businesses with a diverse workforce, whether on gender or ethnic fronts, experience a higher profitability percentage than others.
The reason for this projection is not far-fetched, as when employees come from diverse backgrounds, they bring fresh ideas and knowledge from their varying lived experiences to the table. Diversity in business tends to broaden perspectives, reflecting in the business’ growth.
Competitive Advantage
Diversity extends to hiring staff that cut across different generational workforces. Are you asking, what is an example of diversity in entrepreneurship? Here is an example: consider that the current global workforce consists of at least four generations—Baby Boomers, Millennials, and Generations X & Z.
This diversity benefits entrepreneurs and their businesses more, giving them a competitive advantage. In addition, each representative of these generations brings different perspectives and problem-solving techniques unique to their age to the decision table.
Then, there is the avenue for cross-generational and peer mentorship, similar to what entrepreneurs get with EO Boston.
Better Understanding of Customer Base
Diversity in business helps entrepreneurs to understand their existing and potential customer base better. One can expect potential buyers to come from different genders, races, sexualities, and more.
By incorporating diversity and inclusion in business, entrepreneurs are better positioned to satisfy the needs of a wider audience instead of limiting themselves to one category of buyers. Thus, diversity can create never-seen-before market opportunities for businesses and catapult these businesses to global success.
Diversity Aids Innovation
Without diversity, entrepreneurs can’t innovate their way to success, and thus, they may become irrelevant to their target audience. To better understand the community one wishes to serve, it is crucial to have a diverse decision-making team that can present missing perspectives and the pain points of these audience categories.
Combining these diverse ideas can lead to innovation that an entrepreneur or a group of similar employees can’t think of on their own. So, the more diverse and inclusive a business is, the higher the chances of getting more creative ideas and business solutions.
How to Leverage Diversity Networks in Business
As an entrepreneur looking to grow a profitable business, joining a diverse business network like EO Boston is the best way to learn how to incorporate diversity. Beyond finding more practical answers to “What is the role of diversity in entrepreneurship,” you will get first-hand experience of how it transforms businesses.
Here, you can connect with peers and successful industry leaders to learn the secrets of business success. Full membership slots are open to businesses making up to $1 million in yearly revenue, but there is an accelerator program for growing entrepreneurs to join.
This way, the organization keeps its promise of exclusivity and ensures that entrepreneurs network only with the best. Click here to check if you qualify for membership.