Improving Competitive Advantage Through Diversity (Part I – Diversification)

This is the first of a four part series on how your organization—whether for profit, nonprofit, or educational—can enhance its competitive positioning and capitalize on diversity through corporate strategy, innovation, social responsibility, and diversification.

One way to demonstrate the value of diversity to your organization is to consider the prospect of diversification, and what it would mean to your organization in terms of becoming an employer of choice and winning new customers. Diversification is an advanced form of diversity. Once you get past the fact that diversity is more than black and white, you can use it to create a new profit center through diversification.

Diversification is a form of growth marketing. It increases profitability and volume by penetrating markets previously un-served or underserved.

Diversification strategies can be applied to every industry. And it can even be applied to your own individual skill sets. For example, if you are an HR professional, diversifying your skill set may mean that you enhance your technical abilities in finance.

In business, a U.S. based company may consider expanding internationally. Or if 95% of your company’s customer demographics indicate you primarily serve clients in the South, you may want to consider expanding to the East Coast through an acquisition. Or you may want to focus on a “Green” customer demographic. Similarly in higher education, if your institution serves traditional students, you may want to consider serving stay-at-home moms and offering classes over the internet. Likewise for nonprofits, if contributions come primarily through grants, you may want to consider hosting more events, adding fee-based services or expanding your individual donor base.

Feel free to share your diversification efforts, and tell us how valuing diversity helped your organization successfully make the transition. An entire Guide to “Improving Competitive Advantage Through Diversity” is available at www.societyfordiversity.org.