Diversity Works for London?
Diversity is the differences we all have and what makes us all unique in one way or another.
We differ in terms of ethnicity, gender, culture, national or regional origins, socio economic status, religion and political views, marital status, disability and sexual orientation.
Respecting individual differences leads to an increased prod-activity and creates and increases the marketing opportunity; broaden our horizons as well as increasing adaptability and flexibility for the overall society.
On the other hand if diversity is not handled correctly it can cause tensions between people within organisations and hence have negative impact on the business and almost likely to result in poor performance.
In today’s Internet age organisations cannot create a false image of themselves and on how caring they are to staff. Disgruntled and badly treated staff will inform the whole world about the organisation real treatment to staff on internet sites which will have articles and even films describing what goes on in an organisation.
We must acknowledge, understand these differences, accept them and celebrate all these differences amongst people and staff.
We should understand the various cultures that exist in the UK today and perhaps see them as an opportunity to target an important niche in a caring yet innovative way.
We must understand that cultures do not remain static; they evolve over time and are influenced by exposure to others from around the globe. Whenever different communities come together things happen and the wheel of change starts moving.
How did Diversity change Britain?
The disposable income of the multicultural communities in the UK are in excess of £90 billion pounds and to tap into these diverse groups companies and organisations must make an effort to understand the diverse cultures and lifestyles.
Major developments have happened in the UK in the past 15 years which had influenced our eating habits, furnishing, fashion to name but a few.
Most of the UK’s music icons and sport stars tend to come from a variety of diverse backgrounds.
The Bollywood film industry is grossing huge amount of money with more multiplexes devoting more of their cinema showing Bollywood films (research shows that Asians are 5 times more likely to visit cinemas and see Indian movies than the mainstream.
Our eating habits have changed beyond recognition as we now eat different foods everyday such as Indian, Chinese, and Italian & Lebanese. The ready to eat ethnic food market is growing at a phenomenon pace with sales in excess of £3 Billion pounds.
The restaurant sector has its major share of success with more than 100,000 restaurants in the UK owned by ethnic people taking in excess of £14 Billion pounds.
So lets talk about ethnicity
The ethnic population in the UK currently exceeds the entire population of Scotland and it is anticipated that by 2012 the population size will exceed the entire population of both Scotland & Wales.
The majority of Londoners in 2012 will be of an ethnic background (51%).
In organisations people make the difference and each person is unique and part of the team, we must enjoy and encourage the understanding of different people to evolve a work culture based on mutual appreciation.
The buying patterns of the ethnic communities differ from that of the mainstream as ethnic and multicultural groups buy in bulk and in large sizes and hence the purchasing power of an ethnic family on foods can be as much as double that of a mainstream English family. This has led a number of supermarket chains to stock ethnic foods and the difference is clear as the shelves are stocked with large sizes.
These changes are bound to affect the way we market to these groups and communities in the future as the traditional marketing methods are no longer valid and can result to huge wastage of client’s precious budgets.
Targeting niche markets and audience clusters are bound to result in effective result driven marketing and will lead to a bigger slice of the market share for dynamic and leading brands.
