Diversity Executive - September 2008 - (Page 21)

$845 60 billion The buying power of African-American consumers in 2007. Percentage of U.S. and European university graduates who are women. Source: Selig Center for Economic Growth, University of Georgia and Chronicle of Higher Education. 307 Percentage increase in Hispanic buying power between 1990 and 2007. for more than half of the total U.S. population by 2042. And their economic buying power will continue to grow. According to studies conducted by the Selig Center for Economic Growth at the University of Georgia, the combined buying power of African-Americans, Asians and American Indians was $1.4 trillion in 2007, nearly triple the 1990 level. The buying power of Hispanic consumers alone was $862 billion in 2007 and is projected to hit $1.2 trillion in 2012. At IBM, Childs said he watched revenue from women and minority customers grow from $200 million in 2002 to more than $800 million in 2006. As the U.S. population base shifts, organizations will need to adapt to compete for customers, but also for workforce talent. The leaders of the business of tomorrow will see a distinctly different workforce with its own set of competencies and challenges. “The makeup of the talent pool and the marketplace is not going to be what their parents dealt with,” Childs said. Globalization has added extra emphasis to the need for diversity and inclusion. Increasingly, organizations work across national boundaries, cultures and time zones, and the skills and competencies required will need to follow. “It’s become much more important for us to shore up the skills of our leaders around how do you manage across differences — cultural differences, location differences — [and] how do you manage a team virtually?” said Baker. “We’ve really made a very clear stance that having difference at the On the Web Selig Center for Economic Studies “The Multicultural Economy 2007” www.selig.uga.edu table is the right thing to do to drive great innovation for us as we look out onto the changing face of our marketplace.” The bottom-line evidence of successful, integrated diversity and inclusion practices is mounting. Whiting recalls how Microsoft asked several engineers to test a game controller for a new video-game system the company planned to launch in Japan. The engineers, all knowledgeable about Japanese gaming, found the handheld device too large and clunky for the Japanese market. The company retooled the controller to ensure a successful launch. Whiting recalls another experience during her time at global chemical company DuPont. The company was marketing a drug prescribed to prevent heart attacks, strokes and blood clots and not making inroads with the Hispanic populations in Florida and Texas. Doctors were reluctant to prescribe it. DuPont hired a marketing executive with experience in the pharmaceutical industry to examine the problem. “She happened to be Hispanic, and it took her a nanosecond to ﬁgure out one of the major reasons the doctors were not prescribing it was that the package insert and the instructions were in English,” Whiting said. “It ended up being millions [of dollars] to the company because they ended up translating it not only into Spanish but into a lot of languages.” While both examples demonstrate the impact of diverse perspectives on the bottom line, it’s harder to point to a tangible business result from inclusion. But inclusion plays out every day in organizations across the country, said Cedric Thurman, senior vice president and chief diversity ofﬁcer for Jones Lang LaSalle, a property and investment management services company. “A person [will] not sit at their desk and do their best work September/October 2008 | www.diversity-executive.com | Diversity Executive 21 http://www.selig.uga.edu http://www.diversity-executive.com

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of Diversity Executive - September 2008

Diversity Executive - September 2008 Editor's Letter Contents Leadership Connections Guest Editorial Diversity Executive Online 2042: A New Business Era Begins The Rules of Attraction Where to Look for Diverse Talent Like Minds Think Great Culture Teams Target Business Opportunities at Luxottica Retail Special Section Rebalancing Gender At ING Americas, the Color of Diversity Is Orange Profile Business Intelligence Case Study Strategies Advertisers' Index Editorial Resources

Diversity Executive - September 2008

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