Diversity - A Business Case

I attended an event organised by the Indian Institute of Management ( IIM )alumni. There are about 500 members working in Singapore, making it probably the largest congregation of IIM alumni outside India and USA. The keynote speech focussed on the topic of "Diversity".

Globalisation brings about a marketplace of participants of diverse backgrounds. It is increasingly common to discover, that goods which brands we tend to associate with a particular culture and or locality, that their origins can be traced to far flung places e.g. Nike makes shoes from factories in Tengarrang, Indonesia, or Guangzhou, China targeted at shoppers at the Third Street of Santa Monica, California, USA. A CRM package is configured by System Implementers from Bangalore, India for a Japanese-led consortium investing in the US. Hence, a business case can be made of a business model whose composition matches closely the makeup of the marketplace it serves is better poised to prosper in that marketplace than one whose constituent is homogenous.

Another part of the business case is how well a business model utilizes its diversity. This is often referred to as inclusion. If a business model is diverse in makeup, but all the key players are of one primary group, diversity may not add much value.

It has been recognised that it will be far too expensive and not feasible to stage-manage this process at a macro level. Interest has to be aligned to make this a possibility, and the business case be well articulated and communicated, so that the benefits are evident to the participants, thereby ensuring the smooth execution of its value proposition. As a minimum, there must be a natural basis for reciprocity as well as an element of "mutual deterence" to achieve the desired outcome i.e. increasing the payoff for the cooperating group.

When this happens, albeit slowly at the intitial stage, and its efficacy is underpinned, can there be a paradigm shift with a more broad based acceptance by the players. Only then can we hit tipping point.

India and Singapore took different routes in the past 40 years in developing their respective economies after gaining independence. India is very much focused on combating poverty, disease etc given its huge population. In a knowledge-based era, this same constraint proves to be the trump card for India to leverage on its skilled workforce to build a world-class franchise evolving around its pool of telented professionals, particularly in the IT sector. Its management graduate program draws on the IT sector to turn computer scientists and engineeers into business managers.

Singapore with its unique brand equity, offers diversity and a conducive environment for these professionals to thrive, and as well as allowing them to plug into the fast growing Asia-Pacific marketplace.

The value proposition to make this partnership a success must be suffciently compelling to overcome inherent biasness so that the fusion of talent in a melting pot could produce a kaleidoscope of exciting and innovative solutions mapping out uncontested marketspace.

For this to thrive, it must be done from the ground up, albeit with the right policies being put in place. The desire to innovate and create must come from individuals who have the passion and the drive to seek and pursue excellence. Now that the first step has beeen taken, we need like-minded counterparts who can appreciate the benefit of collaboration to take advantage of the multitude of changing phases and or events in the marketplace to make this a fun and happening place to work.

Next: What Are The Possibilites?

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