Why bother with inclusion efforts? Isn’t it easier to stick to one’s own? Whatever way you want to slice and dice people, whether by city, country, society, or just a small group, it will function better if those in the group are familiar with one another, understand one another, and are comfortable around one another. This is true. But this doesn’t mean that the level of comfort and familiarity necessary to make that group tick can’t be reached if its members are from different cultural backgrounds.

Cogency Group’s Targeted Inclusion™ process promises to help organizations overcome barriers that prevent them from committing to diversity. This isn’t as easy as one may think. “Let’s hire minorities and women” isn’t an approach that goes far enough. A cursory glance at history or this evening’s news will make plain the challenges faced when different groups of people are made to deal with one another.

Many companies and organizations are beginning to realize that shifts in racial and cultural demographics are changing traditional markets and creating new ones all together. The potential buying power these new markets yield should not be ignored, especially when here in the United States Asians, African-Americans, Latinos, and Native Americans collectively represent well over $1 trillion annually in consumer spending.(1) Latinos are the fastest growing ethnic group, today representing the largest minority in the U.S. It is estimated that by 2050, Latinos will make up 25% of the population.

Shifting racial and cultural demographics are not only a North American phenomenon. Next year, it is predicted that in the United Kingdom, only 20% of the workforce will be made up of white able bodied men under the age of 45. Persons from minority ethnic groups will account for half of the U.K. working age population growth over the next ten years.(2) Worldwide, societies as we know them are changing dramatically. Organizations that fail to recognize the need to make adjustments in terms of client and employee focus in the face of diversifying markets will be left behind.