It is always interesting to view the amount of attention which is placed on workplace and cultural diversity in today's global workplace. The reason of course is clear when you consider that companies are in the pursuit of selling their goods and services to any race, creed or colour. If a company is seen to be discriminating against a particular dimension of diversity (this is readily defined as Race, Sex, Skin Colour, Sexual Orientation and the list can go on) then the distinct possibility may come to the fore where that company may be boycotted and lose out on massive revenue generation that may be taken in by the company from a particular group.

When employed in the corporate world I recall vividly going through some of the first diversity training workshops put on by the company. These were all focused around the women versus men working together topic and the relevant issues which arose from that.

As things progressed the voices of individuals from the other many dimensions of diversity started to be heard and; now it is clearly acknowledged that we need to pay attention to employees from all of the dimensions Of diversity in order to craft out effective diversity strategies which lead organizations developing and maintaining a competitive advantage in the marketplace.

Often within organizations the question is asked (by varying sections of the workforce) "why are we bothering with Diversity"? The point being, "things have not been so bad up until this point so why divert time, energy and money into this thing called Diversity which only seems to be in existence to help certain sections of the workforce" and often can be interpreted as acting as a career progression disadvantage to the employees who come from the dominant sections of the workforce.

Whilst working in technology marketing management for one of the largest and most respected computer companies in the world I acted as chair of the European Black and Ethnic Minority employee network as well being involved and liaising with the Diversity team in the United States. Being based in the United Kingdom it was indeed fascinating for me to see how in many respects the corporate Diversity program for my colleagues in the United States was far ahead (years) when compared to the program which we were implementing in the United Kingdom and the rest of Europe.

At the beginning of every business consultation I more than often spend some time talking about why companies exist. i.e. to provide products and services via specific marketing channels to end users. The challenge is to identify the relevant channels to market which relate to the target end user customer, other major factors such as compelling value propositions, branding and category marketing all have a bearing on the final strategy decisions.

It is blatantly obvious to state but all organizations are made of individuals who basically go to work to fulfill their basic needs and more. The amount of effort, thought and pride that employees put into their work is proportional to how they feel within the organization. i.e how valued do they feel, are they able to voice their opinion, do they have a bearing on the operation of the company and importantly are they able to progress within the organization and fulfill and desire they have to rise up the corporate ladders and in turn have more of an influence on the workings of the company.