Opening Address: WLDS-EU High Level International Diversity Summit

From March 11th-12th 2010, the WLDS-EU High Level International Summit was held in Vienna, Austria. The WDLS-EU is bringing together global diversity thought leaders, policymakers, corporate practitioners, NGOs, and civil society players to share their experiences, research findings, strategies and best practices on global diversity and inclusion by the year 2020.The WDLS-EU conference provided two days of strategic information on business, research, education, and media etc. which relate directly to market trends, global competition, sales and marketing.
Within two days, the participants discussed several topics as managing youths’ leadership, return on investment, leveraging diversity in a demographically changing environment, or employee networks.
Day Two paid particular attention to recruiting and managing diversity and talents in the EU and global regulatory environment.
Michael Stuber, Managing Director of European Diversity Research & Consulting, gave a presentation about Diversity’s Return on Investment here. In his presentation, he introduced the meta-survey “The International Business Case Report (IBCR)” that proves the economic benefit for Diversity. It is the first survey that provides a comprehensive compendium of international studies on the added value of Diversity & Inclusion. The International Business Case Report (IBCR), produced by European Diversity Research & Consulting in Cologne (Germany), responds to frequent requests about the proven return on investment of D&I. Understandably, organisations need this kind of information especially in tough times in order to take smart business decisions.
The bottom line of the report confirms that Diversity creates benefits in the workforce, in the market place, on financial markets and in a company’s community. The IBCR includes 90 studies, four of which show that:
■ the return on equity (ROE) for companies with the highest representation of women in top management positions is 35.1 % higher than for companies with lower percentages of women.
■ medium-sized companies can save about €100,000 ($132,026) (depending on company size) through family-friendly HR policies.
■ the average sales revenues of companies with a low degree of ethnic diversity were at $ 3.1 million (€ 2.4 million), with a medium degree $ 3.9 million (€ 3.1 million) and with a high degree $ 5.7 million (€ 4.5 million).
■ regions with culturally diverse workforces are more innovative in the development of new products than regions with more homogenous workforces.

All IBCR results show that diversity in the workforce is economically advantageous if strategically approached, thus explaining the linkage between Diversity, Inclusion and economic success. The report is particularly geared towards profit-orientated executives and HR professionals, and shows the economic potential of targeted interactions with diverse employees and customers.