Business

A Comprehensive Guide to New Innovations Within the BAME Industry

Ethnic diversity is, just as in every single other area of both the personal and professional lives of people across the length and breadth of the country and beyond, crucial in the world of business.

Black, Asian, and minority ethnic groups are represented under the BAME banner and thankfully, although way, way too late, such minority groups are finally being represented fairly equally in all areas of business.

With that being said, continue reading to discover a comprehensive guide to new innovations within business, with particular emphasis on BAME.

Business Mentorship Programmes

One of the most useful and fantastically inspiring relatively new developments within the business industry is that of specifically designed mentorship programmes, created and run by experts in their individual fields. 

If you search up “black led mentorship launches in Bristol” you can learn about a highly respected initiative which is particularly aimed at supporting and guiding budding business entrepreneurs to fully realize their professional dreams and reach their full potential.

There truly are a vast number of career-enriching advantages to joining a mentorship program, especially as a member of the BAME community, as not only will you be supporting your community and raising the profile of BAME business, but also your own future career.

Other stand-out benefits of joining a business mentorship program include, but are categorically in no way limited to, the following:

  • Substantially more experience and knowledge in and around business
  • A fantastic way to improve your ability to problem-solve
  • Access to new business contacts and connections
  • Guidance in developing your leadership skills
  • A way to maximize and streamline your business performance 

Focusing on Company Boards

Another welcome change to businesses, specifically in the upper echelons of management and company boards, is the relatively recent drive to ensure that all company boards have at least one BAME member across the United Kingdom. 

From a 2020 study, it was found that more than a third of the top one hundred FTSE firms in that year had no black, Asian, minority, or ethnic representation on their company board whatsoever and as a result of this study, there is a move towards positive change. 

One key supporter of this movement is Bill Gates and other senior managers involved with Microsoft, as well as the following large and recognizable businesses and groups who are BAME-inclusive employers:

  • Sky
  • Crown Prosecution Service (CRS)
  • Royal Mail
  • Bank of England
  • Sainsbury’s
  • Cabinet Office
  • Lloyds Banking Group

An Increase in Inspiring Notable BAME Business Representatives

With such a sensitive topic as ethnic representation and diversity, it can often be somewhat challenging to know how to approach bridging the divide and balancing the proverbial scales.

It is for this reason that, again not before time, the welcome media presence of inspirational BAME business leaders and representatives is a huge advancement in terms of aiding the fight for racial equality in the workplace.

This point is, however, somewhat of a double-edged sword, fundamentally due to the small minority of BAME people in such a position compared to others. For example, in the Operation Black Vote and Guardian newspaper’s officially released United Kingdom’s Top 1000 Powerful People, only 36 are BAME representatives. 

Notable members of this unnecessarily small group include Rakes Kapor, who is the CEO of hygiene, home and health products producer Reckitt Benckiser; Clive Adams, who is the leader of the UK and Republic of Ireland’s Salvation Army; and uber-fashionable Farrah Storr, who is the editor-in-chief of leading women’s fashion magazine Cosmopolitan.

Other BAME members on the list and who make up the 36 include Ravi Govinda, who is the Conservative leader of the council of Wandsworth; Marvin Rees, the mayor of Bristol; and the mayor of London himself, Sadiq Khan. 

Focusing on Regional Inequalities

There have been huge strides towards diversity, inclusiveness, and equality in business across the country, such as the government’s Innovative UK, their research agency UKRI, and the All-Party Parliamentary Groups for Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic Business Owners and Disability Rights. 

What is truly wonderful about the establishment of such sectors as listed above, as well as a wide host of others, is that they are able to reach smaller, regional, and altogether less prominent areas across the country, rather than concentrating on the newsworthy and international businesses.

Ultimately, the aim and ultimate goal of the Black, Asian, Minority, and Ethnic Movement is to make the divide between them and the majority of a workforce within a specific company entirely non-existent, with the BAME Movement going from strength to strength.