Summary

  • 1 minute

We're on a journey to provide access to every community to grow, innovate, and thrive. Being inclusive in all aspects of what you do, how you show up, and what you deliver to customers is imperative. Expand your perspective and deepen your awareness to bring forward a new level of inclusive and diverse practices throughout your business cycles. The foundation rests on creating an inclusive culture that's reflected in all phases of your business process, from design through delivery and everything in between.

An inclusive culture influences the design of products, solutions, and services. The three simple design principles of recognizing exclusion, learning from diversity, and solving for one to extend to many support a shift towards creating universal solutions. When we get curious and look at the edges of a situation, focusing on humans at the center of scenarios, exercising empathy to understand and learn, we expand our view. Finally, solving for one to extend to many can magnify the solution beyond the permanent to support temporary and situational cases, serving a depth and breadth of customers who might have been previously overlooked.

Inclusive Marketing represents the outward personification and experience of our efforts, becoming a natural extension of our culture and design approach. The three key concepts of focusing on what you market, understanding who the audience is, and seeing how you want to communicate to those individuals can ensure that the targeted audience sees themselves in the images and language you present. By embodying a diverse perspective, the opportunities to engage authentically are endless.

We want to bring the power of cloud technology to every person and organization by listening, committing to diving deeper, going beyond "the what" and delving into "the why." Then we'll ensure the environment we design, develop, and deliver within reflects and embraces the diversity of the real world around us.

Learn more

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  2. World Health Organization Assistive Technology (May 18, 2019).
  3. Paulo Gaudiano and Ellen Hunt, "Richard Branson Supports People with Disabilities. Here are Six Ways You Can Do It, Too," Forbes (October 16, 2016).
  4. Richard Fry, "Millennials projected to overtake Baby Boomer as America's largest generation", Pew Research Center Fact Tank (March 1, 2018).
  5. Richard Fry, "Millennials Are the Largest Generation in the U.S. Labor Force," Pew Research Center Fact Tank (April 11, 2018).
  6. LGBT Capital fact sheet, LGBT Capital Homepage (January 2020).
  7. Bridget Brennan, "Top 10 Things Everyone Should Know About Women Consumers," Forbes (January 21, 2015).
  8. Statisa, Total consumer spending of women worldwide in 2013-2018 (August 9, 2019).
  9. United States Census Bureau.
  10. Limbs for Life Foundation.
  11. Amputee Coalition.
  12. CDC.gov.
  13. Disability Statistics Center at the UCSF.
  14. Microsoft Design, Inclusive 1010 Toolkit – Manual.
  15. Stephen Whiteside, "How Microsoft defines and pursues inclusive marketing" (September 2019).
  16. Microsoft On the Issues, "Inspiring Girls to Stay in STEM and #MakeWhatsNext" (March 7, 2017).
  17. Microsoft Advertising, "Inclusive Marketing: Why it's essential for your brand" (January 27, 2020).
  18. Erik Larson, "Diversity + Inclusion = Better Decision Making At Work", Forbes (September 21, 2017).