As a senior product, digital or innovation leader, you’re balancing speed, scale, and relevance in a constantly shifting landscape. You’re expected to deliver impact, lead teams through ambiguity, and make critical bets on where to invest next. But there’s one lever of product performance that’s still routinely overlooked. It is inclusion.
Not as a side value. Not as a compliance checkbox. But as a core product capability.
This article explores why inclusive innovation is no longer a nice-to-have and what happens when you make it part of how you build. We’ll look at the pressure to change traditional approaches, the product challenges that inclusion helps you address, as well as the proof of the benefits inclusion brings.
The Pressure: The World You’re Building For Is Changing Faster Than You Are
Your product doesn’t exist in a vacuum. It lives in a world shaped by inequality, systemic bias, shifting social norms, rising public expectations and changing regulations.
The pressure to serve a deeper purpose
Innovation solely in pursuit of profit is no longer enough. Organisations are being challenged to demonstrate social impact and contribute to a fairer, more equitable world. Inclusion enables businesses to tackle systemic barriers and develop solutions that don’t just work, but work better for more people and create a positive social impact.
The pressure of shifting demographics
Global populations are more diverse than ever, yet many digital products still centre a narrow user archetype. If your product doesn’t reflect the realities of today’s users, you’ll lose relevance and reach. Inclusive innovation helps future-proof your business by designing for diversity from the outset.
The pressure of rising expectations
Customers, employees, and communities are demanding more — more transparency, more responsibility, more inclusion. Younger generations in particular expect the products they use to reflect their values and identities. Businesses that ignore this shift risk reputational damage and talent loss. While there has been pushback against ‘DEI’ in the US, this has prompted other organisations to double down. The heightened attention means that you have to take a stand – one way or the other – being silent is no longer an option.
Regulation is catching up.
The regulatory and policy landscape is evolving to reflect rising societal expectations around fairness, accessibility, and inclusion. Rather than just meeting regulatory minimums, businesses can leverage inclusive innovation as a strategic lever to drive success, build trust, and unlock new market opportunities. Embedding inclusion as a practice now, makes you more sustainable when standards and regulations catch up.
🔒 Equality & Anti-Discrimination Laws
Regulations like the UK Equality Act 2010 require services , including digital ones, to avoid discrimination and ensure fair access across protected characteristics like sex, disability, and race.
📱 Digital Accessibility Legislation
The upcoming European Accessibility Act (2025) and existing UK Public Sector Accessibility Regulations set clear standards for making digital products accessible to all users, especially disabled people — with increasing expectations extending to the private sector.
🧑🤝🧑 Consumer Protection & Duty of Care
Regulators like the FCA (UK) now expect firms to understand and serve vulnerable users, and to prove they deliver good outcomes for all, influencing how products are researched, designed and tested.
🧠 AI & Algorithmic Fairness
Frameworks like the EU AI Act are setting precedent for ensuring automated systems don’t reinforce gender, racial, or socio-economic bias, meaning inclusion must be considered at the data and decision-making layer.
🌍 ESG & Global Frameworks
Initiatives like the UN SDGs, CEDAW, and increasing ESG reporting requirements mean businesses are being scrutinised on social impact and inclusion, not just profitability.
Inclusive innovation isn’t just the ethical thing to do. It’s the strategic thing to do.
The Pull: Product Challenges That Inclusion Helps You Solve
Every product leader we know is dealing with at least one of the following:
- Engagement flatlining — you’re struggling to retain users beyond your core segment.
- Scaling problems — what worked for early adopters doesn’t resonate with new audiences.
- Bias in research — insights skewed toward the loudest, most accessible, or most ‘convenient’ users.
- Design debt — retrofitting accessibility and inclusion is costing time and goodwill.
- Team blind spots — innovation driven by too few perspectives leads to missed opportunities.
An inclusive innovation lens helps you:
- Spot unmet needs before your competitors do
- Design for edge cases that improve the experience for everyone
- Reduce risk by testing for exclusion earlier
- Future-proof your product by aligning with shifting expectations and younger generations
- Leverage diversity of thought to make better decisions.
- Save time and effort later – Retrofitting inclusion is more costly than embedding it from the beginning.
You already invest in agile, experimentation, and user research, inclusion just makes those efforts smarter and broader.
The Proof: Inclusion Leads to Better Outcomes
Inclusion isn’t just a moral high ground. It delivers measurable value and a competitive advantage. Organisations leading in inclusive innovation will be better positioned for long-term success.
The Business Case page of The Inclusive Innovation Playbook highlights a wealth of research that evidences the benefits of innovating inclusively. Here are are few highlights:
- Products that work better for more people: Microsoft’s inclusive design work led to features like adaptive controllers — now a flagship success. Research from Microsoft found that implementing inclusive design principles can lead to a 30% increase in usability for all users, not just those with disabilities.
- Stronger business performance: Boston Consulting Group found that diverse teams deliver 19% higher innovation revenue.
- Increased trust and loyalty: HBR Research shows that consumers are attracted to companies that demonstrate a commitment to serving diverse audiences. Customers return to products that feel relevant, respectful and responsive to their lives.
- Increased market opportunity: This visualisation of UK census data shows that those in ‘minority’ groups are actually the majority of the population. It also highlights the spending power of different underserved groups. The Multicultural Economy Report highlights that Black and Latinx consumer populations represent more than $1 trillion each in spending power globally.
Inclusive innovation creates products that are not only more ethical — but more resilient, useful, and market-ready.
Ready to Make Inclusion a Capability, Not Just a Concept?
This isn’t about doing everything for everyone. It’s about embedding the right questions, tools and mindsets into how you build — from research to release.
If you’re ready to lead with inclusion, not just intention, start here with this practical inclusion checklist for product teams →
