- by Paul Lachhu

The future starts tomorrow, but many minority and women owned businesses are still working on getting up to speed with today. To have a chance at competing in the global marketplace, however, it’s not going to be enough for minority businesses to simply identify and emulate the best practices of leading organizations. Instead, minority businesses will need to become adept at identifying and responding to the demands of next practices.

Best versus Next

The first element needed to move beyond best practices to next practices is an understanding of the difference between the two. Best practices are a snapshot, but not necessarily of the present state. Instead, by the time best practices are recognized, studied, and presented as cutting edge, they’re already being left behind by current business norms.

Next practices, in contrast, aren’t about what everyone else is doing well. They’re about redesigning the core elements of business functionality to embrace what’s coming down the pipe in the next generation of operations. With this mindset, next practices aim to transform the world by sweeping aside outdated systems of operation and bringing in new frameworks that are ready and able to handle the present reality as it unfolds.

With this in mind, benchmarking and emulating best practices is deemed insufficient by next practice norms. It keeps minority businesses trapped in past practice, focused on what was working five minutes ago, and out of touch with emerging systems. To compete, minority businesses need to give up on the idea of keeping up and focus more on innovation, process development, and talent readiness.

Next Practices and Talent Acquisition

Next practices have particularly important implications for minority businesses as they approach the issue of talent acquisition. By embracing next practices over best practices, MBE’s can access some of the best talent from the best global schools to compete in local markets. Technology supporting next practices will also open up opportunities for minority businesses looking to control the costs of getting the best talent.

In terms of finding the right talent, next practices can remove barriers and lower costs. Current best practices call for minority business to do face to face recruiting through career fairs, visiting top schools, or extensive local interviews. With next practices, remote testing and interviewing can allow minority firms to interact directly with top talent from any corner of the U.S. or around the world.

Acceptance of remote testing and interviewing is growing world-wide. The cultural endorsement of the practice is partially driven by the flexible work policy technology has enabled and the freelance revolution. As the ability to work from home has turned into the ability to work from anywhere, many top talents are eschewing traditional best practice paths into the organizations they want in favor of more time and cost effective remote interviewing techniques.

Permitting the best performers world-wide to work for U.S. businesses does up the ante in the competitive labor marketplace. Talent will have more choice about who they work for and what they do, with the experience at the firm and work-life balance rated as more important than compensation according to a MetLife survey. In this case, minority firms that can offer better experiences and opportunities to workers - even with small talent budgets - can pull in top workers.

Accepting and Fixing Skills Gaps

One of the challenges with next practices the minority business owners face is the need to identify skills gaps, accept them as given, and work to fix them through training, re-skilling, or staff training. Next practices are more global in nature than current norms or best practices, and this can be a pain point for minority business owners who often find they don’t have a full skill set when preparing to move into the global arena. While some firms call for protectionist programs, special

government programs, or blocks for firms from certain countries, more proactive MBE’s step up to the plate to transform their business models.

As the 2009 Policy Report from the Billion Dollar Roundtable put it, under next practices “minority suppliers” will become “suppliers.” The group, made up of some of the largest supporters of diverse suppliers, feels strongly that the next stage of programming and inclusion needs to be driven by private industry rather than government programs, and that minority firms need to become more strategic partners in innovation, development, and response to global change.

Not all minority businesses are ready - or interested - in so dramatically reorienting their businesses in the short run. However, reskilling (training workers in newly identified skill and competency areas) is a key part of next practice. Businesses will not be able to sit still, rely on talent hired only for “this job,” or expect to be able hide skill gaps behind protective programs. The barriers between vendors around the world are coming down with increasing speed, and an eyes-open, proactive approach to the new challenges is almost mandatory for minority firms who wish to survive under next practices.

Socio-Cultural Considerations of Next Practice

From a socio-cultural level, some have questioned whether next practice is truly feasible. After all, it took nearly 50 years to establish the current MBE operating systems. How then can next practice be realized in anything approaching that timeline?

One of the ways that next practice could break through in a much shorter timeframe has to do with the home of next practice initiatives. Next practice principles rely on individuals and seasoned practitioners looking at what’s working and asking “What could work more powerfully?” In this sense, the private, personal, and reflective nature of next practice can help it launch faster. Next practice isn’t waiting on new programming initiatives, relying on government bodies to be perfect agents of change, or hoping that global competitors aren’t leapfrogging best practices.

From some perspectives, next practice is somewhat de-powering on an immediate global political level. The responsibility for innovation and development shifts from large governmental bodies and policy agencies to the private sector. The value of set targets for spend lessens, and the value of strategic partnerships rises.

Another element of minority business response to next practice centers around the profit principle. American businesses emphasize private profit, while next practice at times implies that there is greater value in other systems, such as community based profits or non-profit works. The system that works best is not absolute; minority businesses have to think holistically about which frameworks will best serve them moving forward beyond this quarter and next.

The future starts tomorrow, and those following next practice debates are going to be one step ahead of the rest. Keeping up with today’s best practices is no longer enough for most minority and women owned businesses. Instead, to compete and thrive in the next generation of work, minority businesses need to identify and respond to the next practice pressures and trends in their specific areas of operation.