Case Study: Inclusive Growth - HOW SEPHORA outPERFORMS the category
Image credit: Sephora
We helped LVMH’s biggest brand leverage inclusivity to expand markets, fuel innovation, and drive growth. Here we share the success principles.
Conventional wisdom tells us that business is a zero-sum game—one company’s gain is another’s loss. But what if that logic is flawed? What if we stopped treating the marketplace as a fixed pie and started expanding it instead? That’s the idea behind what we call Inclusive Growth.
Inclusive Growth is about recognizing that entire communities have been overlooked in product design, marketing, and service delivery—not out of malice, but because they simply weren’t considered. People with disabilities who struggle with inaccessible digital interfaces. Older adults ignored by tech companies assuming only young people matter. Minority groups left out of beauty product lines because their skin tones weren’t seen as part of the market. By addressing these gaps, businesses can do more than just check a diversity box—they can unlock new demand, fuel innovation, and drive Purposeful Growth.
The Business Case: Why Inclusion is a Growth Strategy
Ignoring unmet needs isn’t just an ethical lapse—it’s bad business. When companies design for accessibility, relevance and representation, they can tap into massive, underserved markets. A few examples:
People with Disabilities: 1.3 billion people worldwide live with a disability according to the WHO, making it the largest minority group on the planet. This community controls $8 trillion in disposable income—$13 trillion when accounting for their influence on the purchasing behaviors of their friends and family. Yet, fewer than 5% of businesses actively design for them.
Financial Inclusion for African Americans: Systemic barriers limit economic mobility, but closing these gaps through more inclusive banking, financing, insurance and retirement products could generate $60 billion in additional annual revenue for the U.S. financial services industry alone.
Older Adults: By 2030, 1 in 6 people worldwide will be over 60. The anti-aging market is set to grow from $47 billion in 2023 to $80 billion in the next decade. Brands that ignore aging consumers do so at their own peril.
Image credit: Sephora
Case Study: Sephora’s Inclusive Growth Approach
The work we were able to do with Sephora provides a compelling case for how Inclusive Growth can drive commercial success. The beauty industry has long excluded consumers with diverse skin tones, hair textures, and abilities, and narrowly defined beauty standards often made these consumers feel excluded. Sephora recognized that flaw and rewrote the rules.
Expanding Representation: Sephora was one of the first major retailers to sign the 15 Percent Pledge in the US, committing to dedicating at least 15% of its shelf space to Black-owned brands. This wasn’t just a corporate gesture—it was also a market expansion strategy. By doing so, Sephora unlocked new customer loyalty, expanded its product mix, and strengthened its cultural relevance.
Rethinking Customer Experience: It didn’t stop at product selection. Sephora revamped its in-store and online experiences to be more inclusive. They introduced AI-powered tools that help customers of all backgrounds find the right shades and products, made the stores more accessible for people with disabilities, and trained store employees to recognize and eliminate racial bias in beauty consultations. And they changed their marketing campaigns to reflect a broader spectrum of identities and beauty standards.
Driving Innovation: Sephora’s commitment to inclusivity also empowered their brand partners to step up. Brands like Fenty Beauty (which launched with 50 foundation shades) set a new standard for inclusion in cosmetics. While all this increased sales off the bat, it also helped reshape an industry that had long operated under exclusionary norms.
Commercial Impact: According to parent company LVMH’s public reporting, Sephora’s approach to beauty has resulted in meaningful growth for the beauty retailer over the past few years. In 2023, the company hit €17.9 billion in revenue, with 25% organic growth and a 76% year-over-year profit increase. In 2024, it saw another year of double-digit growth, expanding its market share across North America, France, Italy, the Middle East, and Latin America, proving that Inclusive Growth is real.
Image credit: Microsoft
Sephora isn’t alone in proving that inclusivity is a business superpower - a few examples:
Microsoft developed the Adaptive Xbox Controller for gamers with disabilities, opening gaming to millions, benefiting from a projected annual growth rate of 15% over the next several years, according to dataintelo.
Nike launched FlyEase, a hands-free sneaker designed for people with disabilities and those seeking convenience, with Nike reporting that online sales soared 84% in the 2nd quarter after its release. No surprise, since the global adaptive apparel market is estimated to grow from approximately $241 million in 2021, to an estimated 29.8 billion in 2031, according to Coherent Market Insights.
With 32.9% of African American households and 28.6% of Latino households in the US being unbanked or underbanked according to the FDIC, JPMorgan Chase announced a $30 commitment to advance economic inclusion among Black, Hispanic and Latino customers and communities, helping close the wealth gap in those communities while expanding their total addressable market.
Apple added Voice Control, Switch Control, and Assistive Touch to its Accessibility features, making their products more usable for a wider range of consumers, which is widely considered as a contributor to Apple's continued success and leadership in the consumer technology industry.
Image credit: Apple
Each of these companies isn’t just making their category more inclusive, making life better for millions of people, they also tapped into a market others had ignored and are able to unlock new growth as a result.
The Leadership Playbook: Five Ways to Drive Inclusive Growth
Find Your Growth Community: Identify an underserved community in your industry. Start with research: Who’s being left out? What barriers exist? How could meeting their needs expand your market?
Build the Right Team: Inclusion isn’t an HR function—it’s a business strategy. Create cross-functional teams that include members of the communities you seek to serve. Engage employee resource groups, external advisors, and community stakeholders.
Design for Real Inclusion: Representation matters, but it’s not enough. If a brand features diverse models but doesn’t offer products that serve those demographics, it’s performative. True inclusion means removing barriers at every touchpoint—product, price, place, and promotion.
Test, Learn, and Iterate: Inclusive Growth isn’t a one-and-done initiative. It’s a continuous process of testing, learning, and adapting. Build pilot programs, gather feedback from underserved customers, and refine your offerings.
Make Inclusion a Cultural Priority: Inclusion isn’t a side project—it’s a leadership principle. The most inclusive companies embed this mindset into their hiring, product development, marketing, and executive decision-making. Employees should see Inclusive Growth not as an initiative, but as the way business is done.
Image credit: Clearias
Conclusion: Inclusion as an Engine of both Impact and Growth.
For too long, businesses have approached growth as a game of conquest—winning by taking share from competitors. Inclusive Growth flips that logic. It says, instead of fighting for pieces of the pie, why not make the pie bigger?
Inclusive businesses don’t just make the world better—they make themselves stronger. They expand their addressable markets, foster customer loyalty, and spark innovation. The companies that embrace Inclusive Growth today will be the ones shaping the economy of tomorrow.
The choice isn’t between doing good and doing well. The companies that understand this truth—that inclusion is a growth accelerator, not a cost center—will be the ones that lead.
So the real question isn’t, “Should we invest in Inclusive Growth?” It’s: “How soon can we start?”
If anything sparks your interest in this or the following articles, please do email philipp@purposefulgrowth.co