Better Businesses Are Built By Different Perspectives

One of the things I've learnt over the years is that diversity is often discussed as a culture initiative when it is fundamentally a business advantage.

Hi, I'm Sukhmani, and I am building wellness, culture and DEI for Cars24.

This is a reflection on why I truly believe diverse teams create an unfair advantage for businesses, the attempts we've made at Cars24, and what we're still trying to do.

The strongest companies I know, the ones that have endured and thrived, were not built by people who think the same way. They were built by people who see different things, ask different questions, and challenge assumptions that others might miss.

Because enduring businesses are rarely built by getting every decision right. They are built by avoiding costly blind spots, adapting when the world changes, and continuing to see opportunities that others overlook. Diverse teams tend to do that better because they bring a wider range of experiences, perspectives and ways of thinking to the same problem.

For us to become stronger as a company, we need more of that.

Automotive has historically been a male-dominated industry. For decades, the people designing the processes, running the operations, and making the decisions have largely looked the same. The problem with that isn't representation alone. The problem is that homogeneous teams often develop homogeneous blind spots.

When everyone in the room shares similar experiences, they tend to arrive at similar conclusions. The questions feel obvious. The assumptions go unchallenged. The customer you didn't think about remains invisible.

And when you make that same team more diverse, something interesting happens.

Diverse teams are more likely to challenge their own thinking. Different experiences bring different perspectives, which often leads to better decisions and ultimately stronger businesses.

You can see this reflected in years of research from organisations like Harvard and McKinsey. But honestly, you don't need a study to believe it. You just need to sit in enough rooms and notice which ones ask better questions.

At Cars24, we've tried to make that happen in our own way.

Earlier this year, we launched our first all-women automotive hub in Saket. Every role at the hub, from customer-facing teams to operations leadership, was owned by women.

The objective wasn't to create a headline. It was to test a belief: if you create the right environment and give people ownership, capability will speak for itself.

In its very first month, that hub outperformed every other Cars24 hub in Delhi NCR.

The lesson wasn't that women perform better than men. The lesson was that talent exists everywhere. Opportunity doesn't always.

When organisations create space for different people to succeed, they often discover strengths that were already there, waiting to be seen.

That same thinking sits behind many of the initiatives we've been building over the last few years. One example is our Women's Employee Resource Group.

The first time we ran it, more than fifty women showed up. I spent time speaking with many of them, and one theme kept coming up:

"We needed this space."

Not because people were asking for special treatment. Not because they wanted a separate culture.

They wanted a community. A place to share experiences, learn from one another, and have conversations that don't always happen naturally in workplaces where leadership teams and functions have historically been male-dominated.

What struck me wasn't that people wanted the space. It was how quickly they embraced it once it existed. The need had always been there. The structure hadn't.

And that brings me to something I think is often overlooked in conversations about diversity.

Hiring diverse teams is only the beginning. It's only half the problem solved. Inclusion is what determines whether diversity actually works.

People don't contribute their best ideas simply because they were hired. They do so when they feel heard, respected and comfortable being themselves.

In whether someone feels comfortable sharing a different opinion. In whether their idea gets the same consideration as everyone else's. In whether they leave a meeting feeling heard, respected, and part of the team.

These things rarely make headlines, but they shape culture every single day.

I won't say we've flawlessly made this part of our culture. The truth is that we are still early in this journey.

We've made progress, but we have a long way to go. Building a more inclusive company is not a milestone that gets completed. It's a commitment that all of us need to work towards every single day.

Because inclusion isn't built by policies alone. It's built through every meeting. Every hiring decision. Every interaction.

Every opportunity to listen a little more carefully or create a little more space for someone else's perspective.

And better businesses are built when more people have a seat at the table, a voice in the conversation, and the opportunity to do their best work.