No business can exist without ethics.
In the light of this, explain the importance of ethics for a business.
Ans : Ethics in business are not only common sense, but
business sense as well, no matter if you run a huge corporation or a little
home business from your garage.
Some people raise hell when they get bad service or are
overcharged for a product. But the vast majority of people are too busy or too
tired to make a scene or write letters of complaint. This majority of customers
just make a quiet mental note of what a useless business you have, and vow to
never go back there, and they usually don’t. These days of online shopping and
delivery to your doorstep services, it’s really easy to find an alternative
supplier.
So honesty and respect really do pay in the business world,
especially in the long term. Many hot shot whizz kids have made their fortune
by partially ignoring business ethics and honesty, and this was one of the main
contributing factors to the latest recession we are presently enduring. Bad
ethics and dishonesty, greed and rudeness do not help a business at all, and
the business will collapse when the customers all go elsewhere, or when the
whizz kid crookedness is found out and punished.
It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to work these simple
principles out. So why do highly educated professionals and seasoned
businessmen and entrepreneurs make the mistake of forgetting business ethics?
It requires the courage of your convictions and a good moral base in the
individuals. Dishonesty does give you cash in the short term, much like sawing
off the branch that you are sitting on gives you timber for a short time. So it
will always be a temptation to those with weak morals coupled with financial
pressure. In many cases it takes raw courage to be honest, but out of the
troubles that businesses go through, its reputation grows, and businesses with
good reputations are successful businesses. Naturally, you still need a good
business plan and a hungry market, as well as ethics, to be successful. But
good ethics are vital to keeping you successful.
Business ethics that are important are:
1. Charge the customer a fair price. Don’t be greedy.
2. Treat the customer with respect, as though he is better
than you.
3. Do not purposely sell the customer defective items or
advice, or anything that is harmful or unsafe.
4. Always tell the customer the truth.
5. Treat your staffs like you treat yourself, or better. Be
kind and generous to your staff.
6. Pay your suppliers promptly.
Ethics do take courage, and hard work. But they are worth it.
And they are good business sense too.
Commercial aspirations have never accepted any constraints
and so are about the corporate. Money spinning is something that is more about
the reward than the ethics. Yet somewhere there has to be a balance between the
two. It is this very juncture where the critical negative of capitalism lies.
The challenge can be how to incorporate social responsibility with lucrative
demeanor. Though a company is committed to the highest standards of social and
business practices, it takes an effort to establish and to maintain them. The
delivery of success to the clientele results from the efforts of an
organization’s people – it is their resourcefulness, professionalism and
dedication that give the company its leading edge as one of the forerunners in
the respective industry. Just to ensure all this, the directors and employees
are expected to observe the highest standards of integrity in the conduct of
business.
Coming back to the topic to be discussed, ethics is not the
same as self-interest however entrepreneurs often want to ensure that it is the
same. They want to ascertain that “one can do well by doing well,” meaning that
one can succeed in business by being ethical. There is no denying that one can
often do well by doing good. A company with a code of business ethics is more
likely to build a good reputation, which is more likely to bring financial
rewards over a period but good behavior cannot be grounded in tangible reward
alone. People who are interested only in reward will conduct business ethically
when it suits their purpose but they will go astray whenever the incentives
diminish. There is a profound confusion here too. To look to ethics for
motivation is to misunderstand what ethics is all about. It is like studying
finance to find a reason to make money.
Finance does not teach one to want to be rich. It teaches one
how to be rich, assuming one wants to be rich. So it is with ethics. Ethics
teaches one how to be good, assuming one wants to be good. It is important to
know that one can normally do well by doing well. Otherwise ethical people
could go into business only with a high risk of failure. Business ethics,
however, addresses the opposite question: how can one do well by doing well? It
begins with the premise that enterprises want to do something good with their
lives and investigates how to accomplish this through business. In other words,
it treats profit and business success as means to a greater end, while in the
hind side making the world a little better. Ethics are a set of moral
principles which are recognized in respect to a particular class of human
actions or a particular group, for instance the medical ethics, legal ethics,
teaching ethics that brings together people of the same profession.
These principles deal with values relating to human conduct
with respect to concepts such as being good or bad, noble or ignoble, right or
wrong etc. These values guide members of a group to act in a manner that is
consistent with the values and standards as established. Business ethics are
those virtues that business people apply when making business decisions. They
are the standards expected within the business world, even if they are not
written down and which business people ought to adopt. For instance business
people are expected to afflict least suffering to their customers, being fair
in their dealings and nurturing an enduring virtuous corporate character in
totality.
Business ethics are important because they keep business
people to operate within a moral and legal pedestal which not only leaves them
satisfied internally but also increases sales because most people like dealing
or doing business with honest businessmen. Also if the public or your potential
customers perceive you to be engaging in improper business deals, they will
shun you.
Good business ethics should be embraced by all businessmen
because engaging in unethical practices, which may include breaking the law,
may lead to heavy fines or lack of trust by members of the public. Some of the
business ethics include the following:
1. being trustful by recognizing that customer is the king.
Customers want to do business with companies they trust and which they perceive
to be showing them respect. When a business entity is trusted, it creates a
loyal clientele.
2. Business people should be ready to meet the obligations of
their customers and business partners regardless of anything else. Business
people should offer their end of the bargain at all cost because this is the
only way to cement customer and business partner’s loyalty.
3. Engaging in fair trading practices like guaranteeing a
safe workplace for your employees, fair pricing for your products, that will at
least cover the cost of production and treating you customers well among others
will guarantee a high business turnover.
4. Every businessman wakes up every day with the intent to
make profit. When a business operates within ethical realms, there will always
be clear indications for growth. Equally, a business needs to make profit so as
to meet its ethical obligations to the company, its employees, the authorities
and customers.
5. In essence, being ethical as a business person builds the
image of reliability and establishes reputation with your customers, the two
things that are very important to a business.
Most business people do not take a keen interest in
implementing business ethics. Most of them think that making profit is the most
important thing but as they realize later, no matter how hard they try, they do
not achieve their objectives.
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