Ethical and Unethical Business Practices

I borrowed this for my website. I want my competion to read it. Wonderful article

The article is brilliant! It neatly encompasses the do's and dont's of conducting business in the correct manner. Its an ideal scenario. I have a question for you Mr. Aaditya, do people really adhere to these all the time?? Its natural for people to take that two step forward when dealing with Govt sectors. Greasing the palm is the most immediate solution that one comes across and is practised abundantly by ALL corporates!! Is that ethical??

While the corporates are also engaged in some sort of legal issues, do they always adhere to the strict codes of the Leagal system or do they try to overstep certain steps for quick justice?? 

The reason for me being cynical about this is that everyone wants the ideal scenario to work because that would mean and ensure a smooth flow of the system and procedures. But when the system starts consuming longer time for the desired end result, the corporates jump a lot of guns to make sure that their deadlines are met. In todays competitive world its really difficult to adhere to the ethical part of the business all the time. So sometimes being unethical just titlts the balances in your favor. 

I am not advocating unethical conduct here. I am merely suggesting that if it means that the wrok needs to be DONE... GO GET IT DONE!

Mr.Vickram,this a very good article, thanks for the posting....gives good guidelines for starting and continuing a good business practice.

It is a good article and thanks for posting it.I would like to add that while you have included many in the ECO system,the article does not include ethics with vendors.I feel a quick and fairly good dipstick to understand an  organisation's values can be done by just talking to some of their vendors, long term, short term and vendors who don't want to deal with the company.If the vendors give a clean chit you can be more or less assured the company has values.

its true that first objective of business is to earn sophisticately BUT DOES IT WORK SAME FOR THE EMPLOYEE AND CLIENT AS WELL.IDEALLY CODE OF ETHICS SEEMS TO BE PERFECT BUT ONLY FOR CLIENT NOT FOR THE EMPLOYEE.In practical sence today main aim of companies has become try hard to retain your client but as far as employees are concern not much attention paid towards the wellfare of employee especially in Travel Trade.

E.G IN AIRLINE we keep on come across several cases where complain by the Airhostesses remain unheard and in travel agencies where pay is less and employees are fired without any notice ,without salary and Airlines companies takes innovative steps to invite their clients and passengers.

Thanks SIr....

Good article and thanks for the referal.
Ethics start with the fact that "any good or service should be fit enough for the standard purpose for which it is meant".
Every company must have a "corporate governance" department which oversees the corporate governance procedures in the company. They should keep a record of everything going on in the company and the must make sure that as a policy company maintains corporate governance standards in all their activities.
Commercial Laws must be fine tuned to make it difficult for companies to not to be ethical in running their activities.
The problem facing Indians now is of "misalignment" between "Government", "Corporate" and "Citizen" objectives. To align this one has to do a lot and then things will correct by itself. One place where they can start is the Academia, where a grade given and graduating GPA must concur with the students skill develped and must be a good indicator of the "risk" a company need bear employing him. Suppose if one has a gpa of 3 out of 4 which means whatever he does in a company will have a risk at the most of 25% or it should be accurate up to 75% and so on.
Risk managemnent must be incorporated in all walks of life in the society, not only in Financial Institutions. A First class degree holder must manifest the meaning of the phrase "first class" in all his activities post graduation. He must be humble, reliable, skillful and risk free in his activities, personable, not troubling others etc;. Once this is not there the risk starts accumulating the meaning of first class just erodes its true meaning. 
Society everyone must belong to some organization and risk must be defined in its proper form and mitigate through supervision. 
Once these things are incorporated then ethics follows in all walks fo life not only in companies but in social activities which is the meaning of a democracy, a Nation State living and thriving on peace.

Mr. Vickram, I would thank you for the wonderful article. In today's world we need to sit back and think for 2 minutes before we take a decision for Buisness.

Very relevant article Mr. Vikram, you can see many topnotch corporations in lime-lite (like telecom for last couple of instances), due to one or other discrepancies.