One of the best assets that a business can possess is ethics. Ethics can determine the sustainability of a business. There is a close relationship between good ethics and the future of a business. Get your ethics culture wrong and this may jeopardise the future of your business.
The definition of business ethics can be summarised as the study of proper business policies and practices regarding potentially controversial issues, such as corporate governance, insider trading, bribery, discrimination, corporate social responsibility and fiduciary responsibilities.
Ethics and our website
In March 2016, we advertised for a consultancy for the development of our website. One youngster responded and did a fabulous job in developing our site. There was one problem though, he pulled down the site without notice. When we approached him, he promised to fix the problem. We gave him information to upload onto a new site which he had created. How did he fare this time around? He converted the site to his own, created a Zimbabwe Business Investors Network instead of Zimbabwe Business Ideas and Network. We simply ignored him and went on to set up our site with Hostgator and have not had problems since.
The opportunity cost was huge on his part-he lost out on business from our members. We highlighted the fraud he had committed to our thousands of members and he instantly became an enemy of small businesses in Zimbabwe. He went underground-tried to resuscitate his career by engaging us later on. The damage had been done and any attempt to salvage the situation did not help his case.
Someone had possibly paid him to derail our project and the result is that he lost more than what he had been paid! He may have been greedy and decided to convert the site to his own-this again backfired as he lost more than he could gain.
He could easily have gained hundreds of clients from our members and followers. The guy whom we later on engaged ended up getting good contracts including employment with one of the leading donor agencies in the country.
There are a lot of stories concerning ethics and we will cover them in future. The bottom line is just do business the correct and legit way if you are thinking of the long term. Kiya-kiya business can only work in the short run and should be avoided at all costs.
Whats Up this week?
We did well in Lilongwe, trained Malawian nationals who will be working as a consortium. We will provide support and ensure a successful project which should cement business relationships between Zim and Malawi.
Botswana Tour-We have a tour to Botswana during the week where we will be following up on a training that we conducted in Harare weeks ago
More Volunteer Action: We are going to be putting more energy on our volunteer programme which had taken a backseat as we concentrated on regional initiatives. We will be inviting some of them to carry out Facebook Lives as they engage with our members.
So stay blessed for the week
Wa Mdala
