Business Ethics: Is it an Old Fashioned Concept?

Companies are "in the business" of making money. The more money, the better chance your business will be a success for many years to come. To do otherwise just makes little sense. However, there is often the dilemma as to whether to run your business for mainly huge profit margins or if ethics is more important to the individual business owner.

Business ethics should be priority one with any company, in my opinion. However, this certainly has fallen by the wayside over the past few decades with most industries. The primary concern has become the bottom line, showing larger profits at the end of each fiscal year. Companies deem their success in the market place BY their profits and not necessarily by their product or service. In fact, a lot of companies will even advertise their profit margins rather than the product itself. The better your profits stand, the more popular your company becomes in the business world, thus more business and even bigger profits.

It's a snowball effect that most companies would admittedly strive to attain. After all, isn't that the purpose of going into business, selling a product or service FOR a profit!

Success has always been defined by earning more, being bigger and better than the competition. Unfortunately, this has also proven to be negative in many ways. While climbing the coporate ladder of success, many companies have lost the value of good ethics. It's not so much anymore about building a "better" mouse trap. It's become more along the lines of just building "A" mousetrap, marketing it well through flashy advertising, in order to make the buying public think that it is a better mousetrap, one that they absolutely must have. You have then done your job well, making a huge profit, without having to put a lot of thought or integrity into the product or service itself.

Back to the question that's being presented, "Are business ethics an old fashioned concept or is it still important in this day and age?" That would definitely depend on whether your intentions are to make a fortune in the shortest amount of time possible, not giving a lot of thought to the product or service you are providing to the public OR whether you actually care about your product and the consumer. Both can have their advantages. Only the time span between profit and success being the deciding factor.

Business For Profit

Let's take for instance, two scenerios. In the first, the company has put together a product or service. It's not well constructed nor thought out, but their hopes lie in marketing it well, using every conceivable media outlet possible, convincing the consumer that this is by far the best product on the market. The advertising hooks the consumer, stores can't keep up with supply and demand.

However, once the consumer gets said product home, they discover that it's nothing more than an old mousetrap packaged to look glamourous. This company then goes out of business because the reputation of the product has been discredited due to its poor quality. Nonetheless, they made a huge profit while things lasted. They can walk away with the fortune they have just acquired.

Business With Ethics

In scenerio two, a company designs a product, putting all their resources and integrity INTO the product. Because their budget has gone into making a well constructed product, there may not be enough for the glitz and flashy advertising. However, they know without a doubt that their product is top of the line. They allow for word of mouth to be their main source of revenue.

The profits may only trickle in during the beginning, but because the product has integrity, and the company a good ethical foundation, the product stands the test of time. The profits may take a while to start rolling in, but with patience and dilligence, they do. Therefore, the company stays in business for years to come, earning great profit margins later on.

I suppose it's up to the individual company, whether they go by way of the "get rich quick" scheme, or the tried and true way of putting ethics in the forefront. My money would be on the product or service that deals with better ethics, rather than the one who is only after my diposable income in any way that they can obtain it!