The primary reason for starting up a business is to make profit, this is like the first thing that comes to mind when anyone is trying to run a business. Profit is what keeps a business going, allowing a business owner to restock, pay necessary bills and any other things that might come along the way. When it comes to doing business, it is very important for every business owner to ask themselves, what kind of business am I building? For someone running a small scale business that is only meant to last for awhile, such person will definitely prioritise profit over every other thing but for a person building business that is meant to transform into large scale business or a corporate empire, such person will definitely have a more deeper thought that goes beyond earning profit.
Ethics simply means the right way of doing things, a way that doesn't cause harm to others emotions. Ethics is a trickle thing because something might be lawful but still ethically wrong. The laws deals with highlighted rules and regulations but you see ethics, is more deeply rooted in how things we do influence others. It is like when you say the wrong things to someone and the person got angry and hit you, Logically the person that was hit will claim he/she was assaulted, a claim that is backed up by the law but the offender would also claim provocation as a partial justification for his/her actions.
Ethics also apply to business, the fact that business is profit oriented doesn't mean a business owner shouldn't care about people's emotions or how their businesses affects other people. That is why offices such as public relations exist within a company to manage people's opinions about the company. Every business owner must be aware of something which is competition, which means you are not the only one in that line of business, even if you are, any moment, anyone could just come up with same business idea which would reduce the rate of people's patronage.
But there is something that would make larger percentage of customers patronising a business remain despite the emergence of competition, which is loyalty. This occurs when the customers are satisfied with the services being offered by the company, not just that, they must be satisfied by how they are being treated by the company. Which means a business might be selling quality products - good service but such a business might also have staffs or owner with bad manners, so having good product won't be enough to gain customers trust because any business could spring up and start offering quality products but what will differentiate between the two business would be how they treat their customers. This is called having good customer relations.
The second part is employees relation, for large scale business, how do you ensure your employees remain productive? The productiveness of employees goes in various ways. When employees are productive, it means they are doing their best to ensure the business keeps going, by doing their work accordingly and also treating customers the way they should. The truth is, happy employees translate to happy employer because if a business owner should treat his/her employees poorly, it will definitely affect their overall turn out. Some of them might just decide to resign from work at any time, despite knowing how it would affect the business. I'm not saying employees won't eventually leave when they get better offers but I have seen employees who chooses to remain with a company just because of the way they are being treated by the company.
When it comes to running a business, not everything is about money. Paying employees hefty amount will definitely make people want to seek employment in the company but it is how they would be treated by the company that will make them remain as employees. This is one of the reasons why offices such as HR exist within large companies, to manage employees relations and human resources.
The more an employer makes his/her employees feel like their opinion matters and they are part of the company, the more reason employees will feel the need to do their best to ensure the business keeps going. Both building customer relations and employees relations is deeply rooted in ethical conduct of a business. Profit might fund a business but it is ethics that ensures a business remains and evolve to greater heights. There is saying, if you want the best out of people, treat people the best way possible.
This write-up was inspired by weekly featured content titled Profit or ethics in hive learners community.
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