Integrity in Business

Integrity: “The quality of being honest and having strong moral principals.” This is the word that we should have uppermost in our minds when having business dealings with other people. It is also a motto, which we should adopt to live by as people of the business community. But do we really strive to uphold this in our day to day dealings with people? It is a known fact that our business society goes out of their way in offering their clients all kinds of lucrative business deals and offers, which are sometimes very tempting and difficult for some peoples to refuse. But in so many instances clients do not realise the contractual commitments attached to these offers when signing on the dotted line. In many cases the ‘small print” on these contracts are never read. Ignorance of the customer or client is unfortunately the biggest problem. And in many cases unscrupulous business dealers will use this to their own advantage and capitalise on it, to the loss of the uninformed customer or client. It is important to know that in any business where ethical principals are not followed or maintained, that business will never last for long. We are therefore, as a business community responsible for any wrongdoing that might occur within our businesses. Whether these offences are committed by ground-level staff, or higher up in management, there should be consequences for the guilty parties, and as soon as possible too. I regard integrity as the foundation of any business, and the number one asset of sound business practice. You may have all the money in the world to start a business with, and all the skill to go with it, but if you are known to have no integrity, nobody will want to do business with you. It stands to reason then, that whatever attributes we would want to accredit to a business; the first and foremost of them all is Integrity. PS./ Integrity:(It should actually be part of our day to day living, whether in business or not)