Question

Give ONE or TWO real life examples to discuss how business could be impacted if the company working with unethical suppliers.

Answer 1

In today’s environment it is very important for the companies to maintain a good relationship with suppliers so that they don’t behave unethically. Ethics is the study of characteristics, morals, and rule regulations which is made by individuals to interact with other persons. Supply chain management is responsible for maintaining the long term relationship with the supplier.

There is one real example of unethical behaviour of supplier:

I was working in a company that name is ABC Pvt. Ltd. and my profile was supply chain manager over there. In our company, there are two suppliers from where we can purchase the raw material for our customers. I was booked some material for my customer and at that time the supplier agrees to dispatch the material as per the date which is mentioned in the purchase order. But when the time comes near to the date than he is not picked up the calls and not dispatched the material on the mentioned date. I make a commitment to my customer that the material must be reached as per the schedule but I am not complete my commitment due to unethical behaviour of my supplier. In this way, I lost my customer so it is very important for a supply chain manager to maintain the good relationship with the supplier so that they can’t behave unethically.

The unethical behaviour of the supplier impacted business in several ways:

• Loss of reputation.
• Increase legal cost.
• Loss of physical cost.
• Loss of customer specially those who value ethics.