Our Moral Compass

One of my key learnings as an early professional was on how to maintain the health of the business for both external and internal stakeholders. Sharing my learnings here, a lot of which reflect how we run at OfBusiness.

1.     Stage 1: Compliance – The smallest of statutes must be followed with an eye to detail. Negligence, ignorance, and even clerical errors are crimes if they violate the laws of the land. Any amount of investment for compliance is not enough. No business can survive without it.

2.     Stage 2: Governance – Tighter than laws, as the laws may not need it. It may be commitments to stakeholders (team members, suppliers, buyers, investors, or lenders). It may be systems by which we run. It may be mechanisms by which we are held to account. Creating and following governance norms to a tee develops trust in the ecosystem. No business can scale or be valuable without it.

3.     Stage 3: Ethics – The unsaid, the unwritten. Etched nowhere since it may not be for the ordinary course of business. It’s how we conduct ourselves when in a spot of bother. It’s what Tata and Infosys stand for. It can’t be taught; it’s practiced, apprenticed and learnt. No business can last long without it.

4.     Stage 4: Empathy – None of the above. It’s what you need to do that is never asked of you. It’s about caring for the underprivileged (both externally and internally); it’s about giving back to society. Businesses tend to do this with vintage and scale. To earn that extra goodwill. No business can bounce back without it.

We believe that every business should stand for (or progress towards) the first 3. Stage 4 is a choice.