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Are business ethics or profits more important?

This Debate has 18 articles on the Ethics side and 7 articles on the Profits side. Click here to see all the articles rated and ranked by Helium members.

Ethics

Profits

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 marked by earning more, being bigger and
better than the competition. Unfortunately, this has also proven to be
negative in many ways. While climbing the 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 itself.

Back to the question that's being presented, "Are business ethics or
profits more important?" 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.

FOR PROFIT

Let's take for instance, two scenarios. 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 glamorous.
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.

FOR ETHICS

In scenario 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
diligence, they do and the company stays in business for years to
come.

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 that deals with
better ethics, rather than the one who is only after my deposable
income!