Welcome to Wipro

Welcome to this blog on Business Ethics. We discussed the WIPRO case today in the context of whether business philosophy can work in India.

By business philosophy we mean very fundamental meanings attached to the activity of business, the ends and the means used to achieve the ends. For some business is a family tradition to be continued. For the modern entrepreneur it is an achievement to be based on one's technical expertise. It could also be seen as amassing of wealth. For Azim Premji, it is no doubt the continuation of a family tradition of delivering value to the customers in a clean manner. But continuation has meant adding innovation, doing something new that again adds value to the customer.

The nature of the IT (software) development business with overseas clients demands utmost trust and confidentiality. Because you are dealing with the client's business processes. That in turn places a responsibility on the top management to ensure that standards of integrity are maintained down to the juniormost member of the team. You need a code of conduct to be manualised so that every member of the team understands where s/he stands. But that's not enough. You need to build this element of integrity into the selection process, appraisal process and development process. One also knows that there would be cases of doubt and ambiguity. So Wipro has set up the SOS line, on which younger members can seek wiser counsel of more experienced managers on ethical dilemmas.

And in spite of all this, there would be the odd case of unethical conduct, which needs to be dealt with in a fair and ethical manner. "Where there is body, there is disease." A healthy body regains normalcy much faster and with least intervention. In the same way, an ethical organization deals with cases of unethical conduct in a manner that preserves the faith of both the insider and the outsider in the company's commitment to ethics. Wipro has demonstrated such a commitment and that is why it has grown to be an IT major.

A constant refrain of ethics runs the risk of sounding and becoming self-righteous to the point that other points of view have no chance of being heard. This is a constant danger in organizations that place heavy emphasis on ethics. The right and the wrong become rigid and iron rules and no longer remain discussable. Once people realize that dialogue is not a possibility they start packing their bags.