29 Nov 2014

I believe that a business main aim is to add value. To add value to its society, including the people that work in the business. I believe this perspective is better than focusing just on achieving financial profit.

I’ll elaborate.

Imagine a company sells bottled drinking water. Lets say the water they’re selling is contaminated with a bug that would make people sick and live 20% less than they would have if they didn’t ever get the bug. Let’s say that this is the most popular bottled water in the world and no one will find out about this bug because no one has the instruments to discover it but you.

If you were the owner of this company would you stop selling the water once you found out? Or would you continue selling it? Are the financial profits more important to you than the health and well being of people?

I believe ethics and financial profits can go hand in hand to make a business successful. I actually believe most real entrepreneurs are not mainly motivated to make money. I believe most create their enterprises because they are curious, they are driven, they want to create, to contribute, they want to participate. Many others do it for love, to provide for their family. And others do it to be famous, to be powerful, to be recognized, to be loved or be accepted. But not many do it for money.

I think it would be very good for each of us to inquire within why we have our businesses. If we do, we may find our real motivators and we would have a standard by which we can evaluate our results.

For example, if our main goal is not only to have financial profits but also to help people, there may be times when we may choose to have less financial profits to help more people. Lets say that we choose a pricier but better health insurance for all of our workers, but in doing so the profits of the company diminish. We may have the "profit", the result of more people being helped, but less monetary profits. Is it worth it?

Or lets say that I invent a gadget that if put inside a car’s gas tank, it can decrease its gas consumption by 50%. Lets say I decide to charge 5% of the savings to use my device. I am making a good profit and people are saving a lot of money on their gas expenses. In this case I can make money helping people spend less on gas, I have added value to their live’s while I make a really good profit. Is it good to do this business?

What if I find the cure for cancer and I create a system where people can pay for the drug if they have the financial resources or they can get the medicine through a foundation which is funded with the profits of the initial sells. In this case we may sacrifice financial profits to cure more people. Is it good? Would you do it?

It’s up to each person to decide what their goal is from creating a business. But no matter what someone chooses, I believe financial profits should go hand in hand with the value added to society. If they don’t, we may end up with highly profitable companies profiting from destroying rather than adding.

For example, what if a drug company covertly sells a medicine they know is overall bad for people but they choose to sell it anyway to increase their profits. Is it good? Would you do it?

Of course, not all people are ethical and not all people want to do good. I understand this. It is the reality in which we live.

But what if we decided not to buy the products or services of unethical people? If we didn’t they could not exist. The power then is in us, in all of us, because we, the consumers, are the ones who make companies big or small, successful or not. Let’s use that power wisely.

And let’s use our power of creation to do good, this way we will not only be financially rich but also rich in humanity. We would have a conscience with which we could live and we would enjoy the process of creating the value we provide.

THE PURPOSE OF A BUSINESS