Zimbabwe: Profit & public trust

The economic crisis in Zimbabwe resulted in some businesses throwing good business ethics and corporate social responsibility out of the window, as they took advantage of the economic chaos to make profits at the expense of the consumers. I can give examples of such businesses who exploited consumers and lost the trust of the consumers or forced the consumers to change their buying habits as the consumers decided to make do without those business products or services. Now that there are signs that the economy is slowly going back to normal, no matter what good business ethics and corporate social responsibility those businesses try to practise now it will take a very long time for them to win the consumers' trust again. These businesses are going to suffer now as things get back to normal and they can no longer exploit consumers. This is a lesson for businesses to value public trust above making profits because public trust happens to affect profit-making in the long term.

Let me give you examples of the business practices I am talking about.
1. Zimbabweans have lost trust in banks who were abusing them with very low maximum bank withdrawal limits per person per day that was not even enough to buy a loaf of bread. Trust in banks was further killed when bankers in association with foreign currency dealers set up abnormally high bank transfer foreign currency rates to lure customers who wanted to change their hard currency to Zimbabwean dollars. Once the huge amounts of Zimbabwean dollars equivalent to the hard currency received had been transferred into the customer's bank accounts it was difficult for the customers to access the money from the banks such that those Zim dollars ended up loosing value whilst they were in the bank, before the customers had managed to withdraw them. So this was some sort of conning customers off their hard currency and it created a lot of mistrust in the country's banking system. Now Zimbabweans prefer to keep their hard currency at home, instead of taking them to the bank because they are afraid that if they take them to the bank they will be allowed to withdraw 50cents a day, yet a loaf of bread costs one dollar. It is going to take a very long time for Zimbabweans to have trust in the Zimbabwean banking system again.
2. Zimbabweans have also lost trust in Commuter Minibus operators who had gotten into the habit of increasing commuter fares every other day. This practice upset the pockets of those Zimbabweans who use commuter minibuses as the mode of transport to take them to and fro from work. Most employers ended up contracting buses to take their employees to and from work when the situation had become so bad that most employees could no longer afford to come to work. So commuter minibus operators lost a lot of customers because of exploiting the customers during the economic chaos. For them to get those customers they lost back will take a very long time because it will take a very long time for Zimbabweans to have trust in the commuter minibus operators' pricing system.
3. Zimbabwean shop owners got into the bad habit of charging exorbitant prices for their goods or services and this resulted in most Zimbabweans resorting to doing their shopping in neighboring countries namely SA, Mozambique, Botswana and Zambia where those goods are cheaper. It is going to take time for most Zimbabweans to have trust in the pricing system in local shops and stop going to do shopping in neighboring countries.
4. Zimbabwean manufacturers had stopped manufacturing a large quantity of goods for the local market citing lack of foreign currency to buy raw materials and machine parts yet they would secretly manufacture goods for export. The result was that most Zimbabwean wholesalers, retailers and consumers resorted to going to source the goods that they needed in neighbouring countries. It is going to be very difficult to change these buying habits of Zimbabweans considering that now they are aware of substitute products from other countries which might be better than the local products in terms of quality.
5. Getting the local sugar manufactured by the ZSR(Zimbabwe Sugar Refinery)from the shops had become so difficult, you could only get it from the black market at very high prices and so most Zimbabweans ended up not taking any sugar in their beverages. The same applies to bread, it is now there in the shops but there was a time when it had become so scarce and expensive that most Zimbabweans had replaced having bread for breakfast with having rice, samp, mealie-rice, home-made baked products and potatoes for breakfast. It is going to be very difficult if not impossible for most Zimbabweans to revert back to having bread for breakfast everyday like was the norm before it had become scarce.

The point I am trying to make here is that most Zimbabwean business people need to change the way they do business, which leave a lot to be desired. They need to know that there is such a thing called business ethics and comprehend what it implies for their actions. Business managers ought to behave ethically as they pursue the proper business goal of maximising profits. Some businessmen appear to believe that anything which is not outright illegal, however unethical, can be regarded as proper business conduct. But without ordinary decency, (which goes a long way beyond what the law requires of companies) business could not be carried on. Companies whose actions exploit the public should not expect to be in business for very long, even if there is no law that protects the public from such exploitation. Factoring in reasonable profit margins and honesty in all business dealings will induce the public to trust such companies and will result in a long-term good business relationship between those businesses and the public. Decency is not just good for business, it is essential. Profit maximising by exploiting consumers is indecent. When it comes to maximising long-term business value, decency or honesty is not just the best policy, it is the only feasible policy. Making money for the owners of a business is indeed the main aim of doing business but if companies make that the only aim and doesn't take note of the greater good of the public then it becomes too narrow a view of what a business is for. Business owners are just one group among many kinds of different stakeholders in a business. It is wrong to run a business in the interest of one kind of stakeholder and ignore the legitimate interest of all the others. Businesses certainly need to take account of other interested parties if they are to succeed as businesses in the long run. They must satisfy their customers, get on well with their suppliers, motivate their employees and so forth.
The bottom line is Zimbabwean businesses should put in place pricing systems that are normal and not the abnormally high prices that they were pegging their goods at. They were taking advantage of hyper-inflation to exploit consumers and then blame it all on hyper-inflation. Now that we are using the stable United States dollar and the South African Rand we expect prices not to be exorbitant and to remain stable.