Assessing how a selected business could improve the ethics of their operations

(M1) Assess how a selected business could improve the ethics of their operations
There are a number of ways how organisations can improve the way they operate ethically and I will be assessing how a large organisation such as Dial-a-Phone can function more ethically. Dial-a-phone is national mobile phone provider who are owned by the even bigger company Phones 4U. Organisations are often scrutinised for not operating more ethically, and it is important that organisations act on this criticism. From a customer’s point of view, people often take concern in the modern issues of today’s world and they like to know that the company’s they purchase from are taking in their concerns and taking certain measures to make sure that they are acting as ethically as possible whether this be towards the environment, carbon footprint, produce, supplies and work staff.
From an organisations point of view the company want to make sure that they operate ethically because it attracts customers, investor’s new employees and sales. As I have just stated there is a market segment of customers who would like to purchase ethically made and designed products so it is vital the organisation target this market by operating more ethically to boost their sales. Investors also take interest in ethical companies because they know that an organisation is going to turn over more revenue if it starts operating ethically, or for personal reasons such as they themselves would like to have a contract in an organisation that is caring towards whatever they do. Whether this is creating a safe healthy environment for its employees or making sure the company has a low carbon footprint and etc.
I am now going to assess how Dial-a-Phone operates and how they could improve how their organisation operates ethically and why this would affect certain stakeholders in the organisation.
Competitive rates and fair dealing
Much of what a business does is defined by the contracts it has with suppliers, employees and its own customers. Beyond the explicit rights and obligations defined by the contract, Dial-a-Phone also has a responsibility of good faith and fair dealing. This means that Dial-a-phone have to make sure that they sell and operate their products on fair ground where they have no exploiting advantage over another company doing the same thing. Dial-a-phone make all their sales online and to become a more ethical company they could make sure that they do not exploit their customers by adding rising prices to their phone contracts and setting their phone products at competitive price range. It is common for customers to go over their mobile phone contracts and end up being added charges for extra internet usage they may have used on their mobile phones without realised. O2 have invested in a system when a customer goes over on their phone contract that they will instead of charging them sending them a message and slowing down their internet or text access so they do not get charged any excess. This has a positive effect on customers and Dial-a Phone could benefit from having a similar system. This would make potential stakeholders such as customers more interested in the company because they will be offering something that a lot of other companies do not use.

Carbon footprint and Environment
From what I have researched I have found out that Dial-a-phone take one very strong effort to lower their organisations carbon footprint and be more environmentally friendly by offering a system where once the customer has done with their mobile phone they can send their phone back to Dial-a-phone and they will send the customer some cash to the value of their used mobile phone and then recycle the used phone. Below is a banner of the advertisement they have on their website.

This system is very attractive for one stakeholder in particular, an investor. This is because investors are interested in companies that offer more to their customers and potential investors may also have investments in recycling companies and the recycling of mobile phones could help their other business investment.
Dial-a-phone do not operate as an organisation in a worldwide way so they do not really have a lot of areas they can improve on environmentally to become a more ethical company but they could take small steps such as making sure that all their transportation vans are electric powered and don’t give out any armful carbon emissions from their exhausts, this would be a positive idea for the organisations carbon footprint but electric cars which are an alternative to co2 cars are expensive and the business may not have room to afford the extra expense.
Another small way the organisation could operate more ethically is by mailing their products to customers in fully recyclable wrapping paper so it can just be recycled and used again which will have an upturn on Dial-a-Phones carbon footprint. This could be very easy for Dial-a-phone to do because recyclable wrapping paper is both cheap and not hard to find.
Employees and workforce
Lastly employment is important as in order to save Dial-a phone training and staffing costs they need to keep a low labour turnover so their employees won’t leave the organisation as a result of bad working conditions or low pay. The organisation as a whole does not treat their employees badly but they could take small measures to ensure that their employees receive promotion opportunities and a benefit scheme where they can receive gifts, holiday packages and company cars.
In my assignment I have clearly explained and analysed how Dial-a-phones organisation operates and have fully explained how for a small organisation that doesn’t have a very wide ethical effect on the world how they could take small steps to assure that they could make their company as ethical as possible and please their existing and future stakeholders so the company can earn as much revenue as possible and keep fixed costs as low as possible.