When Selecting A Aupplier 86 of North American Senior Executives Say Lack of Ethical Standards Enough To Stop A Sale



Doremus, the communications company that understands the business of business, and the Financial Times, have just released the results of a survey conducted worldwide this Summer with 525 senior level corporate executives.

The question asked of the senior executives was, "if several suppliers' products or services met your needs and all were offering competitive prices, would anything else factor into choosing one supplier over the others"

Seven in ten respondents said that having high ethical standards is either "enough on its own to choose one supplier over another" or is at least "enough to break a tie."

The survey makes it clear that companies want to do business with other companies that are successful. Attributes such as "solid business strategy," "strong financial performance," and "strong management" are almost as important as ethics in selecting a supplier.

Social responsibility factors such as "stable employee relations," "environmental responsibility" and "support for the communities in which they operate" were ranked of lesser importance when deciding whether to select one supplier over another.


Similarly, when asked if the lack of any of these factors was enough in itself to decide not to do business with a supplier, ethical standards topped the list. Eighty-six percent of North American senior level executives cited "lack of ethical standards" in a supplier as enough to stop a sale. About 64% of Europeans felt the same way. This variation could possibly be tied to recent corporate scandals in the U.S. where ethical behavior from business is still very much under scrutiny in the press.

Howard Sherman, Managing Director of Doremus, said, "While companies still want to do business with other companies that are successful, suppliers who think it's only about meeting specs and having a competitive price are wrong. Buyers are looking at a bigger picture, with ethics at the forefront. Companies today need to communicate how they do business as well as what they do."

The Doremus/Financial Times worldwide survey was conducted among 525 C-Level (CEO, CFO, CMO, CIO) and senior level executives, broken down as follows:

North America    174
Europe        272
Rest of the world 79

About Doremus
Doremus is known for its understanding of complex, considered decisions, multiple target audiences, and identifying the best communications channels to magnify budgets at all levels. Over 100 years old, with offices in the key business centers of the world,
Doremus is constantly evolving to meet the marketing communications needs of business.

About the Financial Times
Financial Times is firmly established as one of the world s leading business information brands, internationally recognized for its authoritative, accurate, and incisive news, comment and analysis. Whether in print or online, the Financial Times is essential reading for the global business community.

Printed in 22 sites worldwide, the Financial Times newspaper currently has a daily circulation of over 440,000 and a readership of more than 1.6 million people worldwide. FT.com (http://www.ft.com) is one of the world s leading business information portals, and the Internet partner of the Financial Times. It combines agenda-setting editorial content with comment and analysis, relevant financial data, discussion groups, unique dossiers on key business people and a range of tools to search the web, manage a working day and seek out leisure opportunities. FT.com has 3.7 million unique monthly users that generate over 59.6 million monthly page views.

Omnicom is a leading global advertising, marketing and corporate communications company. (Doremus belongs to the Omnicom Group.) Omnicom's branded networks and numerous specialty firms provide advertising, strategic media planning and buying, direct, and promotion marketing, public relations and other specialty communications services to over 5,000 clients in more than 100 countries.





When Selecting A Aupplier 86 of North American Senior Executives Say Lack of Ethical Standards Enough To Stop A Sale