Making Your Business One of the Most Ethical Companies in the World

Abstract

On March 15, 2011, Hitachi Data Systems (HDS), a wholly owned subsidiary of Hitachi, Ltd. in Japan, was recognized by the Ethisphere Institute (www.ethisphere.com) as one of the “2011 World’s Most Ethical Companies.” This award was given to HDS after Ethisphere had spent approximately six months auditing the HDS compliance program and conducting interviews with HDS employees all over the world. In 2005, the HDS compliance program consisted of certain policies (e.g., Competition, Anti-Bribery, Code of Conduct, etc.), a reporting hotline and some in-house training. However, after the development of a concerted initiative of policy and program development, training, strengthened internal controls, compliance tools and internal audits, HDS has been publicly acknowledged as one of the most ethical companies in the world. What practical steps can the reader take to enhance his or her company’s compliance program and build a strong ethical culture in their company? HDS is headquartered in Santa Clara, California, and provides best-in-class information and storage technologies, services and solutions to its customers in both the government and private sectors. The company does business directly (through subsidiaries) or indirectly (through networks of distributors, resellers and system integrators) in approximately 160 countries, including many emerging markets identified as high-risk (corruption perception) countries on the Transparency International Corruption Index. (http://www.transparency.org/policy_research/surveys_indices/cpi/2010).