Businesses today are faced with challenges and questions on following ethical practices and transparency in dealings. An ethical dilemma happens when the most profitable outcome of an action necessitates a process that is detrimental to overall well being of the society necessitating business sustainability dialogues to analyze if ethical business practices are profitable .

A  seminar "Transparency in Ethical Business for Profitability" was organized by the Global Compact Network India, a non-profit Indian arm of United Nations Global Compact, a strategic policy initiative for  businesses that are committed to aligning their operations and strategies with ten universally accepted principles in the area of  human rights, labour, environment and anti-corruption.

The seminar was held on Saturday in association with Indian Merchants Chamber and Public Concern for Governance Trust, an NGO working to ensure enactment of laws and policies that promote honesty, transparency and accountability in governance.

UNGC’s, Anti-Corruption Collective Action Project was launched in December 2010 in five countries i.e., Brazil, Egypt ,Nigeria, South Africa and India. In India the project aims to develop a business case for anti corruption and environment sustainability by engaging in dialogue between public and private sector to explore best business practices and reaching out to legislature for making policy changes.

In session I, participants in separate groups discussed “Business Risks and Ethical Dilemma” while in session II on “Collective Action for Transparency and Profitability” Rohit  Mahajan, executive director and co-head Forensic Services, KPMG spoke about  how corruption has made it difficult  to do business in India.

“A mindset change is needed to weed out corruption. Prevention of corruption is all about organizational culture” Mahajan said and added that excessive regulations and protectionist govt policies have led to a culture of corruption and stunted growth.

“With large scale scams, India has become a significantly corrupt country where politicians and industry have joined hands in a nexus. We are not seeing the kind of inflows we should see considering the fact that half of the world is going through recession while in the other half which is growing, India is not receiving its share of growth mainly because of the perception that it is not easy to do business here” he said .