Establishing robust ethical practices in a new market

Establishing best practice in a newly acquired company in an emerging market can present significant management problems. When Telefónica bought and merged the Czech Republic’s Cesky Telecom and Euro Praha it was keen to embed best practice quickly in this key new market. The new company had 10,000 employees, three million fixed-line customers and five million mobile users. GoodCorporation was asked to carry out a full-scale audit of the company based on the GoodCorporation Business Ethics Framework. A tailor-made auditing framework was developed which listed the desired business practices for each stakeholder group. Face-to-face interviews were carried out with employees, customers, suppliers, partners, shareholders, regulators, industry bodies, community organisations and NGOs. In addition, the GoodCorporation team reviewed all the relevant documentation and included the results of this analysis in the detailed management report.

Following this exercise, Telefónica was able to identify the strengths and weaknesses of its management practices in this important emerging market. The report included a detailed action plan which the company was then able to implement, monitoring results as it moved forward.