15 Rules for Ethical Supplier Interaction

Could your interactions with suppliers be unethical without you even knowing it? Whether you’re a purchasing professional who deals with suppliers constantly or you hold a business role—such as an engineer, IT professional, or administrative assistant—that requires only occasional supplier interaction, there are many potential ethical landmines waiting to explode and subsequently ruin your career. You may be aware of a few of these ethically-sensitive situations, but very few people are aware of all of the ethical traps that can get honest business people into bad situations.

The good news is that you can identify those supplier interactions—even the subtle ones—that can cross the line between good ethics and poor ethics. This course can help you confidently steer clear of those business situations and provide you with the knowledge necessary to have a career that meets the highest standards for business ethics. Upon completing this course, you will be able to:

• Determine whether accepting a gift from a supplier is ethical
• Determine whether going to lunch or a social event with a supplier is ethically unacceptable
• Understand how changes to supplier evaluation criteria may invite scrutiny
• Apply ethical purchasing best practices to decide which suppliers can submit bids for a purchase 
• Identify what information you must protect, even if it is not marked as confidential

This is a self-paced course with no instructor-led forum and you have 30 days from registration to complete all course elements. It should take you approximately one hour to review the material and take any quizzes. All readings are provided in the course.

This course has been pre-approved for 1 hour of CE credit towards the CPOS, CPOP, CPOM, and CPOE certifications.