Ethical practices for contracts, clear accountability, compliance with legal issues, data security, privacy as well as thrust on customer satisfaction are the key recommendations, released by the Governance and Ethics Committee of the National Association of Software and Service Companies (Nasscom) released here on Tuesday to further strengthen the corporate governance practices in the IT-BPO industry.
The report, released by the committee set up last year comprising industry experts and chaired by Infosys mentor N. R. Narayana Murthy, enumerates a set of detailed voluntary recommendations with an objective to establish highest standards of probity and corporate governance within the industry.
The report is structured across the stakeholder ecosystem to build an effective and ethical governance framework.
The recommendations detail the role of the board of directors wherein it can move from traditional advisory to strategic oversight of company affairs.
In terms of competitors the recommendations involve sharing of best practices, respecting intellectual property and ethical hiring would enable a collaborative industry.
On the issue of employees, the recommendations include confidentiality of information, protecting company assets and adherence to company policies and processes would enable the company and its employees to align to common goals.
Safe work environment
The report talks about providing a congenial and safe work environment, equal opportunity to all, appropriate grievance handling and enabling processes for promoting learning and fair practices.
In terms of vendor partners, it talks about fair and transparent procurement processes and clear guidelines on related party transactions and gifts/donations to build a framework for ethical practices with vendor partners.
Apart from the above recommendations, a detailed guideline has been created for whistleblower policy.
