Moral Dilemma

C

contemporary

Registered User
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494
Kind of an unusal problem, I do some work in a trade that is highly competitive between my clients and their competitors. A month ago a supplier to the trade emailed me a pricing spreadsheet to up load into one of my clients systems, however they sent the wrong file as the prices were for company X who I dont deal with but are competitors to my clients.

I was talking to my client yesterday and he was saying how Company X murdered him on a recent contract, and seems to be aggressively targeting his key accounts.

My dilemma is that my client is worth a 5 figure some to me per annum while Company X will never deal with me, I could supply my client with Company X's prices so that he can keep his key accounts, however if word got into the trade that I would so such a thing it would affect me in the long run.

Opinions greatly appreciated
 
Treat others as you would have them treat you.

I'm not even sure of the legalities of what you are proposing/questioning.
 
to be honesty and you may find this rutless but "you have no friends in business".

i have found this out over and over again.only the strongest will survive! if it benefits you i would do what you are saying
 
Personally, I wouldn't do it. If your client knows that you have the capability to operate in that manner, then it will do you no good in the long run, with him, or with anyone else that he may tell about the way you work. As was commented above, you probably wouldn't get much benefit from making it available anyway, only the possibility of "bad press".

If you feel that there's a dilemma in this, you're obviously thinking somewhere that there's something wrong with what you're doing. if that's the case, you shouldn't do it.

If you've no such problems of conscience, but still want your client to get the information, and don't want the issues of my first point, then you can post it to your client without any note or info to let him know where it came from.
 
Shred it and say nothing ! Business relationship can and do change and there are certainly no guarantees in life - what if the relationship getween you and your client changes for the worst in the years to come - things could be made very awkward for you imo.
 
Don't act on this as you may
(a) damage the relationship between you and your supplier, especially if there are confidentiality agreements in place between them and your company.
(b) If your client's clients discovered how they got the information they may not be best pleased.
(c) If there was any disclaimers in the email about confidentiality of the information sent, you may face issues there (See (a) above.)
(d) While this may help your client, they may not see you in as professional a light from then on and wonder what other "tricks" you get up to.

C
 
Personally I don't think there is that much to gain from releasing the info to your client. If you are friendly (more than just a business friendship) you could say something privately, saying that you heard from a source.

Does karma exist in business?
 
Dont even think about it!
There is an assumption that IT people can be trusted with data all the time, even when it is not their own client. Without this, support and assitance etc would be impossible.
Bin the info, as Ive done many many times over the years.
 
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