ACCA or CIMA? …or MICE?

ACCA and CIMA are two of the leading professional bodies and as providers of some of the best finance and business qualifications in the world they have ethics at their core.

If you take a step back though, they are arguably in competition with each other and here’s an important question:

Have they been ethical in their approach to competing with each other?

In my opinion the answer is a resounding yes, and it’s a good example of how competition can and should be undertaken ethically.

Ethical competitive approaches include for example focussing on your strengths rather than deliberately trying to harm or damage your competitors.

If you’re looking for the other extreme though and want an example of how to compete unethically then head over to Philadelphia in America.

Nickolas Galiatsatos, the owner of Nina’s Bella Pizzeria in Philadelphia came up with an extremely unusual and completely unethical approach to winning business from his competitors.

Mr Galiatsatos was spotted by the owner of Verona Pizza, a competing restaurant, heading to the toilet of the competitor restaurant carrying a full plastic bag but then emerged a couple of minutes later minus the bag.

Doing nothing to dispel the stereotypical view of US policemen spending a lot of time at Donut bars and Pizza restaurants, there just happened to be two policemen sat in the restaurant eating pizza at that time.

Further investigation by the police found a number of mice in and around the empty bag in the toilet and when they headed out of the restaurant to find Mr Galiatsatos they found him depositing some more mice around the back of another nearby restaurant.

Mr Galiatsatos has now been charged with criminal mischief, harassment and disorderly conduct as well as cruelty to animals.

Importantly therefore if you’re thinking of ways to get ahead of your competitors please don’t involve bags of mice…