19 January 2006

Buyers are evenly split on whe-ther they are shutting the door on high-value supplier relationships by taking too rigid a view on gifts and hospitality.

In response to an SM poll of 181 votes conducted via our website at www.supplymanagement.com, 51 per cent answered "yes" and 49 per cent "no" to the question. The survey followed a cover story in December which explored gifts and ethics.

It discovered while many companies now have a corporate policy on hospitality and gifts, often doubt remains over interpretation for accepting, for example, "reasonably small tokens".

Many companies favour logging gifts and never accepting anything from a supplier involved in litigation or contract negotiations with the business.

CIPS code of ethics says business gifts should not be accepted unless they are items of very small intrinsic value.

SMjan2006