The head of accounting for a Fortune 500 company confronted the CEO. “Why are you shipping product to buyers when the product is not finished?” The response was curt, “We’ll finish it in the field.”  Ah, meeting the numbers. You can’t book ’em unless you ship. The CEO knew his head of accounting would never go for the old 32-day month. So, in a new twist, he was booking revenues for products shipped that were not quite done.  Technical compliance with accounting rules. A loophole. A diem to be carpe-ed. The best laid plans . . . Finishing in the field does have its drawbacks, such as customers wondering what’s happening, the need to get company experts to the customers, and those unanticipated glitches that might have been remedied easily prior to shipment were exacerbated in size and distance by unfinished products around the globe. Oh, sure. They met the numbers, only to lose them to extra costs. Going forward, the company had to cope with lost customers. You can’t ship product, however early, to customer you don’t have. Short-term decisions. Less-than-forthright financial reports. And customers who did not sign on for unfinished product.
We don’t worry about ethics because we’re fussy do-gooders. We worry about ethics because they are a critical component of business survival. The plain, hard truth is that the shipment early was not honest, for those using and relying on the financial reports but, perhaps more importantly, for the customers. All deserved candor.  A little candor goes a long way in saving a product, maybe the brand. And so the former head of accounting concluded, “He ruined the product, maybe the brand.”
By the way, the former head of accounting is doing just fine. He moved on to better things. The company and the CEO continue to struggle.