Microsoft recognized as one of the world’s most ethical companies (2024)

We’re honored that Microsoft is recognized for the 11th consecutive year as one of Ethisphere's World’s Most Ethical companies. Reflecting on our journey thus far, we do not take this for granted.We are thankful to our employees who make this recognition possible by living our values and making decisions that build trust.We are also grateful to our many friends in the broader global compliance community with whom we collaborate and from whom we continue to learn.We believe that when it comes to the art of compliance, liberally sharing learnings builds momentum for solving the toughest challenges.I hope through collaboration, others build on what we share below, contributing their voice to the broader compliance and ethics conversation.

“Culture more than rulebooks determine how an organization behaves.” – Warren Buffet.

• While it is of course important to communicate company values plainly and to set clear policies and expectations, we have learned that employees take their cues from what they see and experience every day. That’s why we look for ways to embed compliance and ethics messages and teachings into the organization so that it shapes company culture and helps employees make good choices under pressure.Our Standards of Business Conduct courses use storytelling and character development to show our employees how common workplace decisions can build trust, or how decisions that lack integrity or don’t adhere to company values can undermine the company’s reputation.These popular courses garner significant engagement and generate discussion along with fans, all while advancing Trust as a priority and helping employees choose to speak up when they feel something is not right.
• We have learned not to think of compliance as a bolt-on, but instead as a business imperative that is designed from the beginning into our product offerings, sales practices, and business models. We are working hard to strengthen our compliance-by-design culture and are heartened by the significant progress we have made through consistent tone from the top and effective governance.We are always eager to benchmark our practices with others in the broader compliance community because, as Ben Franklin said, an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.
• Microsoft’s partners are critical to maintaining trust with our customers and we are only as good as each link in our ecosystem.We have learned that greater transparency and knowledge sharing with our partners accelerates progress. We have opened channels for direct compliance-to-compliance engagement with key partners to communicate values, share expectations, and incent transformational change.

Technology is a core part of the solution inside Microsoft.

We use technology and data to identify emergent compliance risks before they lead to failures, to measure and monitor our remediation and control efforts, and to better understand our overall risk profile.Our data efforts supplement rather than replace human judgment.By bringing automated tools and data insights to our compliance community we help them move faster, engage more proactively, and design more durable solutions that tackle risks at their source.

• We continue to invest in our Compliance Analytics Program (CAP), which is focused on using machine learning and data science techniques to expose risks, reveal insights, and monitor compliance outcomes using internal and external data. CAP has grown rapidly over the last several years, solidifying its role as a critical early warning system that screens tens of billions of dollars of transactions annually for corruption risk, while expanding into areas such as partner risk scoring, channel and market risk profiling, and compliance-related business insights. The CAP program is currently focused on bringing its tools and insights to an even broader compliance audience in an effort to democratize data access, create feedback loops, and close knowledge gaps for front-line risk managers and business teams.
• Technology reaches every part of the globe, so it's critical that all our communications are inclusive and diverse. We have accelerated our internal efforts to replace racially insensitive and biased technology language in our software and hardware experiences. For anyone writing technical language, we already provide open guidelines on writing inclusive language, but we recognize that insensitive terms such as blacklist and whitelist are still common in the industry. By strengthening our efforts to scan content and code for language that may carry unconscious bias, we aim to ensure that our products are free of offensive terms and are inclusive and respectful of all cultures.

We advocate for technology to be a core part of the solution outside Microsoft.

Technologies such as cloud computing and AI provide new solutions for organizations and governments to tackle emerging challenges as well as age-old problems.We are investing in solutions to combat corruption and helping organizations undertake digital transformation to improve compliance outcomes.

• In the next decade, Microsoft Anti-Corruption Technology and Solutions (ACTS), will leverage the company’s investments in cloud computing, data visualization, AI, machine learning, and other emerging technologiesto enhance transparency and to detect and deter corruption. We will endeavor to bring the most promising solutions to the broadest possible audience, using our partner networks, programs, and global employee base to scale solutions through careful consideration of their priorities, technical infrastructure, and capabilities.
• The time is right for a digital transformation of export controls – a new approach that leverages novel digital solutions within sensitive and important technology itself to better protect it from uses that harm national security, while preserving its beneficial uses. Microsoft and OpenAI have joined together to work on these solutions. In asubmission to the U.S. government, we describe how a digitally transformed export controls system would work and the substantial benefits it would provide.

With each milestone on this journey, we learn more about what is possible.And through the power of technology, we believe the possibilities are limitless.We look forward to continuing on this journey and learning experience with all of you and doing our part to contribute to a brighter future for everybody.