MarketingWeek reported on an initiative that McDonalds began earlier this year in order to pursue that quality that seems to be increasingly important for large businesses: "transparency." While there may always be those who are suspicious of a company, taking real steps to make the public and other investors feel better about your processes is an admirable step that can make all the difference for your productivity and sense of organization.

These videos are targeted toward British consumers and show ordinary people chosen to be "quality scouts" who are sent through various factories and processing locations. This is intended to demonstrate the way that McDonald's operates and promote a sense of connection to the outsiders, as well as feature testimonies of former "skeptics" who admit to being "converted" by their experience watching meat get processed. 

For another example, one can look at an initiative that involves a massive change to the entire way a business makes and processes its materials, like Starbucks' online recycling goals, which hope to have all of its more than 450 North American stores successfully recycling at each location within the next two years.

There are dozens of McDonalds' and Starbucks' locations in Indiana, but that's beside the point: the thing to remember is that technological business accounting systems can be used to find ways to tap multiple aspects of your business to promote better behavior and create a clearer picture of what it is you do.

This is more than a chance for better PR: it's a means of making your company up-to-date and ready to compete with other firms in the same industry that are pursuing the same level of clarity.