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Removing Vendor's branding from their Document before to send it to our customer. Right or Wrong?

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Anonymous
I was asked recently to remove our vendor's logo from a document belonging to them before to send it to our customer without asking permission from our vendor in prior. Our vendor is aware of the project however, they are not directly in communication with our customer. Nevertheless, they own the product we are to deliver.

I am in the opinion that this is plagiarism if not a form of deceit. It seems to be our company is trying to present the information as our own.

I have argued with our PMO head that this doesn't seem right however, he argued that the document is not trademark and there is nothing wrong in removing their logo.

My questions are:
1) Is this right to remove the vendor's logo from their document?
2) What would you do? or rather What is the right thing to do?
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Luis Sánchez Project Manager| SENER Madrid, Madrid, Spain
1. Just from the moment you think it may be not correct is becasue it isn't. If there were no impact at all, you would not be requested to removed it.

2. Customers do know the diference between manufacturer and provider, you should issue any type of cover page detailing what you are going to provide, and then the vendor document untouched.

Nobody expects the barman to brew the beer.
...
1 reply by anonymous
Feb 24, 2017 9:11 AM
anonymous
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for the sake of argument, since Nobody expect the barman to brew the beer, then, why would there be any impact not to remove the label?

my question wasn't if there was an impact or not (there obviously is) but was it right to serve you a beer brewed by someone else and present it as that brewed by me?

And say it wasn't important if an alteration has occurred, why wouldn't then the vendor send their document in PDF format (and not words or other format that could be easily edited) and refused to provide me a copy without their logo?
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Anonymous
Feb 24, 2017 7:33 AM
Replying to Luis Sánchez
...
1. Just from the moment you think it may be not correct is becasue it isn't. If there were no impact at all, you would not be requested to removed it.

2. Customers do know the diference between manufacturer and provider, you should issue any type of cover page detailing what you are going to provide, and then the vendor document untouched.

Nobody expects the barman to brew the beer.
for the sake of argument, since Nobody expect the barman to brew the beer, then, why would there be any impact not to remove the label?

my question wasn't if there was an impact or not (there obviously is) but was it right to serve you a beer brewed by someone else and present it as that brewed by me?

And say it wasn't important if an alteration has occurred, why wouldn't then the vendor send their document in PDF format (and not words or other format that could be easily edited) and refused to provide me a copy without their logo?
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Rami Kaibni
Community Champion
Senior Projects Manager | Field & Marten Associates New Westminster, British Columbia, Canada
I do definitely agree with Luis ... He is 100% Correct.

Removing thr logo and sending the document as if it belongs to your company is not within the work ethics and documents confidentiality framwork.
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Eric Simms Senior Program Manager Baltimore, Maryland, United States
Ask your PMO head this question: “Does our company have a contract with the vendor that allows us to remove the vendor’s logo from its documentation?”
You and the PMO head might simply be talking at cross purposes. It sounds like you’re assuming your company does not have the legal right to remove the logo. In actuality, your PMO head might know about a contract that permits logo removal and assumes you know about it as well, and therefore can’t understand why you won’t make a simple graphical edit.
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Diogo Simoes Entroncamento, Santarém, Portugal
I am 100% with Luis point of view.
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SUNNY HELWANDE BUSINESS LEAD| ExxonMobil Services Private Limited Dombivli, Maharashtra, India
Removing vendor logo is against work ethics.
I assume in the case mentioned above, prior vendor approval from client is taken. Hence company should not be having any problem in submitting doc with vendor logo.
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Thomas Kennedy Project Engineer| BP Aberdeen, Aberdeenshire, United Kingdom
Standard practice I've seen is for Luis point 2, vendor document untouched with a project cover sheet.

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