Lessons from "Le Crunch" [BT broadband office]

Lessons from "Le Crunch"

Posted 4 February 2008 at 8:21AM by Ian Betteridge in Doing business online

The reaction of most business people to the news of Societe General's "rogue trader" losses probably fell somewhere between incredulity, mirth, and "there but for the grace of God go I." For many businesses, the idea of an employee doing some kind of financial misdeed is a nightmare scenario - one which they think it virtually impossible to plan or protect yourself from.

Not every company could survive a rogue employee throwing around most of its value on stock market gambles, so perhaps the Societe General should really count itself lucky. But luck isn't the only factor that helped it survive.

As Dame Elizabeth Manningham-Butler said last year, planning can help you cope with even the most ridiculously unlikely events. "I am often asked what single piece of advice I can recommend that would be most helpful to the business community. My answer is a simple but effective business continuity plan that is regularly reviewed and tested." While what happened to Societe General was rare, it seems like there was a contingency plan even for this kind of event - and it swung in to action and helped the company survive.

Of course, rogue employees aren't the only dangers that a business faces - more mundane technical issues can cause companies to melt down too. Take a look at our feature on "Three ways to keep your business going" for some advice on how you can help protect your business against issues like data loss and equipment failure.

Tags: bt, bt broadbandoffice, business continuity, planning, security

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Comments

1. At February 4, 2008 6:55 PM, Eddie's Ghost wrote:

Git to agree with having contingency plans. I work on a technical support desk and the amount of customers I hear whining about the amount of money they're losing because they're broadband's gone down verges on the ridiculous.

Customers call up complaining that if they can't send off an e-mail or an order or something by the end of the day they'll be at risk of going under, but they have absolutely no back up systems in place. I mean even a basic pay as you go dial up account could let you do stuff in an emergency, but do people have them? Do they chocolate.

BT broadband office