Floods in Thailand Cause Earnings Caution by Apple

Recent flooding in Thailand has caused damage to Nimec, who....Nimec the worlds largest hard drive supplier.  It controls up to 80% of the parts used in hard drives.

It shows the problem of not having back up suppliers for critical parts required by your company. 

Does your company rely on one vendor for key parts or services, do you have plans if something happens to them out of your control?

You can read about the hard drive problem here.

Business Continuity Insurance Claims from Japanese Earthquake Revelations

Original estimates for claims for business interruption resulting from the Japanese earthquake and nuclear disaster ranged from a low of 5 billion to a high of 15 billion.

The insurance industry now says claims will be around the 5 billion mark, as they did not have to pay on some of the biggest claims, like Apple Computers who claimed $500 million.  Why did they not have to pay?  Why did Apple claim such a large amount?

Apple was set to launch the IPad2 in the 3 weeks that followed the earthquake, they had business interruption insurance as many of the critical parts needed to fulfill the orders for the Ipad were made in Japan.

Much of their claim was denied though, because parts could also be made at other manufacturers...but most interesting was one critical part was made at a factory that was in the evacuation zone of the nuclear reactor, so the part could not be made.  Why were they not covered for this?

The insurer says that the supplier was not "physically" damaged by the earthquake, they were just made to evacuate, and the policy did not cover that apparently.

You should work very closely with your insurance broker to see, including the fine print, what sort of scenario's are and are not covered by your policy if you have one.  (P.S. get it in writing).

You can read more about it in this insurance industry article here.

Risk and Disruption - NFC Chip and Cash

You are about to have a new partner.....this new partner is going to take their cut right off the top of every payment made to you right at the point of purchase.

Who is this new partner......well the fight is on for who it will be, but the coming of the new NFC (near field chip) is here, and will be here in waves.

Combatants include, Google, Visa, Banks, Cable Company's, phone companies, mobile phone companies, smart phone makers, apple computers, everyone wants a piece of your cash, they want a percentage and to charge you transaction fees.

The NFC chip is designed as a unique identifier chip that will be tied to  everything from your visa accounts, your debit account, your loyalty card accounts, your anything to do with cash accounts.

All you will need to do to make a payment is to wave your phone near a reader and the payment will be made.....but who gets a transaction fee for that?  The cell phone company, Visa, in Toronto in anticipation of the fees Rogers Cable is applying to open their own bank so they can control all the fees.

Now these locked in phone contracts could really strangle everyone's wallet.   What if one phone company is paired with MasterCard....and another with visa.....and someone wants to buy from you....do you have to carry fees for both?  What if you want them to support your loyalty card....do you pay a fee for that?

The government is way behind on figuring this out..they are ceding the right to sovereign cash over to private companies, so that they get a piece of every bit of business you do.  These are big dollars at play.

If you own a building with a Banking Machine in it.....better start thinking of a new use for that space.   Watch here for more info.

Corporate Espionage

Fake Apple Store being Discovered

In the world of technology products (and many other industries), intellectual property is king, owning patents, trolling on patents, being number one means the majority of all profits for certain sectors are yours.

For technology products like smart phones, the windows from production to launch, to the end of that products life before a new version comes out is frighteningly fast.

RIM could not get its playbook out in time for last Christmas and his been playing catch up ever since.  Samsung and Apple are working hard to stall the success of each other product launches on tablets and phones.

With so much at stake, Apple has gone about advertising for security specialists to protect it's intellectual property all over the world, from cradle to grave, against corporate spies and counterfeiters.

The job has never been tougher and the window never been tighter, the only thing that separates a lot of technology companies today is their swiftness in moving from the idea of a product to execution and delivery of it to the marketplace, before it is copied, cloned, or counterfeited.

News Article on Apples Plans here.

Quick, Easy, Free Screen Sharing Tool - Good for Fast Troubleshooting

One of the simplest things that can "hang" a business is a problem for a customer using their PC to access your services, or to get settings right.

(might even be good to help out friends and relatives who are technically challenged....no way that is yourself of course!)

This neat little java program is free, requires no licenses, very simple to operate. Its a beta program by this screen recording company.

To check it out watch the short video below. It might save you a trip. Link to the site is Here.

Toyota - Learning how to protect its supply chain from earthquakes

Some very key points in this article about Toyota and how they are approaching Business Continuity Planning....they follow the same model as I teach in my book.

The article does not have it totally correct, but paints some key points.

First they set the target and the goal...to be able to return to full production with in two weeks of any major disaster.  The goal is key, it drives the research, and the planning, and the costs.

They are currently about 80% of the way thru identifying what I call "single points of failure".  Once these are identified, you look to discover protections, backups, or workarounds.  Notice from the article many of the failure points are in their vendors not necessarily in their production facilities.

One of the things they discovered was they need to standardize more of their parts, some parts are slightly different than the same parts for other countries, therefore they could not be used to continue production.

The key is to first set the goal.  The article is here.

Is Your Business Near a Nuclear Reactor - There is Insurance for That

What happens if an earthquake or a Tsunami strikes, or some kind of nuclear safety malfunction....governments institute an "Exclusion Zone"....barring people from entering certain areas.

You can now buy insurance if your business is located in one of these areas and it interrupts your revenues or production.

You can read about the company offering this coverage here.