Author Archives: Emily Holbrook

About Emily Holbrook

Emily Holbrook is a former editor of the Risk Management Monitor and Risk Management magazine. You can read more of her writing at EmilyHolbrook.com.
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Chicago Practices Poor Risk Management

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Chicago’s worst storm on record paralyzed the entire city and beyond. The area’s heavily-traveled Lake Shore Drive became a parking lot for snow-covered and stranded cars — around 900 of them. City officials are being criticized for not taking action to close the major thoroughfare before conditions became treacherous. Lake Shore Drive was not closed until 7:58 p.m. Tuesday after three crashes occurred. Conditions soon worsened after a string of additional accidents, leaving many motorists stuck in their vehicles for up to 12 hours.

Lincoln Park resident Julius Jellinek, who was trapped on Lake Shore Drive for six hours, called it “a disgrace” that the city took as long as it did to move cars blocking exit ramps. “There was absolutely no reason to hold us hostage,” he said. “With a little planning or a little thinking, they could take all of the cars off Lake Shore Drive, the ones that were stuck.” Aware of the complaints, [Mayor Daley’s Chief of Staff] Orozco took full responsibility for the timing of the Drive shutdown and apologized to the hundreds of motorists who were inconvenienced.

The apology:

And now, another video showing the road conditions.

It’s baffling to see one of the nation’s biggest cities so ill prepared for emergency situations. It reminds us of the post-Christmas snowstorm in New York City, when Mayor Bloomberg was heavily criticized for the city’s slow response to snow removal and other emergency situations. Cities like Chicago and New York should practice better risk management. There is no excuse.

Jan/Feb Issue of Risk Management Now Online

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Faithful readers: the January/February issue of Risk Management magazine is now online. The cover story focuses on women’s struggles and successes within the risk management and insurance industry. Other features explore the rising risk of pirate threats on the high seas, the 3 worst assumptions risk managers make and how a new SEC rule changed the way companies look at risk management.

Our columns explore topics such as insurers reaction to the Fed’s spending, the biggest risks of 2011, the property/casualty market in 2011 and an engaging Q&A with Eurasia Group President Ian Bremmer.

If you enjoy what you seen online, you can subscribe to the print edition to enjoy even more content.

Please let us know what you think in the comments below. And stay tuned to the blog for even more coverage in the future. Lastly, you can follow the magazine on Twitter, “like” us on Facebook and join our LinkedIn group.

Crisis in Egypt: The Economic Repercussions

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The crisis in Egypt can soon turn from a political uprising to an economic catastrophe and humanitarian emergency if things don’t return to normal operation soon.

Shipping

In the port of Alexandria, among others, army tanks stand guard to ensure no one enters the area. Good plan, except that hardly anything is going out, including exports that are crucial to the country’s economy. Though reports claim that some ports are closed, the Suez Canal is apparently open to shipping traffic. Shipping companies, however, are hesitant to enter the area. If the Suez Canal should close, it would not only spell disaster for a country already in serious turmoil, but it would also mean a worldwide shipping disruption.

Production Plants

  • Nissan: the automaker suspended operations Sunday until February 3rd.
  • Unilever: the multinational corporation’s offices in Cairo have been closed since January 28th.
  • General Motors: the car maker’s plant near Cairo has not produced vehicles since January 28th with production estimated to resume Friday, February 4th.
  • Lafarge SA: the a French building materials company has temporarily stopped operations due to the situation. The company has six production sites in Egypt, six quarries and 62 ready-mix plants and employs 8,172 Egyptian workers.
  • Heineken NV: the Dutch brewer has halted operations and told its 2,040 employees in Egypt to stay home.

Tourism

The nation’s tourism sector has taken a huge hit that is expected to last for some time.

Foreigners are struggling to flee the country, tour and cruise companies are seeing cancellations and a growing list of Western and Arab nations are sending in flights to evacuate their nationals. The tourism sector is vital for Egypt — and is among one of the four top sources of foreign revenue for the country.

Tourism accounts for 5 to 6% of the country’s GDP, while Cairo International Airport is the second largest airport in Africa, after Johannesburg, handling 15 million tourists per year.

Call Centers and Online Retail

Egypt is home to numerous call centers and IT outsourcing companies. But little can be done when the government cuts internet access throughout the entire nation. Microsoft is just one of the 120 companies in Cairo’s Smart Village, an area built for major multinational and local, high-tech companies.

Asked about the situation in Egypt, Microsoft said in a written response to a query that it “is constantly assessing the impact of the unrest and Internet connection issues on our properties and services. What limited service the company as a whole provides to and through the region, mainly call-center service, has been largely distributed to other locations.”

Hewlett-Packard is another company with operations in the Smart Village. They have asked their employees there to stay home. Though President Obama has urged the Egyptian government to restore internet access, little has changed for fear that protesters will use social networks to organize further riots. For a country that has taken pride in its growing outsourcing and call center business, the suspension of internet access is taking a huge toll.

All of the above have affected financial markets worldwide. And with a “million man march” planned for tomorrow in the Arab world’s most populous nation, little is expected to change in the near future.

Yes, It’s Data Privacy Day

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It may surprise you, as it did me, to learn that today is Data Privacy Day, an “international celebration of the dignity of the individual expressed through personal information.” But Data Privacy Day also highlights the need for individuals to protect their data and how they can go about doing so.

There are many organizations out there that aim to help individuals protect their personal information and help businesses comply with data protection laws and regulations. The Online Trust Alliance is one such organization, whose mission is to create an online trust community, promoting business practices and technologies to enhance consumer trust globally. They recently released their “2011 Data Breach Incident Readiness Guide” to help businesses in breach prevention and incident management.

According to their newest guide, the true test for organizations and businesses should be the ability to answer key questions such as:

  1. Do you know what sensitive information is maintained by your company, where it is stored and how it is kept secure?
  2. Do you have an incident response team in place ready to respond 24/7?
  3. Are management teams aware of security, privacy and regulatory requirements related specifically to your business?

  4. Have you completed a privacy and security audit of all data collection activities, including cloud services, mobile devices and outsourced services?
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  5. Are you prepared to communicate to customers, partners and stockholders in the event of a breach or data loss incident?

With the White House, members of Congress, Commerce Department and the FTC calling for greater privacy controls and breach notifications, self-regulation by businesses is becoming more and more important.

Google, one of the supporters of Data Privacy Day and the initiatives of The Privacy Projects, is hosting a public discussion on privacy later this afternoon with representatives from the Electronic Frontier Foundation, the FTC and the National Institute of Standards and Technology scheduled to attend. If you can’t stop by Google’s DC office for this event, don’t worry — it will be captured on video and posted to YouTube soon after.