Business Early Warning Systems [Mass Market Paperback]

Patrick J Caragata (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: November 30, 1999

The science of examining early warning signs and designing early warning systems for business survival and growth is really just beginning.

The author outlines the basis for implementing a Business Early Warning System (BEWS©), including methods for:

1. Developing a Transparency, Accountability and Performance Measurement Programme, and
2. Tracking the eight common structural and behavioural “footsteps to disaster”
- Ineffective electronic monitoring and poor quality information
- Inadequate back-up or fail-safe systems
- Inadequate funding for an early warning system
- Weak risk standards
- Ignoring risk thresholds
- Ignoring early warning signs
- Inadequate advance screening
- The absence of clear signals

Lessons for developing corporate early warning systems were drawn from the major aviation, commercial, and industrial disasters of the twentieth century:

Titanic Sinking (North Atlantic) (1912)
Hindenburg Zeppelin Explosion (USA) (1937)
Tenerife (Canary Is.) PanAm & KLM Air Collision (1977)
Union Carbide, Bhopal (India) Pesticide Disaster (1984)
Chernobyl (Ukraine) Nuclear Disaster (1986)
Challenger Space Shuttle Explosion (1986)
Exxon-Valdez Oil Spill, Alaska (1989)

and hundreds of other cases.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Patrick Caragata is Managing Director of a Wellington company that specialises in corporate financial health diagnosis, corporate turnarounds and fraud investigations. He has automated the corporate credit rating process and provides a ratings service for the banking, insurance, and hi-tech sectors as well as large corporations that wish to monitor their client base.

Highlights of his career to date include positions as Manager International Policy, with both the Canadian Chamber of Commerce and the Canadian Council International Chamber of Commerce; a military and strategic studies adviser to the Department of National Defence in Canada; Senior Economist International in charge of the country risk analysis group at the Toronto-Dominion Bank; Senior Adviser Policy with Investment Canada working on the Canada/US Free Trade Agreement; Chief Economist with the New Zealand Ministry of Energy; and Chief Tax Policy Adviser and then Special Adviser, Taxation Economics in Inland Revenue, New Zealand.

Dr Caragata has published five books and many articles on resource economics and resource taxation, optimal taxation for countries, and risk management in the financial arena. He has also been a consultant for the World Bank’s Foreign Investment Advisory Service in Sri Lanka in 1994 and for the IMF in Albania. It was his work in December 1995 that blew the whistle on the investment pyramid schemes in Albania, whose collapse led to the riots in January 1997. In 1999 at the request of the Faroe Islands government, he led a team involved in restructuring the Faroe Islands’ economy in preparation for the elimination of the Danish subsidy and the potential impact of oil production. He is on the Board of Directors of the Tuvalu Investment Trust Fund and the New Zealand Turnaround Management Association.

Dr Caragata holds three degrees from the University of Toronto: BA Honours (1973), MA, (Political Economy, 1976) and a PhD (Political Economy, 1981). He has considerable experience in the financial sector in Canada and New Zealand in dealing with corporate risk and the management of those risks and has drawn upon his professional background in writing this book. He is both a Canadian and a New Zealand citizen.

Product Details

• Mass Market Paperback: 382 pages
• Publisher: Butterworths of New Zealand Ltd.; 1st edition (November 30, 1999)
• ISBN-10: 0408715766
• ISBN-13: 978-0408715768
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #5,808,278 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The subject of risk, November 13, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: Business Early Warning Systems (Mass Market Paperback)

The Book: Business Early Warning Systems The Author: Dr. Patrick J. Caragata The Publisher: Butterworth Group ISBN 0408715766

Lets face it, the management of risk should not be a retrospective issue, but rather one of forecasting the probability of possible future problems and preventing them before they can happen. This should be done by addressing these possibilities through the use of contingency plans and is something that occurs far too infrequently. This subject for some reason has, to a major degree, gone without being addressed even though it is pertinent to marketing, just as it is to all other areas in business and government. Dr. Caragata, A CANADIAN SOFTWARE DESIGNER LIVING IN NEW ZEALAND, is well qualified for the task and has put together what this writer considers one of the most important books dedicated to this subject available today. This book is unique in that it addresses the subject of risk and how it can and should be addressed. Many examples of past incidents are cited. In an era in which greater culpability is being placed on administrators be it industry, commerce or government, this book is mandatory reading. It addresses the different types of risk and cites examples of how that risk can be addressed and the costs involved both in terms of monetary loss and survival. This can be appreciated when one considers the rash of air disasters such as the Swiss Air crash, oil spills such as that of the EXXON-Valdez and environmental CATASTROPHES such as that in Bhopal India by Union Carbide, to name only a few. Dr. Caragata provides examples of how these disasters as well as others could have been avoided had the early warning signs been acknowledged and dealt with. HE demonstrates that the science of examining the warning signs for survival are consistent ACROSS MAJOR BUSINESS DISASTERS. He states that many signs can be tracked electronically through the use of electronic risk profiling. He suggests that the use of such tools can provide senior management with the tools to train management and boards to be more open to information challenging their dominant values. He CONCLUDES THAT THERE ARE EIGHT MAJOR FOOTSTEPS TO BUSINESS DISASTERS:POOR QUALITY INFORMATION, INADEQUATE BACK-UP SYSTEMS, INADEQUATE FUNDING FOR WARNING SYSTEMS, WEAK RISK STANDARDS, IGNORING RISK THRESHOLDS, IGNORING EARLY WARNING SIGNS, INADEQUATE ADVANCE SCREENING AND LACK OF CLEAR SIGNALS. I would add that these deficiencies are applicable to all functions within industry, commerce or government. Again I emphasize that this book is mandatory reading for any person in a position of authority

1 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The subject of risk, November 13, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: Business Early Warning Systems (Mass Market Paperback)

The Book: Business Early Warning Systems The Author: Dr. Patrick J. Caragata The Publisher: Butterworth Group ISBN 0408715766

Lets face it, the management of risk should not be a retrospective issue, but rather one of forecasting the probability of possible future problems and preventing them before they can happen. This should be done by addressing these possibilities through the use of contingency plans and is something that occurs far too infrequently. This subject for some reason has, to a major degree, gone without being addressed even though it is pertinent to marketing, just as it is to all other areas in business and government. Dr. Caragata, A CANADIAN SOFTWARE DESIGNER LIVING IN NEW ZEALAND, is well qualified for the task and has put together what this writer considers one of the most important books dedicated to this subject available today. This book is unique in that it addresses the subject of risk and how it can and should be addressed. Many examples of past incidents are cited. In an era in which greater culpability is being placed on administrators be it industry, commerce or government, this book is mandatory reading. It addresses the different types of risk and cites examples of how that risk can be addressed and the costs involved both in terms of monetary loss and survival. This can be appreciated when one considers the rash of air disasters such as the Swiss Air crash, oil spills such as that of the EXXON-Valdez and environmental CATASTROPHES such as that in Bhopal India by Union Carbide, to name only a few. Dr. Caragata provides examples of how these disasters as well as others could have been avoided had the early warning signs been acknowledged and dealt with. HE demonstrates that the science of examining the warning signs for survival are consistent ACROSS MAJOR BUSINESS DISASTERS. He states that many signs can be tracked electronically through the use of electronic risk profiling. He suggests that the use of such tools can provide senior management with the tools to train management and boards to be more open to information challenging their dominant values. He CONCLUDES THAT THERE ARE EIGHT MAJOR FOOTSTEPS TO BUSINESS DISASTERS:POOR QUALITY INFORMATION, INADEQUATE BACK-UP SYSTEMS, INADEQUATE FUNDING FOR WARNING SYSTEMS, WEAK RISK STANDARDS, IGNORING RISK THRESHOLDS, IGNORING EARLY WARNING SIGNS, INADEQUATE ADVANCE SCREENING AND LACK OF CLEAR SIGNALS. I would add that these deficiencies are applicable to all functions within industry, commerce or government. Again I emphasize that this book is mandatory reading for any person in a position of authority