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ISSUE 55 March 2010	www.powerchex.co.uk

Welcome to this month's Powerchex update:


	Also in this issue • A City Viewpoint • Articles of interest • FSA News • Conferences & Events

2010 is zooming by and Spring is just around the corner. Our guest author this month is an expert in Marketing Information Systems, and she ponders the subject of keeping customer data safe from prying and inquiring eyes. In her article, Ana Canhoto explores why organisations fail to protect customer privacy and, how and why staff compromise customer information.

Also this month, Patrick, our globe trotting risk expert, experiences a real life scenario where risk management did not work quite as expected.

The role of staff in protecting customer privacy
By Ana Isabel Canhoto, member of the marketing faculty at Henley Business School

The importance of protecting customers' privacy is widely recognized among managers, consumer groups and industry watchdogs. While the topic is not new and may even have fuelled the Revolutionary War in North America, it is particularly relevant in the current environment, where data collection is often an inherent part of the service, be it provided by a governmental body, a charity or a commercial firm.

There is now an abundance of legislation regulating what data may be collected and how it may be used, or defining organisations' obligations in terms of systems of checks and controls. Likewise, there is a plethora of technology-based solutions to ensure compliance with those same privacy regulations, such as encryption technology to anonymize data, or firewalls and passwords to limit access to sensitive information.

Despite the availability and widespread use of legal and technical mechanisms to protect customer's privacy, data breaches continue to occur. For instance, according to the Privacy Rights Clearinghouse, in the past year there were 250 separate cases of data breaches in the USA, alone, representing the compromise of thousands and thousands of records containing sensitive personal information, and affecting the privacy of numerous individuals.

The sustained occurrence of privacy breaches undermines customers' trust in service providers and their willingness to adopt or use particular products or services, as well as their willingness to provide information that helps organizations know their customers, forecast demand or customize delivery. It is, therefore, extremely important for organisations to understand why privacy breaches continue to occur....

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		About Ana Isabel Canhoto Ana Isabel Canhoto is a member of the marketing faculty at Henley Business School. Her major area of research and consulting is in Marketing Information Systems, including the implementation of Customer Relationship Management initiatives or the detection and management of undesirable customers. She is also interested in the use of online media to segment and target customers. read full biography

A City viewpoint

Patrick Healy Alternative Strategies - A year away from the City
March

The topic for this month's instalment suggested itself very naturally and it brings me closer to the disciplines that I have used in my work in recent years than most of the previous articles.

Risk management is a much abused term and apparent failures in risk management have been identified as causative factors in the recent (and ongoing) financial crisis. I would suggest that it is probably fairer to say that the risk management issues arose from the excessive faith placed in it as a science but also from the generally unacknowledged fact that there are very large areas where current risk management techniques simply cannot provide clear answers.

The terms in which much risk language was couched were part of the problem. For example the phrases ‘a one in a hundred year event' or ‘likely to occur once every thousand years' contain an implied term. Broadly speaking this term is ‘on the basis that the patterns that underlie historical trends continue to operate in the same manner in future and that the data we are using is reasonably accurate and complete in terms of our attempt to model the events we are trying to forecast'. This is obviously quite a mouthful and this may be part of the explanation as to why it did not make it onto many of the PowerPoint slides used for presentations to the boards of banks...

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Articles of interest

2009 Fraud Trends CIFAS, February 2010 Compensation Round Up - Details / Data On 21 Firms HERE IS THE CITY NEWS, 25th February 2010 Blankfein, Dimon, Mack & Moynihan - The Firings, Setbacks & Turndowns HERE IS THE CITY NEWS, 22nd February 2010 Lack of Recruitment Opportunities in Investment Banking Sector Crystal Umbrella News, 22nd February 2010 Hedge Funds In Recruitment Drive As Investment Banks Continue To Suffer FreeBusinessThinking.com, 22nd February 2010 You can't write trust into a contract Times Online, 22nd February 2010 Hedge Funds in recruitment drive as Investment Banks continue to suffer Press release, 15th February 2010 Model clauses for overseas transfers of personal data updated Out-Law.com, 8th February 2010

FSA News

After the crises: assessing the costs and benefits of financial liberalisation FSA, 15th February 2010 The FSA's Proposals on Reforming Corporate Governance: New Elite or Endangered Species? Slaughter and May, February 2010

Conferences & Events

Chartered Institute for Securities & Investment
Events Calendar

Social Media and the Employment Relationship
JSB, London, 3rd March 2010

Employing overseas nationals
Personnel Today, London, 16th March 2010

Practical Fraud Detection Workshop
Fraud Advisory Panel, London, 16th March 2010

The HR Employment Law Forum 2010
Symposium Events, London, 18th March 2010

Discipline, Grievances and Dismissal
JSB, London, 23rd March 2010

Long Finance Roundtable: In Search Of The Eternal Coin
Gresham College, London, 25th March 2010

London HR Connection Event: The Annual Employment Law Quiz
London HR Connection, London, 12th May 2010

Global Human Resource Mnanagement
Personnel Today, London, 19th May 2010

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