Warning: So called 'Perfect Storms' could be on the horizon

Although we have recently experienced an unprecedented level of corporate failures, boards today are expected to be more engaged, more knowledgeable and more effective than in the past. Despite such expectations, today 's boards are operating in a faster-paced, ever changing environment brought about through intensifying regulatory and technological changes and globalisation. Emerging innovative initiatives played on new economic playing fields could turn boards into neurosis-generating machines, unable to take a rationally objective perspective unless better scenario visioning occurs at board level as perfect storms avoided.

The blight of Solid Energy is being referred as the 'Perfect Storm'. Solid Energy embarked on an ambitious programme which saw it invest in potentially new areas, including biofuels and conversion of lignite to fuel and urea. But its storm arrived in the form of falling coal prices accompanied by the fluctuating New Zealand dollar. Could Solid Energy have read its long term weather forecast more accurately than it did, or should the financial crisis continue to be blamed for the outcome? ... READ MORE

Dr Bev Edlin, FCIS - NZLawyer - 5 April 2013