---
title: Business continuity planning
date: "2005-10-28T12:00:00Z"
categories:
  - links
wp_id: 518
description: The Economist examines business continuity planning via Ericsson's $2 billion loss. A minor ten-minute fire at a Philips chip factory crippled their supply chain, demonstrating how lack of alternative sourcing can destroy market leadership.
keywords: [ericsson, business continuity planning, supply chain management, risk mitigation, philips, semiconductors]
---

The Economist on [Business Continuity Planning](http://www.economist.com/printedition/displayStory.cfm?story_id=5093490).

> The effect on Ericsson, a Swedish mobile-phone company, of a fire in a New Mexico chipmaking plant belonging to the Dutch firm Philips, has become a legend. The fire, in March 2000, started by a bolt of lightning, lasted less than 10 minutes, but it caused havoc to the super-clean environment that chipmaking requires. Ericsson, unable to find an alternative source of supply, went on to report a loss of over $2 billion in its mobile-phone division that year, a loss that left it as an also-ran in an industry where it had once been a leader.