In January 2009, the Management Express arm of the British Council in Malawi invited its members to take part in a forum discussing the effects of industrial espionage.

The aim, says Country Director Marc Jessel, was to alert companies to the importance of protecting their own information, while exploring legal ways of getting information about their competitors.

‘There’s a distinction between stealing and finding out what the competition is doing through networking or other informal discussions,’ says Jessel.

Of the 350 Management Express members in Malawi, about 80 attended the event in Blantyre, says Jessel.

‘The forum was about two things: how businesses in Malawi can protect themselves from industrial espionage and how companies can act as good corporate citizens by protecting that information.’

The event took place a month after a well-publicised incident in which a disk containing sensitive information on 2 000 British Council employees went missing in England.

‘I alluded to the incident,’ says Jessel. The fact that the disk containing sensitive information had been misplaced, he says, served as an example of how important it is for companies to protect their information.

‘The British Council is compliant with the 1998 Data Protection Act, which means that the information on the disk was completely encrypted. The disk is of no use to anyone,’ Jessel says.

It showed that even if something unexpected happens there are ways of ensuring that your information stays safe.

‘I spoke about how the British Council protects its data and about how IT departments can protect themselves from viruses and other harmful computer tampering.’

The forum was the first Management Express meeting of the year. To read more about professional development in Africa or other British Council news in Africa.