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Evan Davis tells the stories of some of world鈥檚 most momentous business disasters;charting how they came about, the damage they caused, and the all-important lessons to be learned from them. As Sir Richard Branson says, 鈥渋f you don鈥檛 make a mistake, you don鈥檛 make anything鈥�.

Britain鈥檚 best-loved economist delves into the nightmares that can engulf a business in three crucial areas:

product design and manufacture; marketing and public relations and strategic decision-making.

From the spectacular unpopularity of 鈥楴ew Coke鈥� to Persil鈥檚 clothes-eating washing powder; from Apple鈥檚 awkward handling of a minor defect in the iPhone4, to Sir Freddie Laker鈥檚 over-hasty expansion of his fledgling airline, this series is an invaluable education in how to avoid a business blunder - and how the smartest companies manage to bounce back after disaster has struck.

It appears that no corporate giant is immune from self-inflicted disaster, and that there are real lessons to be learned by the rest of the business world. Going beyond the anecdotes and the gut-wrenching headlines, Business Nightmares takes an in-depth analytical look at these dramatic and illuminating stories.

First-hand accounts from company insiders, often including the people who themselves took the fateful decisions, reveal the detail behind these excruciating stories and explain just how much was at stake.

Focussing not just on what happened, but why it happened, some leading lights from the business world examine the consequences and pick important lessons from the carnage.

They are Virgin boss Sir Richard Branson, entrepreneur and inventor Sir James Dyson, Interbrand chairman Rita Clifton, management trouble-shooter Sir Gerry Robinson, CEO of global advertising group WPP Sir Martin Sorrell, and PR guru Mark Borkowski.

Clever risk-taking is often at the heart of great business triumphs but these are the salutary tales of times when risks did not pay off. The results are plummeting shares, tarnished reputations, and demands for heads to roll.

From ill-conceived marketing that offended loyal customers, to customer service so bad it made national headlines, catastrophic mergers that endangered long-established brands, and products that should never have got beyond the drawing board, each themed episode takes one disaster area and tells stories from a diverse range of household-name businesses.

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