This first programme looks at the Cinderella of the British Motor Industry - Leyland's Truck and Bus Group. It has always made a profit but over the years most of it has been handed back to the ailing car division. Then the Ryder report made the Truck Group a profit centre and Ron Ellis, the Manager of Truck and Bus, can move into battle in Europe with some of our best young engineers. The Risk Business lifts the covers on Ron Ellis's biggest gamble, the still-secret plans for the truck he hopes to launch in 1978.

Even the biggest and best companies can be hit by the capriciousness of the High Street. For example the run-flat tyre which, after the worst puncture, will still carry you safely at 60 mph for a further 100 miles. But can the tyre makers persuade the car men to adapt their designs to take the new wheel? The answer lies, partly at least, with the customer. Again, the drink-in-a-tube is a brave attempt by a major plastics company to break into the enormous fizzy drinks market. But that scene is already hotly contested by the makers of bottles and cans. The result is a fierce three-way battle for the thirsty customer. The Risk Business this week discovers that some very unfunny things can happen on the way to market.

How does the pioneer know how much his work is going to cost when he's operating at the frontiers of knowledge? And when the project stands 70 feet in air, 530 feet in water, drilling through 9,000 feet of rock below that, the costs can be appalling. Raymond Baxter , William Woollard and Andrew Neil report on the struggle to win oil from the Thistle field, which is proving to be one of the most innovative projects the oil world has ever undertaken. Burmab's North Sea team, headed by executive director MIKE LOFTING and Managing Director DON SHIM -MON, are struggling to get the oil and the money flowing in a war against time, inflation, and the unpredictable North Sea. The Risk Business talks to them about their decisions and gambles.

William Woollard and Raymond Baxter look at the human gamble of worker participation and industrial democracy. What do they hold in store for industry? Management by committee? Shopfloor control? Worker directors on the board? Or simply giving people a greater say in their own jobs? The Risk Business visits several companies who have put worker participation into practice in a variety of ways. Giants like ici rub shoulders with worker-owned companies like Scott-Bader; advanced technology plants are learning the same lessons as old-fashioned factories. The Government is committed to legislate on industrial democracy-an issue which could radically alter our working lives.

The struggle of a lone inventor to convince the world's glass manufacturers that he had made a discovery of crucial importance. Michael Rodd and Judith Hann tell the story of Glass Reinforced Cement, the world-beating all-British breakthrough. The Chairman of Britain's largest glass manufacturer, Sir Alistair Pilk. ington, describes how he almost missed this discovery and the best way to use large research teams in the innovation business.

Can you miss the boat - and end up better off? Shipbuilding everywhere is facing a severe crisis, yet Britain, left behind in the 1960s, is now strongly placed to build the ships the world needs. Michael Rodd , Raymond Baxter and Andrew Neil examine why the world's shipbuilders got into such a mess and the opportunities now waiting to be taken. Reporting from the Far East, as well as at home, the programme shows how the shape of both ships and the industry is changing. If Britain's shipbuilders, nationalised or not, are to survive, they must react to these changes. Opportunities exist, but risks are substantial.