InformationWeek
Defining The Business Value Of Technology
July 19, 1999
Closing Time
Have U.K. businesses done enough to ready their systems for the year 2000?
By Scott McKenzie, InformationWeek U.K.
"I'm less optimistic now than this time last year," says Robin Guenier, executive director of Taskforce 2000, a nonprofit organization that tracks Y2K progress in the United Kingdom. "With six months to go, I'm really disappointed with the U.K.'s readiness."
A Taskforce 2000 Y2K readiness survey conducted in May with research company Business Intelligence and a U.K. law firm revealed that 30% of large U.K. companies are unlikely to finish their Y2K preparations on time. The survey focused on the country's 1,000 largest companies because, Guenier says, they provide a reliable indication of the general readiness of businesses. "If the large companies aren't up to scratch, what does that mean for the rest of the economy?" he says.
It's not just the private sector that has been slacking. Taskforce 2000 has also found the Ministry of Defense, the Foreign Office, and the Inland Revenue to be behind in their Y2K remediation work.
In the time remaining, Guenier suggests the government take a more active role to ensure Y2K compliance. Problem businesses and sectors should be identified and receive a capital injection to boost their compliance efforts, he adds.
While the outlook is grim, Guenier and other Y2K critics offer some words of optimism. "The good news is that there has been an immense amount of work done in the last six months," he says. His only nagging doubt is whether this work will be enough.
But not all U.K. companies are behind in their Y2K compliance efforts. The Post Office, for example, says it's well on track and has been for some time. "If Jan. 1 was tomorrow, we'd be OK," says Y2K program manager Mark Reader. The Post Office took the problem seriously enough to kick off its Y2K initiative in 1996. "We wanted to stay in business after Jan. 1, so we took it seriously," Reader says. To get there, the Post Office conducted an extensive audit of 120 systems.
Three years later, it's in the final process of testing the fixes and changes carried out to achieve compliance. Like a number of large companies, the Post Office is running tests on other tricky dates, such as, Feb. 29 for the leap year. Many potential problem dates exist, and each of these has to be tested, says Reader.
Fallback Position
Burns advises companies not to be complacent in their approach to back-up actions. "Companies should be testing their plans now. There's no point waiting until the New Year holiday weekend to see what happens. By then it will be too late."
ICL has several Y2K dry runs planned to keep staff on their toes and to ensure business as usual in the new year. ICL's first big test is scheduled to take place next month. Its automated warehouse stores essential parts. Typically, required parts are retrieved automatically by machines, but the company plans to shut down the robots and see what happens. This means staff will have to strap on climbing gear and retrieve the spares manually--an event for which workers are ready.
Another dry run involves turning off the "on" switch at ICL's main site for one weekend. Staff will turn up on a Monday to an office that has shut down--an event which could happen at the turn of the new century ICL hopes its workers will react immediately and adopt the outlined contingency plans to ensure the business is back up and running as soon as possible.
Not everyone, including people such as Burns and Reader--who have pushed their companies' Y2K efforts to the forefront--is sure what to expect Jan. 1. But most companies seem confident that they'll experience only minor disruptions and that there's no reason to panic. Still, if U.K. businesses, large and small, keep missing deadlines and fail to get on track, it could mean problems for them and for their U.S. partners.
Illustration by Stan Barouh
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hile most U.S. businesses seem confident they'll complete their year 2000 remediation projects in time, the outlook across the Atlantic isn't as rosy. In the United Kingdom, for example, there's still some cause for concern.
While testing is important, contingency plans are equally critical. This is something that ICL, a U.K. IT services company, has recognized. ICL's Y2K philosophy is simple: When things get fixed, make sure they stay that way. This means being certain that contingency plans are in place, says Jane Burns, ICL's marketing and communications manager for year 2000 and economic monetary union programs.
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