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To: jan m. who wrote (6788)	12/3/1997 9:52:00 AM
From: Rob L.	Respond to of 31646

Warning on action over 'millennium bomb chaos' By Paul Taylor 12/03/1997 A report published today warns that severe disruption to business is likely because of the "millennium bomb" problem, in spite of a high awareness of the issue among information technology professionals. "Incorrect data processing could be catastrophic for businesses unable to process orders, despatch invoices, calculate payments, process transactions and so on," says the report by the PA Consulting Group. Given that 68 per cent of organisations expect to be affected by the problem before 2000 - with more than half of those surveyed expecting to feel the impact in 1998 - PA says it is of particular concern that so many have failed to take any formal action. The report says: "It is PA's opinion that many organisations will fail to fix the problem in time, and it is likely that severe disruption to normal business operations will occur as a result." The study, based on responses from about 1,000 organisations in 15 countries, reveals 87 per cent of IT professionals are aware of the problem - which is caused by the inability of software to recognise dates after 1999. But the message is not getting through to senior management. According to PA, only 55 per cent of UK companies are fully aware of the implications of the problem. In mainland Europe this figure is even lower. In the US 71 per cent of senior managers were perceived to be aware of the issue. The level of awareness slips to 54 per cent in Asia, and in mainland Europe 49 per cent of senior managers are viewed as fully aware of the problem. Among the survey's main findings were: * Only 56 per cent of organisations have a formal year 2000 programme in place. * Forty-four per cent of the planned resources needed to fix year 2000 problems are expected to be obtained externally. * Organisations are planning to spend an average $6.91m (4.13m) to resolve their millennium problems. * Over 60 per cent believe they will be affected by the problem before 2000. * Smaller organisations are behind in understanding the implications of the problem and fewer than a third have conducted an audit. * Forty-four per cent of organisations have not included so called embedded systems - electronic chips which control equipment such as lifts, traffic lights and medical systems - in their audits. * Almost a third are unable to estimate the cost of their millennium programmes. The cost to organisations which did provide estimates was $4.7bn. The study comes less than a week after Tony Blair, the prime minister, said the government was on course to tackle the millennium bomb in public sector computers and estimated the cost at about 1bn. Since then the government has been heavily criticised for complacency by industry experts including Robin Guernier, executive director of Taskforce 2000. Defusing the Millennium Bomb, PA Consulting. Tel: 0171-730 9000. 95. Copyright Financial Times Limited 1997. All Rights Reserved.