Multinationals Brace for Y2K Problems With Trading Partners

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Still no appearance of hearing transcripts at the Senate Y2k site (from this morning's hearing) but here's one of the first stories to come out of that.

(Excerpts and synopsis)

Dow Jones

Multinationals Brace for Y2K Problems With Trading Partners

By Mark Wigfield 07/22/1999

WASHINGTON (Dow Jones)--Nearly one in ten large, multinational companies won't have finished work making their computer systems Year 2000 compliant by the time the turn of the century rolls around, according to a survey.

Prepared by CIO Communications Inc., the survey reported that 33% of the firms polled said they were behind schedule. Another 8% said they wouldn't finish their Year 2000 work in time.

A written report of the survey was submitted to the U.S. Senate Special Committee on the Year 2000 Technology Problem, which is holding a hearing on the preparedness of global corporations.

(Snip)

Executives from Ford Motor Co., Ahold USA Inc., Philip Morris, Procter and Gamble, and Praxair Inc. told the committee they are developing contingency plans to deal with expected disruptions from foreign suppliers and customers.

Gary Beach, publisher of CIO Magazine which conducted the survey, said in a written statement that major multinationals "cannot verify their trading partners' readiness. I am concerned that the large corporations are not taking the danger of supplier failure seriously enough."

While American multinationals can exert leverage on domestic trading partners, "they may have much less leverage with some of their critical supply-chain partners overseas, namely government-owned telecommunications and electrical utilities in foreign countries."

(end excerpts)

The story goes on to say there were 892 respondents to the poll, which has a marging error of just over 3 percent.

The story also quotes Jacquelyn Williams-Bridgers, a State Department inspector general as saying, "About half of 161 countries recently queried reported to be "at medium to high risk of having Y2K -related failures in their telecommunications, energy and/or transportation sectors." Finance, water and waste water systems were in better shape.

The story also states that about one-fourth of industrialized countries risked failures in telecommunications, energy or waste water, with about 60% of developing countries at medium-to-high risk in the areas of telecommunications, transportation and/or energy. A lower reliance on computers might actually reduce that risk.

'Just passin' it on. . .

:)

(Keep an eye on the Senate site if you get a chance, anybody. Let us know when this mornings statements are posted?)

-- FM (vidprof@aol.com), July 22, 1999

Answers

Looks like my spelling also has a "marging" error, . .er. . ."margin" error. (Or was that a MARGARINE error?) Sorry.

:)

-- FM (vidprof@aol.com), July 22, 1999.


It all seems to be unfolding as predicted. Notice "Not as scheduled,but as predicted

-- kevin (innxxs@yahoo.com), July 22, 1999.

See thread... for additional links...

Y2K Glitch Likely To Disrupt Trade: U.S. Official

http://www.greenspun.com/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg.tcl?msg_id= 0017SM



-- Diane J. Squire (sacredspaces@yahoo.com), July 22, 1999.


Much of U.S. multinationals sales are from foreign countries also. Huge % of foreign revenue to overall revenue.

From the latest Forbes magazine Then click on table..

-- PJC (paulchri@msn.com), July 22, 1999.


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