Testimony of Howard Rubin Chair, Department of Computer Science, Hunter College of CUNY CEO Rubin Systems META Group Research Fellow YES Corps of IY2KCC October 13, 1999

http://www.senate.gov/~y2k/hearings/991013/st991013rubin.htm

Some interesting percentages; worth reading entire article.

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48% of those surveyed now claim that it is very likely that they will not do business with non-Y2K compliant suppliers/providers (up from 36% in July). However about one-third of the companies do not consider this to be a major business issue.

98% of those surveyed believe it is not likely that they will sell off or reorganize part of their businesses because of Y2K concerns. 80% expect to use Y2K compliance as part of their marketing message.. this is down from 88% in July. Business partner and vendor compliance cooperation still remain as big issues with the level of cooperation continuing to decrease. 87% of companies expect to provide Y2K information to their customers. Continuity planning is becoming more of a joint business/IT effort (90% of those surveyed).. the number of IT organizations doing it alone has dropped to 4%. 98% have determined that their existing continuity plans support less than 25% of their Y2K needs. 68% of contingency plans now involve a possible service shutdown or a degradation of service in response to a Y2K problem after the date rollover. The need to increase staff to support continuity planning has been indicated by 85% of those surveyed. The staff assigned to such work is rating it as more "exciting" than previous Y2K systems-related work.

Post Y2K commitments to staff are an issue: 82% have plans to redeploy their program managers 66% have plans to redeploy their project leaders only 26% have plans to redeploy their conversion and assessment personnel

While 12% of those surveyed indicate plan slippage is increasing and 10% indicate a decrease, 78% claim that slippage has stabilized

56% of those surveyed now expect 100% of their systems to be compliant by year end (up from 48% in July). 38% of those surveyed expect that 76% to 99% of their systems will be compliantthat leaves 6% of those surveyed with less than 75% of their systems planned to be compliant by year end. However, overall 82% of those surveyed do not expect the non-compliant systems to pose a significant business risk. 82% of those surveyed have had a Y2K related failure. 56% of those failures were caused by systems that have not been replaced yet; 44% were caused by systems that have been remediated. The dominant failure type is a miscalculation. 99% of those surveyed expect such problems to continue to increase to year end. Key post-rollover Y2K related priorities include event management, conversion of secondary systems, catching up with backlogged work, and redeploying staff. 98% expect to build a new strategic IT plan, 60% expect to reorganize IT and 60% expect to start focusing more on e-strategy. It appears that Y2K has inhibited progress in key IT initiative areas: 82% indicate it has inhibited ERP projects 78% indicate that have delayed outsourcing decisions 25% indicate that they have delayed CRM projects 22% indicate they have delayed SFA projects 18% and 15% respectively indicate that Y2K has delayed e-business BtoB and BtoC projects respectively

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"Perhaps more importantly, my final observation is contrary to the basic focus of this hearing  this is not a stand alone company or industry issue;, it is a network issue. The most difficult and critical of the Year 2000 risks are the "unknown unknowns" of cross -industry failures. We most likely wonill not know what these are ahead of time, so of utmost concern to this Committee should be seeing to it that organizations in all industries are prepared for rapid event management."

Sure reminds me of Gary North!

-- Tommy Rogers (Been there@Just a Thought.com), October 24, 1999