Y2K may trip up many small businesses A self-help guide says that up to 7 million firms may have computer problems. The SBA offers advice and loans.

By Mike Brennan

KNIGHT RIDDER NEWS SERVICE Five million to 7 million small businesses might experience some computer-related problems when 2000 dawns, according to a self-help guide.

But Jim Hickman, who wrote the guide, Your Y2K Personal Protection Plan, which was published this year by HarperCollins, says 20 percent of small businesses have ignored the warnings. It could be an expensive mistake for those businesses, which are usually defined as having fewer than 500 workers.

The U.S. Small Business Administration estimates that 30 percent of the nation's small businesses might not be Y2K compliant.

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Yup. I really understand why flint has declared the remediation a "ROUSING SUCCESS'.

Man, I'm ROUSED!!!. Only 7 million or so businesses at risk.

http://www.phillynews.com/inquirer/99/Sep/23/business/READY23.htm Paul Milne

-- Paul Milne "If you live within 5 miles of a 7-11, you're toast"

-- Paul Milne (fedinfo@halifax.com), September 24, 1999

Answers

Well Paul, from the looks of all these Martial Law threads, it seems to me that we had all better hope flint is right about this "rousing success"...otherwise King Bill will simply declare Martial Law and order everyone killed!

What, if I may ask, is your opinion on this issue? Are we all destined to be herded into cattle cars and taken away to concentration camps where we will be raped, beaten, and murdered?

-- Don Wegner (donfmwyo@earthlink.net), September 25, 1999.

Don't sweat it Don. Between the rousingly successful remediation and this latest jewel from blunderboy y2k is guaranteed to be a non event. Saved by the miracle of just in time.

A: I think you show some misunderstanding of how JIT actually works. Yes, I grant there is a very thin pipeline, so a breakdown will show up in a day rather than in two weeks. This is true.

But JIT giveth as well as taketh away. JIT means short product runs of many different products. Our assembly lines are MUCH more flexible than they used to be in the days of truly massive production runs. As a result, JIT switches from 2 weeks (or 2 months) of inventory followed by a LONG period of nothing, to 1 day of inventory, but no real period of nothing, because instead of a single missing part killing a whole process, we can switch quickly to producing less of each part, but some of EVERY part. So production slows down but doesn't stop. This is one of the beauties of JIT. There are others.

JIT is NOT just about reducing inventory. The major bottom-line side effect of JIT isn't inventory, it's quality. You can fix errors rapidly, find problems quickly and cheaply, make changes on the fly, do faster design turnarounds. On balance, in a bad y2k situation JIT is a decided net benefit.

-- Flint (flintc@mindspring.com), September 24, 1999.

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-- Nikoli Krushev (doomsday@y2000.com), September 25, 1999.

I used to think Flint had the ability to sway public opinion to the Polly viewpoint (in a devious way), now it is EVIDENT that Flint is a "Has Been".

Flint, may his rantings "Rest In Peace" !!

Ray

-- Ray (ray@totacc.com), September 25, 1999.

Yup, someone selling a y2k warning book says that small businesses "could" have made an expensive mistake. And SBA says 5 to 7 million small businesses "might" experience "some" problems. Scary.

Amusingly, Paul uses the 7 million number (high end) for his commentary. And he also quotes the part about businesses having fewer than 500 workers. Now, 500 workers times 7 million businesses comes to 3.5 BILLION workers in these small businesses. In the US!

Let's say that half of all workers in the US work for small businesses, and that there are 7 million such businesses as Paul quotes. The US workforce is about 200 million people, so we have 100 million people distributed among 7 million businesses, or roughly 15 people per business on the average.

The SBA has estimated (but Paul understandably doesn't mention it) that businesses this size can remediate for an average of Under $1000 and do so in under 3 hours. Basically, these are *small* businesses, running one or two PCs using packaged software. And according to someone with a documented axe to grind, one in 5 of these businesses plans to wait to see if their word processor still works after rollover before replacing it. Are we all terrified enough yet?

Amazing how these monsters vanish when you shine a light on them.

-- Flint (flintc@mindspring.com), September 25, 1999.

Would someone (anyone?) please remind me just what our "flexible production lines " produce? I know we manufacture chopsticks for export, but what else is _manufactured_ in the U.S.?

-- A. Hambley (a.hambley@usa.net), September 25, 1999.

A Hambley:

Where I work, we manufacture electronics devices. Yes, we have a few dedicated high-volume non-JIT type lines. But almost all of our lines in our US plants are short-run, easily reconfigured setups.

-- Flint (flintc@mindspring.com), September 25, 1999.

Flint, you try to take a terrible situation and make it look good. Nice try. You're not fooling anyone anymore with your B.S. Give it up already!

-- Not Fooled (notfooled@noway.com), September 25, 1999.

Not:

I'll give your handle good grades for irony. *Somebody* is being fooled here. We'll see who's not fooled soon enough. Will you use the same handle to admit error if you're wrong?

-- Flint (flintc@mindspring.com), September 25, 1999.

A very tiny note.

Something like 90% of the people in this country are said to be employed by businesses classified as 'small' (less than 500 workers) businesses. I cannot remember where I got this number but it was somewhere while working, I think it's legit. So, Flint's comments in response to Milne in this thread are probably worth taking with some salt.

That goes for all comments, of course.

PJ

PJ in TX

-- (fire@firedocs.com), September 25, 1999.

This thread is in dire need of some starting point to argue from.

Lets start with the SBA and what they say:

http://www.sba.gov/aboutsba/

"America's 23 million small businesses employ more than 50 percent of the private workforce, generate more than half of the nation's gross domestic product, and are the principal source of new jobs in the U.S. economy."

-So then 20% is 4.6 million of small businesses who have ignored Y2K warnings.

Maybe someone else can take the math from here. What's the current GNP?

-- Chris (#$%^&@pond.com), September 25, 1999.

Chris:

I agree that we need such a starting point. SBA counts 23 million small businesses comprising half the workforce. Half (50%) of the workforce is about 100 million workers in the US. 23 million small businesses averages out to about 4 workers per business. SBA estimates that these businesses need $1000 and 3 hours to remediate. One day, say, total for ALL to remediate. This could be Jan 1, 2000, if they all do it at once.

Now if PJ is correct, and 90% are in businesses of 500 employees or fewer, then this leaves about 80 million workers working for businesses of 5-500 employees. We really have no direct statistics at all about businesses within this range and including no others, so we need to use process of elimination. If 20% have done nothing (conservative, considering the sources), this is 16 million vulnerable employees (maximum). This is 10% of the total number of US employees. And if 10% of those go belly up (VERY conservative, considering their exposure and flexibility), we're talking about 1% of the workforce. But WAIT! This is NORMAL for historical, everyday turnaround. So where is this problem?

Yes, we need some good starting point.

-- Flint (flintc@mindspring.com), September 25, 1999.

Paul I wish you wouldn't keep posting these RS stories

Flint just gets more and more AROUSED...

-- Andy (2000EOD@prodigy.net), September 25, 1999.

My husband is in construction, and he employs on average 50 full-time employees and a few more part-time (office and job sites). I can tell you right now that his computer glitches so far have NEVER taken as little as 3 hours to fix. He's tried several computer consulting agencies, some worse than others, and currently he's using one for the past 2 years with a very good reputation in the area. I tell you, they aren't cheap. Businesses with even less capital could not afford them, so lets hope that each of these owners will know how to fix their Y2K glitches in a timely manner. Computer upkeep is a problematic overhead expanse, and I can see where small businesses are reluctant to pay attention to Y2K and even simply maintain and upgrade their equipment on a regular basis.

If even just 20% of small business run into Y2K glitches at the roll-over, the computer fixer consulting pool will be overwhelmed to respond in a timely manner. Appointments need to be made already, they don't just come out on the spot when you call them.

Simply parsing things with statistics and numbers doesn't tell the whole picture, in-the-field reality is also needed.

-- Chris (#$%^&@pond.com), September 25, 1999.

Chris:

I'm not talking about fixing glitches, but in preventing them. Most real problems take a while to fix. Most y2k problems are insignificant (which is why Yourdon's and everyone eles's predictions have been wildly wrong so far). If you compare apples with apples, you'll see the light. Good luck.

-- Flint (flintc@mindspring.com), September 25, 1999.

"SBA estimates that these businesses need $1000 and 3 hours to remediate. One day, say, total for ALL to remediate. This could be Jan 1, 2000, if they all do it at once."

You're talking about preventing glitches on Jan 1, 2000?

I was comparing my apple with what I thought was an apple you presented. If you give me an apple and then tell me it's an orange, I have no chance in making a point now, do I?

-- Chris (#$%^&@pond.com), September 25, 1999.

Chris:

I should also mention that I don't place much stock in these fatuous statistical analyses either. I consider them pretty much nonsense. But it's *exactly* this kind of analysis that underlies the essence of the doomie position. So I admit I'm amused when I use the same technique to make an optimistic case, and the doomies sense that hey, something's fishy here! OF COURSE it's fishy, no matter which opinion is being supported. I know that. But you only know that it's fishy if it supports the "wrong" position, and swallow it as gospel when it's used to defined disaster!

So figures don't lie, but liars figure. And I'm just trying to point out that figures can be used to create silly arguments. Reality is much deeper and more complex, as wel will see.

-- Flint (flintc@mindspring.com), September 25, 1999.

"Most y2k problems are insignificant"

Oh, and my husband's construction software is mostly custom. Some past "brilliant" consultant took months and a big chunck of his money to customize it. I'm crossing my fingers that other General Contrator like him who didn't bother with Y2K fixes (I know 2 such acquaintances who haven't done anything) will be able to fix this "insignificant" glitch by themselves if they can't get a consultant to do it for them that day.

-- Chris (#$%^&@pond.com), September 26, 1999.