Connectivity and control in the year 2000 and beyond

By now, most executives are familiar with the famous Year 2000 problem--and many believe that their companies have the situation well in hand. After all, it seems to be such a trivial problem--computer software that interprets "oo" to be the year 1900 instead of the year 2000. And yet armies of computer professionals have been working on it--updating code in payroll systems, distribution systems, actuarial systems, sales-tracking systems, and the like. The problem is pervasive. Not only is it in your systems, it's in your suppliers' systems, your bankers' systems, and your customers' systems. It's embedded in chips that control elevators, automated teller machines, process-control equipment, and power grids. Already, a dried-food manufacturer destroyed millions of dollars of perfectly good product when a computer counted inventory marked with an expiration date of "oo" as nearly a hundred years old. And when managers of a sewage-control plant turned the clock to January I, 2000 on a computer system they thought had been fixed, raw sewage pumped directly into the harbor. It has become apparent that there will not be enough time to find and fix all of the problems by January I, 2000. And what good will it do if your computers work but they're connected with systems that don't? That is one of the questions Harvard Business School professor Richard Nolan asks in his introduction to HBR's Perspectives on the Year 2000 issue. How will you prepare your organization to respond when things start to go wrong? Fourteen commentators offer their ideas on how senior managers should think about connectivity and control in the year 2000 and beyond.