Public awareness campaign will include workshops, IRS mailings, and even postage stamps.

Public awareness campaign will include workshops, IRS mailings, and even postage stamps.

by Jennifer Peltz, Medill News Service
October 19, 1998, 10:41 a.m. PT

Many businesses--especially small ones--aren't planning to do anything about Year 2000 problems, recent surveys show. That worries the federal government, not least because nearly a quarter of the government's contractors are small businesses, according to Small Business Administration Chief Aida Alvarez.

Hoping to goad small firms to address Y2K issues, the government has declared this National Y2K Action Week, and will be running Y2K workshops around the country. (For more information, call 800/827-5722 or consult the government Y2K sites on the right.)

The Internal Revenue Service will send information about the potential problems to more than 6 million small businesses, said John Koskinen, who heads the President's Council on the Year 2000 Conversion.

And in case the IRS doesn't get their attention, big-city post offices will cancel stamps with a special seal asking: "Are You Y2K OK?"

No Small Problem for Small Business
A study for San Francisco's Wells Fargo Bank found more than 80 percent of small businesses were at risk for trouble around January 1, 2000, but half of them weren't planning to try to forestall it.

The Gartner Group, a Connecticut firm conducting a sweeping Y2K study, estimated businesses that experience critical equipment failures will have to spend $20,000 to $3.5 million to fix them. And addressing problems ahead of time isn't necessarily cheap. While some simple programs can be fixed with free updates, a small manufacturing company might have to spend $50,000 on reprogramming, Koskinen said.

Government agencies are trying to ease the burden by spreading information. To encourage companies to do the same, Congress recently agreed to protect companies from lawsuits that arise from disclosing Y2K problems. But officials warn that they can do only so much. "This is not a problem that the government created," Commerce Secretary William Daley said on Thursday--or Day 442 until zero hour, by the Clinton Administration's clock. "This is not a problem that the government can solve. The private sector has to step forward."

What the Feds Suggest
Y2K problems need to be treated like any others that affect an entire organization, the Small Business Administration suggests. More specifically, it's urging businesses to take the following steps.

1. Assess the problem. List all your business computer systems--and don't forget that can include alarms, heating and air conditioning, copiers, cash registers, and other devices that aren't computers. Prioritize fixing them, according to how critical each is to the business, how they interact, and how soon they are likely to start having problems.

2. Research the solutions. Ask vendors and technical support providers about what it will take to fix each system, or whether it makes more sense to replace it.

3. Do the work.

4. Test the results on a copy of your business data, not the real thing. Set the systems' clocks so you can watch them go from December 31, 1999, to January 1, 2000, and from December 31, 2000, to January 1, 2001. It's also wise to check February 29, 2000, as well as September 9, 1999 (programmers once used "9999" to signal abnormal situations).

5. Expand the research by asking your suppliers and partners whether they are ready.

6. Make a backup plan. Line up alternative suppliers, stock up on important items, and make hard copies of important records.

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