<t~
info exchange
Spillover threats
Compliance race
Sublime to ridiculous
Warm-up
What'sNewS Issue 9-Septerrr&er 1998
project team, has been busily addressing
all aspects of the millennium conversion
including (but not limited to) testing,
certification, contingency planning, credit
risk assessment and 'change management'
overall. Says Paulissen, 'we don't want to
create a sense of panic. But the fact
remains that when we consider the
detailed picture of the Y2K problent at
every level, it is clear that we still need a
more coordinated and controlled response
and a great deal needs to be done. Of
course, we can use our experience to help
^he offices deal with individual issues. But
Jt would be a serious mistake if people
were to think of this as a problem that IT
professionals can somehow solve on their
own. That is certainly not the case. lt's a
shared issue - it's everybody's problem.
Local millennium teams can only provide
effective support if they have active input
from front office management and front
the professionals who are best-versed in
the business side of our operations. A high
degree of professional cooperation will
also be required.'
What's more, even if we are miraculously
able to attain 99 percent millennium
compliance by December 31, 1999, this
still does not give us any guarantees that
our external customers and suppliers will
IJo the same. Serious contingency
planning work also needs to be done. In
addition to the counterparty risk, the
issue of credit risk ranks among the most
serious of our concerns in this regard.
For instance, we might have a cliënt
producing poultry in Indonesia, where
political and economie unrest has
prevented any real assessment of
millennium compliance. But if that
poultry producer fails to adequately
millennium-proof his systems, he might
find himself forced to condemn an entire
batch of freshly slaughtered chickens as
being unfit for human consumption,
simply because the computer bar-codes
incorrectly interpret them as being an
entire century old. While the example
sounds somewhat amusing, problems of
this kind could easily put non-compliant
fcod and agribusiness producers
Tinywhere in the world at serious risk.
This, in turn, creates the obvious
spillover threat of credit default for its
main relationship bank.
Already, in 1997, an independent 'Test
Centre 2000' was established within
Rabofacet to certify individual IT systems
within the RI group for compliance. Out
of about 140 systems that need to be
certified, thus far only 60 have been
approved as compliant. (In this race
towards compliance, most European
offices, preoccupied with the euro
conversion, have lagged behind those in
Asia, Australia and the Americas.) But it's
not enough just to test individual systems
- we also have to test their links to other
come to visit?' asks Paulissen. 'We might
be facing a period of extensive, multiple
systems failures in which it is unrealistic
to expect dependable maintenance and
support from our IT vendors. This has
important implications - and we have to
be prepared. This is why business
managers are being encouraged to
identify business-critical processes for
which contingency plans absolutely must
be prepared to ensure continuity in the
event of unforeseen events. Because of
this we are arranging special support on
business continuity.'
Biting the bug, left to right: Peter van der Heijden, Robert Raghosing, Ronald van RemoortereRene
Luger (sitting), Rens van Tilburg, Mark van den Hurk, Ben Dirkes (sitting), Wim Kranenburg, Leo de
Bruijn, Ronny HendriksenBas Jongerius (sitting), Andrea Windeln, Ruurt Stapel (sitting), Henk
Kokkelkoren, Arie Kamphuis, Angela de Visser (sitting), Bas Kerkhof, Steef Peters (sitting), Harrie
Paulissen and Peter Ector
systems and see whether they retain their
strengths within their overall business
chains. Examples of such business critica 1
systems include those from Bloomberg
and Reuters, that provide real time
business information upon which other
operations crucially depend, as well as
transactional electronic environments
like SWIFT.
Other issues range from the seemingly
ridiculous to the sublime: 'What happens
if your business is on the 46th floor of a
skyscraper and you suddenly discover the
lifts don't work and your staff can't
Rabobankers can take pride in the way in
which we rose to the challenge posed by
the introduction of the euro. But this was
in certain respects only a limited warm-up
exercise when set against the even more
widespread millennium-related challenges
we now face. As Rik van Slingelandt
repeatedly stresses in this regard: 'there is
absolutely no room for complacency.'
Those with questions are encouraged
to contact their local millennium
coördinators, or the central millennium
team on tel. +31 30 216 6888,
e-mail: fm.global.millennium infodesk.
