August 21, 1998

 

Westergaard Year 2000 International Watch

 

Y2K in Hungary

 

By Gábor Bolgár

 

 

Now, in the middle of August 1998, there is silence in Hungary, and companies are quite comfortable. Not because they are finished with their Y2K projects, but rather because most of them do not even know that they are sitting on a timebomb.

 

The situation is that very few companies - mainly subsidiaries of large multinationals - have started a Y2K project in 1996 or earlier, while some larger ones started in 1997. Most of them are either wondering if something ought to be done about their programs and computers or even still do not even realize the necessity of acting.

 

Actually the first publication discussing Y2K that I remember was the Hungarian version of Computerworld, in March 1996, with two double-sided articles in two successive issues with a title of "Does the bomb explode in the Year 2000?" Since then, there was little attention to Y2K. There were just a few short articles with small typeface in some magazines. Some consulting companies tried to call attention to the problem by organizing presentations for non-IT people from significant companies. Of course, non-IT top management immediately transferred the invitation to IT people, as soon as they read the first half of the word "computer."

 

This year the media have started to deal with the problem somewhat more, but still not enough. Newspapers, technical and non-technical magazines have published some articles; even an important economic daily newspaper printed some information on the topic. Also, several radio and TV stations have aired programs which gave voice to some Y2K experts.

 

In May 1998, the government declared that each Ministry has responsibility for insuring that their individual areas are Y2K compliant.

 

My company (IDOM Ltd.) - one of the most important players in the Year 2000 services arena in Hungary today - established its Year 2000 service line in July 1997. Since then, we have been making efforts to raise awareness both in business circles aa well as the public. We have been offering our services to many companies. In addition we organized a seminar for 400 clients of IDOM and Deloitte Touche Hungary, and 100 of those clients took part in October 1997. We have also held presentations at several conferences and seminars. As a result of these efforts, in June 1998, we had six contracted Y2K customers with large banks and industrial enterprises among them. This might show the low efficiency of our marketing work, but unfortunately we seem to be one of the (or maybe the) market leaders in this field in Hungary.

 

According to my customer experiences, most of them had many very good excuses why not to contract for our Y2K consultancy services. I think these are very well known internationally:

 

 

 

1.We do not have so sophisticated systems, we can handle them...

2.We have good programmers, they will solve the problem...

3.We have new systems, new computers, etc.... 4.We will replace hardware, implement new software...

5.We have SAP, it has a Y2K Certificate...

6.Don't speak to me about suppliers. If somebody wants to supply us with cucumbers, they will do so in the Year 2000 as well...

7.Leave me alone with this Gartner Group-type nonsense. I want you to know, that this is a pure IT problem for us, and we will manage to solve it on our own...

8.You are too expensive, we cannot afford your services...and many more.

 

 

 

Then suddenly, in June, I started to notice a little more interest. Some companies, who turned away from us after receiving our proposals(containing prices and conditions(and did nothing since then, now called us to see if we could start discussing the problem again with them. We did so, but then, summer vacation season started, so now silence. I have a feeling that this is the quiet before the storm. Business will boom in September, I think.