While the jury remains out on how damaging the millennium rollover will be, smart companies are still finding new ways to use Y2K to build their brands. Strategies vary, from crisis management firms that are setting up systems to triage Year 2000 mishaps to corporations that are offering IT products.
"Our work in the Y2K area is definitely a door opener," says Marti Walsh, marcom manager for Mastech, the Oakdale, Pa.-based software firm that uses its three offshore information technology facilities (ITFs) in Bangalore, Chennai and Pune, India, as brand leveraging channels. IT specialists can be deployed worldwide on short notice.
Extolling the corporation's Year 2000 IT capabilities, Walsh recently mass-mailed to the media and customers a newsletter with articles penned by Mastech CEO Sunil Wadhwani.
Part of the company's claim is that it began recruiting software programmers six years ago to work on Y2K. It attributes about 17 percent of its revenue (1998 revenue was $390.9 million) to solutions integrators and Y2K demands. But the company also just landed national ink for selecting firm SYMPOSIUM to retrain Y2K consultants as the need for Y2K services dwindles.
Opportunists or Just Savvy?
While the world at large laments about Y2K and what could happen, companies, meanwhile, are stepping up to the brand-building plate. In Clarksville, Ind. - hardly the hub of technology - the three-person Institute for Crisis Management is putting the finishing touches on its trademarked "Millennium Mobilizer Kit" to help small and mid-sized firms identify possible Y2K blips and devise response/management guidelines.
The firm, with annual fees under $1 million, plans on charging clients less than $10,000 to put together crisis communications management packages based on in-depth client surveys and specially tweaked, individualized plans. ICM will roll out the product in April, says President Robert Irvine.
"We're also building a 12-month scenario based on quarter-to-quarter and month-to-month wrap-ups. We'll write our own forecasts based on what we've analyzed over 18 months," Irvine adds. "It'll be, 'Here's what we see happening' in those quarters to give people something to react to, and we can back it up with reports and excerpts from research done by other people and the government."
On the other end of the price spectrum, major gaming player GT Interactive last week sent over the wires a press announcement about its $19.99 Yes2K PC CD-ROM from CompuWorks. The product will be available beginning next month through secure online transaction at http://www.gtstore.com.
24-7 Crisis Control
Herndon, Va.-based Rowan & Blewitt, Inc. is promoting "ActionOne," a crisis service whose backbone is a center manned 24-hours-a-day by duty officers employed by internationally renowned risk mitigation firm Kroll-Ogara.
Through a deal with Kroll-Ogara, R&B is banking on these emergency-response specialists (many with military backgrounds) to provide a "seamless" crisis safety net. R&B won't disclose its list of high-profile clients, but many reportedly pay R&B an average of $5,000 a month for ongoing crisis planning and counseling, infrastructure support, and the guarantee that consultants are available as soon as a toll-free call is made to a designated phone line.
The system is meant to help corporate execs rest better at night because it guarantees an in-place command center as well as the assurance that a crisis plan is put into action right away.
Although not the original intent of ActionOne, the company now has an ideal launch pad to provide both counseling and communications help if a Y2K crisis evolves.
"I can't think of any other company which offers this," says Ernest Del Bueno, an R&B exec and former Coast Guard officer. "Some firms offer crisis software, some crisis law firms offer 24-hour legal help, some companies provide an answering service, but this isn't just a phone number - there's planning behind it. We identify the right people within an organization and make sure the right people are in place."
Naturally, the system is Y2K compliant - and it's tested several times a month.
(GT, 612/559-6180; ICM, 812/284-8351; Mastech, 800/627-8323; R&B, 703/234-4400)
Millennium Mobilizer User Profile
Here are some of the questions the Institute for Crisis Management will ask clients to complete to tailor Y2K crisis response/management "tool kits" for small and midsize businesses with limited IT staffs:
- Type of business/specific industries
- No. of employees/no. of facilities
- Percentage in metropolitan/rural areas
- Percentage of businesses outside U.S. and Canada
- Countries where most of business is conducted
- Businesses which are principal customers
- Primary suppliers
- How prepared are your suppliers for Y2K?
- How prepared are the cities where you do business?
- How prepared is your principal bank?
- Utility company?
- Is your business linked online to other businesses?
- What kinds of businesses and what types of data are transmitted?
- The most likely Y2K problems in your business?
- Does your business already have Y2K contingency plans?
- For what kinds of problems?
Corporations View Y2K as Part of Future Technology Challenges
The Public Affairs Group's survey of 539 corporations with sales over $1 billion identified the top-eight technology concerns that are seen as the most challenging:
- Ensuring communication's equity within the organization
- Best methods for measuring the ROI of new technologies
- Forging dotted-line relationships with technology leadership
- Proving value of corporate communications
- Year 2000 bug - what it means in both the short- and long-term
- The quality of intranets
- Tracking chat rooms - and what's being said about your corporation
- Increased virtual space (which competitors will fill if you don't)