Business Link Surrey (BLS), an advice and support group, has warned that too many companies are gambling with the millennium bug.
The organisation's experts fear that unless companies face up to the issue soon, many could find themselves paying the ultimate price in 18 months' time and going out of business.
The warning comes as BLS launches a new service to help small firms deal with the bug. Using specially designed software systems developed by the National Computing Centre and endorsed by the Department of Trade and Industry, BLS's consultants are now offering to assess the problems facing individual companies and provide them with a prioritised action plan to deal with the most important areas first.
"The Millennium Bug is an issue that affects all businesses, whatever their size, and they need to act now before it is too late," said Andy Still, BLS' business development manager, following the launch of the bug-busting service.
"Ignoring the problem is not an option but I'm afraid this is the course too many small and medium-sized businesses are taking. Companies that bury their heads in the sand in the belief that the bug won't affect them are asking for trouble.
"Through our new service we can provide a cost-effective and comprehensive risk assessment and an individually tailored action plan focusing on key hardware and software. This will put businesses in a position where they are capable of tackling the bug with confidence.
"Businesses need to recognise that the bug will affect more than just computer equipment. Anything electrical, from telephone systems and faxes to lifts, fire detectors and security systems may fail."
p For more details on the Millennium Bug Service, contact Business Link Surrey on 0345 494949.
Converted for the new archive on 30 June 2000.Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article