🚀 go-pugleaf

I found what follows on the newsgroup dc.biking. For those who dimiss the
Y2K gliche as no more than a minor bump in the road, I'd like to see what
they they think about Marie Hogan's words. No reference was given to an
email address for her :(

What Marie Hogan said:

         PMFJI...All I can do is give you some insight from my area of
business..automobile industry. I've been in it for years from factory
level - district manager to retail, fixed operations director. 

         This July the NADA, National Automobile Dealers Association
sent out the Y2K package to all new car dealers. I consider it extremely
 stooooopid one of our key industries is just addressing it in
July, 1998. The auto industry, like all other businesses have functioned
and  succeeded because the 00 date hasn't had an opportunity to BE a
problem...until now. Bottom line. Date? Who cares! 

         The NADA manual is the "How To Inspect, Test, Contact
Who"..remediation package for Dealers to follow to ensure they will be
compliant. Actually a fair guideline, department by department
with some "How to personally prepare yourself financially" thrown in.
 However, it's broad and general and you definitely have to have
someone who can think beyond the manual to know how to expidite the
project. The cover letter was enough to scare the pants off any
thinking operator. I was not only given the task of being project
manager, I was farmed out to several of the mega corps that have been
gobbling up dealerships over the past several years, to help guide their
"project managers". 

         Our facility (small) averages 6 million a month in sales. We're
new. Our old dealership which sold to one of the mega's last year
averaged 12-15 million a month in sales, export and domestic. Our owner
-operator is a brilliant car man. Truly. He is well known in the
industry. However, he doesn't have a computer savy bone in his body nor
does he understand what the Y2K beef is all about. 

         After I went through the NADA booklet and broke it down
further..I started making lists and phone calls. I have thus far called
around 20 other new car dealerships we do business with and have found
everything from girls in the office that do payables appointed to head
up the dealerships project (they range around $9.00 an hour and
are normally piled with work) to controllers that are overworked already
and don't have time nor understand fully what they have to do,
to even one dealer..allowing his 17 yr old son while out of school to do
it as a cool project. 

         Eleven of them I called don't even know where their manual IS
and no mention of it has been made to anyone in the dealership. They
 didn't know what in the hell I was talking about. 

         Our small facility has 472 vendors we rely on. RELY on.
Everything from dent removal people to wrecker services waaaaaaaaaaay up
to financial lending institutions to a gazzillion tag and title
offices. We deal with huge auction houses and credit bureaus. We have GM
and Chrysler franchises and GM alone has in excess of 100,000
suppliers THEY deal with to make the cars and supply the parts. The
strike (summer, 1998) has us sitting with NO GM cars on our lot and
daily bulletins from the parts distribution end that AC/Delco will start
drying up and hideous backorders across the board. No sales,
service is getting edgy procuring parts. 

         GM has already stated prior to the strike in Fortune Magazine
http://www.pathfinder.com/fortune/1998/980427/imt.html that they are in
acatastrophic state as far as Y2K rediness is concerned.
Everything from dealing with their suppliers to assembly lines loaded
with  embedded chips to the airconditioning/ heating/security units
sitting on the plants and corporate office roofs. 

         Now, here we are..all these brilliant , savy, successful
businessmen owning all these new car dealerships on the golf courses
absolutely caught with their putters down . When I walked in and handed
our dealer the list of who just WE rely on to keep our doors open,
*including* having to contact our utility companies along with
our haulers that bring us the cars, the list of who buys our paper and
the zillion tag and title offices we need to function...his putter
wilted dead behind his desk. 

         All he could stutter was....but..but...our DMS system is
compliant! He failed to think through to how many institutions,
businesses .. we  rely on to function. So our DMS is compliant. BIG DEAL.
[DMS is Dealer Management System] 

         I then handed him the bottom line of equipment that has to be
replaced from our entire phone system, diagnostic equipment in service,
PC's that are ancient...and the grand total for us ALONE....was
around 154,000. Thats right. $154,000 hard dollars. That's peanuts. 

         In the middle of the strike , business is dead and the bottom
line can only be seen with a dark field microscope. I then had to tell
him our banks are not compliant and could not give us a date and none
of our lending institutions were, either and they refused to give us a
date. 

         GM is JUST in the phase of looking into Y2K. Chrysler is in the
same boat. NADA didn't deem it worthy to clue dealers in until July
1998. 

         Dealers Needed a clue long before this. 

         I left a mega corporation last year that owns over 87
dealerships from New York down to Florida and in contacting their CFO
last week found they have not even addressed Y2K in their facilities in
any way shape or form. However, they just had a 4 hour meeting to
discuss which car soap detail company to do business with. I'm dead
serious. They have no Y2K meeting scheduled period bringing together all
 key managers in their facilities. 

         People are asleep. Have been asleep..and are now in denial
regardless of their brains or bottom line. Those that have woken up are
throwing the remediation projects at people that have an even
lower computer / business IQ. "Errrrrr...just handle It!" Yup. The girls
in the office. (shiver). 

         Bottom line is Y2K has not one damn thing to do with how Smart
or successful a company is.or it's owners, or personnel. They are
successful because they do what their nitch is very well. In
our business it's selling cars. 

         It's the little people that simply operate the dealer's
computers processing the info in and out that even touch a computer and
the majority of them are simple operators that follow a menu. They can't
operate a PC out of a wet bag. They go blank when they hear Y2K. No
grasp. What the hell is BIOS? 

         If we, a small dealer, have to spend this much to get ready ..
contact this many people at basically the last minute .. and honestly,
no one  even really knows who all they need to contact... Imagine what
companies like General Motors in the midst of this strike and Honda, and
Chrysler, Ford are dealing with on a supplier, contact,
embedded chip level. 

         The Automobile industry is going to go down. Mark my words and
bank them. Many dealers are extremely successful and smart.....worth millions.. 

         But Y2K prepared or grasping? 

         NOT. 

         Sorry for the LONG jumping in. But you just have to be in the
middle of it to really know just HOW pervasive the problem is. (Taking
         blood pressure pill at PC here). 

         Domino effect is putting it mildly. 

         Marie 

         ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

-- 
                                        Attack with L@ve!!

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