In the business world, people have to be very dynamic and are able to forecast the changes. We IT people need to have this sense as well to adopt the new technologies and adapt to the changes. If we fail to see the problems, sometimes the consequences will be very costly and unbearable.
Last month, the typhoon Pabuk made Hong Kong very chaotic because the Hong Kong Observatory (HKO) announced they would hoist Signal 8 within an hour, then changed their minds and flashed the 8 signal almost immediately. Due to this sudden change, the mobile networks overloaded and landlines also crashed. Meanwhile the HKO site kept crashing due to overload as people checked the latest typhoon conditions (Hammond 2007). Obviously, this was a communication breakdown. The question I would ask is why didn’t the infrastructure function properly in an urgent situation? Any contingency plans?
The other case just happened in US recently. Owing to the breakdown of the major switch in the LA airport, over 20,000 people were trapped on planes and 60 planes were sitting on the tarmac (Hammond 2007). Hammond claims that ‘If that switch was mission-critical, why was there no backup system?'
Through the above two incidents, we understand that very often systems are functioning properly under normal circumstance, but they fail when encountering the crisis. In the service industry, this problem would not be acceptable and bearable. The worst thing is you will lose your creditability and you are actually paying very high price for not investing on the contingency plan or disaster recovery solution.
To be continued
Reference
Hammond S 2007, ‘Communication breakdown’, Computerworld Hong Kong Daily, posted 1 September 2007, viewed 5 September 2007, <http://www.cw.com.hk/computerworldhk/Communication-breakdown/ArticleStandard/Article/detail/454130>.
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