The ICT industry has been largely and mercifully spared the effects of the electricity crisis. However, it should not be complacent, because there is a lesson here about not squeezing out the technologists.
During the past week, I have spoken to a number of ICT executives from large and small companies. They have been quick to point out that their organisations have, for a long time, had plans in place in preparation for power outages.
Investment in generators, UPSes and disaster recovery plans has been the norm in the industry for many years. While these have been little needed, it seems the reliance on these will become far greater in the future.
"Whatever we took for granted in the past, we cannot afford to do so anymore," one executive at a large BPO organisation told me. "It is not that we did not have any contingency planning, the fact is we are only now seeing if it can be implemented."
It is not the large organisations with huge server farms with big industrial generators and UPSes the size of kitchens that are the most in danger. Rather, it is the smaller companies and the individual business people upon whom the wheels of industry and commerce are dependent to keep turning.
24/7 industry
"The IT industry implies a 24/7 communications access. If I am not contactable 24/7, especially in a globally competitive environment, then I cannot operate from here," says Andrea Bohmert, Cape IT Initiative chairman.
Bohmert, who is also a venture capitalist, has a point in that the smaller business person has to be able to react quickly to an opportunity and this means as close to instant communications as possible. If the electricity fails, home modems go down, meaning no e-mail, or being able to respond to them. Telephone usage increases during blackouts and this means more congested telephone lines and dropped cellular calls.
"Only when one part of the overall infrastructure goes down, does one realise the knock-on effects," says Tony Robinson, a spokesman for the Cape Regional Chamber of Commerce and Industry.
Robinson says while the power failures have had the most dramatic effect on manufacturing and industry, the levels of wastage can be seen across all levels of commerce and society.
"If a baker cannot finish making the bread he put into the oven, it is a waste. Similarly, the traffic lights go out, leading to traffic jams and high use of fuel, and then the refinery goes down," he says.
Maintain the maintenance
It is not the large organisations with huge server farms with big industrial generators and UPSes the size of kitchens that are the most in danger.
Paul Vecchiatto, Cape Town correspondent, ITWeb
A major cause of the electricity downtime is a lack of maintenance by Eskom and local municipalities.
An insurance adjudicator who used to process Eskom claims says its maintenance budgets were so drastically reduced that the electricity utility was forced to push some of this work through as being insurance-related.
"We kept on rejecting their claims because so many were due to maintenance rather than being actual claimable losses," he says.
Robinson says part of the reason for this is that Eskom and many of the municipalities have replaced engineers with people who have business or legal qualifications. These employees have no real understanding that spares and reserves need to be kept on hand and are not just accounting entries.
Just-in-time letdown
Just-in-time ordering and personnel efficiency are only two of the corporate business practices that have infused the behaviour of companies and government departments.
"This has been an international trend. Organisations such as the World Bank have preached the efficiency mantra for a long time. The problem is that it does not take into account issues such as maintenance," says Ravin Naidoo, chairman of ICT consultancy Radian.
A glance at almost every state-owned enterprise annual report highlights this trend of reducing costs, increasing employee efficiency and empty positions for engineers and other technologists. A case in point is that of national signal distributor Sentech, which is still struggling to reconcile trying to get itself ready for digital TV while maintaining a 35-year-old and increasingly creaky TV system.
US business consultant Tom Peters, when visiting this country three years ago, made the comment: "Accountants always want to reduce costs. In fact, they would only be happiest when the company disappears completely, because there will be no more costs."
The lesson is that we need the technologists, engineers, software programmers, mechanics and janitors that keep utilities running. Not necessarily exciting jobs, but vital to smooth functioning. Otherwise we might as well all turn out the lights, or rather, blow out the candles.
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