“Foreign Influence”
From time to time I read with great amusement comments by various statesman or other influential people about the need to “purge foreign influences“ or “not succumb to foreign influences“.
At times it may be understandable: people don’t want to lose their national identity. Some comments suggest more these people are living on a different planet. Let’s see: they wake up in the morning thanks to an alarm set on their “foreign” smart phone. If they are still of the type who wish to use an actual alarm clock, it will probably won’t be made in their country.
After getting up, they (one hopes) shower using shower products made in any number of other countries, after which they dry themselves on a towel again made (most likely) in China.
They then dress in clothes made overseas (in India, Bangladesh, China or if they can afford it, Parris, Milan, Savile Row).
They then have a cup of coffee for which they boil the water in their Chinese or Korean kettle. After that, they leave the house and, if they drive themselves to work, most do so in a car made in China, Japan, Korea, Germany, the UK, or the USA.
On arriving at work (at the local subsidiary of, say, an overseas bank) they go to their desk and switch on a computer made in China, Korea, the USA. Their desk and office chair may well have been manufactured in a different country as well.
For lunch, they may well decide with their colleagues to go out for foreign food. After leaving work and driving home in their foreign car, they change and relax in front of their Japanese, Korean or European TV.
Dinner may be a simple affair: a microwaved meal, cooked in their Korean microwave. Afterwards they load the dirty dishes and cutlery into a Korean or German dishwasher. Following a relaxing cold drink from the Korean made fridge, they head upstairs to bed before beginning the whole process the next day again.
The lust to “purge foreign influences” seems characteristic of national populists and those trying to carry favour with a minority of the population.
Unless we go and live in a remote cave, “foreign influences” can no more be purged from our lives than can our hearts or lungs. Like the latter, they are an integral part. Were we to genuinely “purge” them, we’d be left stark naked, with no (or very few) possessions and probably little gainful employment.
I’ve spent more than half my life delivering change in different world markets from the most developed to “emerging” economies. With a wealth of international experience in international financial services around the world running different operations and lending businesses, I started my own Consultancy to provide solutions for improving performance, productivity and risk management. I work with individuals, small businesses, charities, quoted companies and academic institutions across the world. An international speaker, trainer, author and fund-raiser, I can be contacted by email. My website provides a full picture of my portfolio of services
Labels: Leadership, Leisure, Social
When "IT" Goes "OUT"
The July 2024 IT “outage” caused by a flaw in a Content Validator Component sent out by a cyber security company caused a degree of chaos throughout the world.
Businesses in industries ranging from aviation to finance to medical care using Microsoft operating systems were affected. Fixing the problem took time with, apparently, any device affected having to be restarted up to 15 times before it could work.
Flights around the world were cancelled and airports saw chaotic scenes with some passengers being presented handwritten boarding passes. Hospital appointments systems failed to function.
Whilst technology is, in theory, making lives easier, episodes such as this show how heavily reliant we are on interconnected systems. As with the global financial crisis of 2008 - 2012, where interlinked banks had to be bailed out by taxpayers or left to fail, so a wide variety of institutions and organisations were affected by this episode.
Although we’re told that the cause was a “defective update”, no one knows whether this will happen again. Even if security companies improve their processes to ensure that critical updates are “bug-free”, there’s still room for error.
This isn’t the first “once in a blue moon” episode of a defective program being released. We’ve already had plenty of examples of malicious “hacking” of government and industrial systems designed to spread chaos. This case seems to have been due to human error.
I’m lucky. I use a Mac! My business (which uses Microsoft) also wasn’t impacted. But how many of our partners might have been? What of the class action suits and cases for damages that will now be brought? Does the company concerned have a future?
It got me thinking: whilst IT’s designed to benefit us in the long run, there are still plenty of potential hazards that can impact global business. Is there anything we can do to mitigate this? There’s no way we can avoid future occurrences. Not many companies, unless they’re global multinationals, will be in a position to insert penalty clauses into agreements with security software companies which say that, if the client suffers loss as a direct result of errors or omissions by that company, the security company will compensate them. In these cases, security companies would most likely go out of business very fast, leaving the world potentially a more vulnerable place.
What can we as business leaders do to minimise the impact of such an event? We need to examine our processes and determine how many are reliant on functioning IT. Once that’s been done, is there a “manual workaround” that can be used? Can our counterparties, particularly our “vital suppliers” do the same? What would happen if their systems suffered a similar occurrence? Could they still continue to supply us with the goods or services needed for our business?
Each and every business and its leaders will need to develop their own solutions in order to reduce potential impacts the next time (and there will be a next time) this happens.
I’ve spent more than half my life delivering change in different world markets from the most developed to “emerging” economies. With a wealth of international experience in international financial services around the world running different operations and lending businesses, I started my own Consultancy to provide solutions for improving performance, productivity and risk management. I work with individuals, small businesses, charities, quoted companies and academic institutions across the world. An international speaker, trainer, author and fund-raiser, I can be contacted by email. My website provides a full picture of my portfolio of services.
Labels: Crisis Management, Customer Care, Leadership, Productivity, Risk, Strategy, Teamwork
