Trouble Spots
Of course, Customs has presented us with the major trouble spot for the month. But it's not the only story in the past month where IT has been associated with problems.
Some time ago, Insurance Australia Group introduced a new approach to obtaining quotes for smash repairs, with repairers no longer inspecting the damaged vehicle, but working from digital photographs. The scheme has been controversial, with operators saying that it will reduce quality and compromise safety. Now, according to The Age on November 9th, the NSW Government is looking into the scheme, through an independent investigator.
There is a linkage between this story and the one at Customs. In both cases, IT is being used as an enabler for a transformation of the way an entire industry operates. The challenge in such transformation is less likely to be the complexity of the technology, as it is the complexity of achieving an industry wide agreement that the changes are necessary, appropriate and acceptable. The continuing objections from the smash repair industry suggests that in this case, agreement has not been reached.
Some other, more or less mundane examples of trouble with the use of IT are:
The Age reported on November 9th that National Australia Bank will refund $21.6 m to overcharged customers, because of incorrectly applied penalty interest rates. The article doesn't make it clear whether or not this was an IT related problem, but our experience is that such situations often occur when rules built into software are forgotten, or improperly managed by business users and managers. There are continuing risks for business that the extent of automation in IT systems results in the business being deskilled, and subsequently surprised by unexpected outcomes from systems operating exactly as designed.
Significant embarrassment for Westpac bank reported in The Australian on November 3rd, as an email "escaped" prematurely, bringing forward the announcement of the bank's results by two days. As numerous cases have shown of late, the instantaneous nature of electronic communication can be problematic. It may be time for organisations to think seriously about how they categorise and control the flow of information through electronic portals, not merely as a protection against spam and viruses, but for legal and competitive reasons, and to ensure that they maintain appropriate standards of quality in their dealings with external parties.
Again on the email topic, Telstra announced (Computerworld, 19 October) that it cannot store customer email indefinitely, and would commence deleting messages more than 120 days old. One wonders how this might affect individuals and small business operators who do not have the technical savvy to save their emails for long term retention.
We've heard a great deal of late about how Australia's national communications infrastructure is not doing so well. In The Australian Financial Review of November 4th, we find a further discussion that says Australia is missing out on opportunities for business because our broadband infrastructure is too slow and too expensive. It compares Telstra services with Deutsche Telekom offerings of similar price, and reveals that German customers enjoy eight times the bandwidth, and suffer no download limits.