D-Day for Y2k.

The sky may not fall as the great global chronometer rolls over to 2000, but there may be some glitches. "Y2K will have good, bad and ugly impacts on the enterprise, no doubt," says Dr. James Canton, president of the Institute for Global Futures, a San Francisco-based think tank, and author of Technofutures: How Leading-Edge Technology Will Transform Business in the 21st Century. Still, he says, "I don't foresee worst case scenarios for the economy, but expect pockets of breakdowns worldwide. Most of the problems, large and small, will occur after Y2K, up to two years into the new century. It's not a matter of waking up and finding everything okay or not on Jan. 1. There will be progressive and prolonged problems as time goes on."

Canton thinks the sectors that will face greater challenges will be health care, utilities, financial services and telecom due to the sheer size of the problem - too big or too expensive to fix totally - or because certain system bugs are still undiscovered.

His advice to CFOs? "Get involved or you may be a casualty - it will affect different people differently on the planet. I wouldn't want to be on a plane over parts of Italy or count on the phone or power to work in the Middle East, for example. But don't go back to the Excel sheets just yet."

One problem "will be the MIS folks who report just those systems that are Y2K-ready, but don't tell you about systems that aren't on the list - so plan for surprises," Canton warns. "Ask what are the risks to your customer knowledge bases going down? Have you back up vendors for this? Exactly how do you spell we-cannot-deliver-our-product-to-market?"

And he suggests CFOs have "extra lines of capital at the ready on which to draw down in different areas of the world for emergencies that are hard to predict now but could halt operations tomorrow. Tell your banker you need the money for anything but Y2K; bankers are already deep in denial or living in 'this isn't my department' mindset."

On the whole, though, he says, "Y2K for the United States will be a big yawn for most and a hassle for others. There will be significant long-term problems overseas, as other nations haven't prepared as deeply as we have. Those of us who have international operations may consider extra protection here in anticipation of the worst, but they, too, will prevail over time. In the robust global economy of the new 21st century, the challenges of Y2K will be fleeting at best and cause many to adapt to new systems to survive. Maybe that's not such a bad thing."

Another potential positive? "Perhaps financial executives will become a bit more high-tech savvy, and that isn't such a bad thing, either," Canton notes.