If this stock reply is merely a thinly disguised substitute for "We don't want to spend money on it", well the power of self deception has never been absent from human endeavours. Wake up and smell the roses. The cost of not being able to do business will exceed your Y2k estimates.
There is no such thing as Absolute Zero Cost.
Everything has some cost associated with it, whether it is the cost of the telephone call to download information from the Web or the price of the paper to print the information on.
Zero Cost or Zero Based Budgeting in this context means achieving the required results as part of normal business activities. It is a "Do it Yourself, Business as Usual" approach.
But it does imply that specific cost cutting emergency measures may need to be taken.
The sectors that are hardest hit by Y2k in developing countries are Corporates and Local and Provincial Governments. Their money is already spent.
Particularly if these organisations have Mainframes.
There is one inescapable fact with Mainframes and Y2k. Only the very latest versions of Operating Systems and Compilers will do the job.
This means that there is only one option for Mainframe users in a Zero Budget scenario. You have to make an accomodation with your Supplier.
If you cannot finance the upgrade, then your system will not work, and your Supplier will lose a customer.
If Mainframe users have not yet ordered the replacement software, and possibly hardware, they had better give their Suppliers a call today.
How the deal is structured is up to the individual customers and suppliers. Trade-in, lease, rental, hire-purchase, whatever it takes.
But one thing is certain. Unless Mainframe users upgrade their systems now, today, they will not survive.
One of the lesser publicised features of this upgrade process, particularly for COBOL users is that compilers have changed. Older COBOL programs will not even compile under the latest versions, let alone execute correctly.
So a great deal of work has to be done merely to install the existing applications in the new environment.
IT Departments love to rush out and buy expensive state of the art "Y2k Scanning Tools". There is novelty value in these tools and any excuse to avoid and put off the drudgery of conversion is a straw to be grasped firmly. Unfortunately, bitter experience has shown that the only way to ensure correct conversions is for human beings to read every line of code and manually correct faulty logic. In this instance, Zero budgeting, which precludes the purchase of nonessential tools and the resultant timewaste, is a positive benefit.
Zero Budgeting also implies that conversion work, "Remediation" is the Y2k term, will have to be done inhouse. There is no spare budget for fancy "conversion tools" and high priced consultants or contractors.
A case comes to mind where a company claimed "We have no money for this", and then went out and hired a consultancy firm to do a Y2k Inventory. What a Waste. Who better to do any inventory than the internal people mandated to monitor Assets? Why not get the Asset Register right at the same time? And ensure that the procedures for maintainance of the Asset Register are put in place. Why do you need to hire consultants to find out where your PC are?
No special budgeting is needed for a Purchasing Department to ensure that all future acquisitions are compliant. It is their normal job.
If Goods Receiving do not have an Inspection or Testing facility to monitor the quality (read Y2k compliance) of incoming goods, then now might be a good time to implement this facility.
I have seen a lot of good work being done by Internal Audit. These folks already know the business and the people and already have a mandate to ferret out problems, no additional budget necessary.
An IT department must be in sad shape if it cannot find the inhouse expertise to evaluate systems and create an environment to allow remediation and testing to take place. Or fix code.
If you are lucky, you will have people on your permanent staff who can handle this work. But you are probably going to have to review their remuneration or offer a bonus if you are going to retain them.
Otherwise you are going to have to train existing staff who know the business to do this work. And training in this area is hard to come by as yet. There is no standard syllabus for "Bug Busters".
Much has been said about the fact that Y2k is a Business problem and is best not handled by IT staff.
The absolutely best project leaders for any Y2k project are the CEO and CFO, because strategic business decisions and Contingency Plans must be made, now.
There must be an element of Verification in any Y2k decision.
A CEO said to me "My IT people are satisified that we are ok". My reply was "Do your Auditors agree?". It is just too easy to gloss over potentially damaging issues purely because people are unaware of the ramifications of the problem. A Multidisciplinary approach is needed. It must be a total Corporate strategy.
In a nutshell, it is a myth that huge budgets are necessary to achieve Y2k compliance. What is needed is Motivation, a "Can Do" attitude, and a change in Management priorities.