Major glitches expose dependence on technology
Kim Chaudoin | 615.966.6494 |
Technology is so interwoven into the fabric of our daily lives that we often don’t stop to think about how much we rely on it.
But technology is only good when it works.
Travelers and investors across the nation experienced first-hand what can happen when technology doesn’t work as United Airlines and the New York Stock Exchange experienced major glitches that caused major interruptions to daily activity on Wednesday, July 8.
Some experts feared these issues were due to hackers and not merely bugs in the system, though most indications are that these were just glitches that can happen from time-to-time. Within moments, these technical glitches shut down the NYSE for three hours, which overloaded the Wall Street Journal website with a high volume of traffic from concerned investors looking for information about the situation. United Airlines’ two-hour halt due to technical difficulties resulted in 800 flights being delayed.
“Computer technology has definitely advanced life as we know it,” said Andy Borchers, professor of management in Lipscomb University’s College of Business. “It has become such an integral part of our everyday lives that it’s difficult to live without them. In situations like we saw Wednesday with these major glitches, it really highlights our dependence on technology.”
In the post-9/11 era, Borchers said people tend to jump to assumptions that technology crashes such as this are the result of hacking or cyber terror, “which is always a possibility,” he said, “but in this case it seems like it is simply technology failure.” He noted that the public is a little anxious about the stock market in general because of recent economic struggles in Greece and China.
Borchers, an expert business analyst, said that although the situation at the New York Stock Exchange was disruptive to business, it didn’t have a profound impact on stock trading as a whole.
“Stock sale is distributed over multiple platforms, so trade kept going,” he said. “While the tech teams were working to identify the problems and to develop solutions, trading continued as usual, which helps all of us.”
Businesses who rely solely on technology run a risk of being negatively impacted when the unexpected happens.
“Modern life is so dependent on technology. Individuals and businesses run a tremendous risk when they put all of their eggs in one basket so to speak,” he said. “Businesses need to evaluate the impact that technology systems have on operations and measure how much they rely in those systems.”
Borchers said to mitigate the impact of technology glitches like those affecting the NYSE and United Airlines, businesses conduct risk assessments to determine potential threats to operations, the likelihood of those threats occurring and the consequences if it hits.
“That’s such a key part of strategic planning for organizational leaders,” he said. “Once they determine the risks they identify the highest risks and come up with alternative plans and back up systems to try to mitigate the impact on operations and customers.”
The Dow dropped -261.49 and closed at 17,515.42 yesterday for a 1.5 percent decrease.