Every now and then tech simply doesn’t work. And then there’s times when technology rollouts are real disasters. The Telegraph newspaper recently talked about some of the biggest tech disasters of 2013. While you read about them, try to learn something. You wouldn’t want to make the same mistakes — albeit on a smaller scale — with your business.
The healthcare fiasco
Pres. Obama fought to get the Affordable Care Act enacted. Then when it was time to unveil the Healthcare.gov website that was to be the online home of the new insurance plan, he and his fellow White House staffers stumbled in a big way: The site was a catastrophe. It rarely loaded. And if consumers were lucky enough to log on, they struggled to find the insurance information they wanted. The site has been mostly repaired since then, but the fiasco has still left a stain on Obama’s legacy.
Sabre’s travel mess-up
Online booking giant Sabre caused huge problems for travelers in 2013 at the height of the student holiday season. Sabre went offline for just three hours. However when it did, it created countless flight cancellations and delays for hundreds of thousands of passengers. This isn’t a surprise: More than 300 airlines rely on Sabre.
Walmart
When Walmart web shoppers in October stumbled across computer equipment that was valued at $500 was being offered at $8.99, they reacted by buying lots of it. Sadly for them, the bargain prices were a glitch. Walmart declined to honor the bargain prices, sending upset consumers to social media to object. Just what Walmart needed: more bad press.