KPMG report warns of euro chaos

A senior economist at KPMG's Management Consultancy has warned that European telecoms, banking, utilities and retail firms are vulnerable to disruption from the single European currency. Leo Martin said: "Companies in these industries could particularly risk being left behind when the euro comes."

Martin made the comments as KPMG published its report on Monday afternoon classifying sectors according to five different categories of preparedness, including IT systems impact.

"We are concerned that European companies within these sectors will start falling behind others because, being so concerned with euro problems, they will fail to look over the horizon at other issues such as consolidation," he said.

Other sectors at risk are transport and insurance. According to Martin, companies within these sectors face a large, complex integration problem because of the extent of their IT systems and the size of customer bases. The task to realign all pricing strategies and billing structures for companies within these sectors will be immense.