Planning will reduce Euro transition costs, says Young

Careful planning can help companies prepare for the Euro without spending millions on new IT systems, according to Andy Young, head of Abbey National's Euro IT assessment team.

The former building society believes it has all contingencies covered when the UK government decides to adopt the Euro. Young argues that the greatest cost for most companies will be in the transitional period.

However, that cost, he told Silicon, can be minimised if you treat it as just that - a transient process.

"Our approach has been to look at our systems today and think about how we would expect them to be in the future - post-transitional period - and look at the transitional as a layer on top. That then means we get efficient systems that are sufficient for business purposes rather than a Rolls-Royce solutions that are then discarded," Young advises.

He added that IT teams should look at all the probable timeframes for entry into the Euro and apply the transient model to each. "You have to go for what you think is the most likely scenario and then test that by taking different assumptions. Consider different transitional periods and start dates and consider whether the work can feasibly be done in time."

When it comes to the Euro, it is vital the IT department works with the business, but he said: "There is a lot of effort that can be undertaken within the IT department independent of the business. In particular when looking at the different costs."