Euro conversion isn't such a headache

The cost and complexity of converting IT systems to accept the euro has been over-hyped, say users and analysts.

Several European countries will drop their national currencies from 1 January next year, which will affect multinational corporations as well as UK firms which trade in Europe.

The conversion process has been compared to Year 2000 projects, but consumer goods giant Unilever says converting its SAP enterprise resource planning (ERP) system has not been a problem.

The process cost £7.5m, less than one per cent of the company's annual global IT budget, says Peter Slator, head of IT at Unilever.

"There is certainly no hype coming from us about the euro," he said.

"We planned the migration for six months last year and the implementation through this year, but it has not been an issue."

High Street furniture store Habitat is going for the "big bang" approach, and will shut down much of its European IT operations this week to implement a conversion programme.

The chain's central SAP system processes all stock and customer orders throughout Europe, and will be taken down while the conversion is tested, says Sylvie Mizael, head of IT at Habitat.

Euro conversion has been the focus of too much hype, says Andrea Di Maio, research director at analyst Gartner.

"The conversion and possible disasters have been a bit over-hyped. Those who are using a major ERP system such as SAP or Oracle have not had major problems," he said.

But he warns that much will depend on data integrity.

"What typically happens is that companies who have not done sufficient rehearsal of their conversion find errors. Those are not conversion errors but pre-existing errors that have been amplified by the conversion," he added.