High above the Boots pharmacy in Dublin's Grafton Street, Ms Deirdre Burns and Mr Stuart Brown are working flat out on the changeover to the euro. Ms Burns is regional customer marketing manager of Boots, while Mr Brown, who manages four Boots branches in Tallaght, is currently operating as euro communications and training manager.

By the time the new currency has arrived in our pockets, Boots will have spent £2.7 million (€3.43 million) on a programme that will prepare its customers and staff for the changeover.

Other companies may have similar transition strategies but what makes Boots different is that it is essentially a British company preparing part of its operation for a currency Britain is not joining. The company is using its Irish experience as a dry run for when Britain might embrace the euro.

"The way we adopted the euro project, we said this may happen in the UK. We want to get it totally right for our Irish customers and to be in a position of strength if it happens in the UK," Ms Burns explains.

Boots has 29 stores and 1,300 staff in the Republic. Put in context, Boots Irish stores are a small segment of the 1,300 stores in Britain and Northern Ireland.

"It's a twofold thing," she continues. "It's an exciting time in business, one of the biggest challenges any retail business will face. And it's an opportunity to get it right for the customer. By getting it right, we can build on our relationship with the customer."

Boots started out on its euro project in 1998 and, at peak periods, up to 27 people were seconded to work on it.

Boots also has panels of customers acting as consultants. As a result, five main points are being addressed.

Consumers want to know that Boots is organised for the euro.

They want to be able to trust Boots to charge them the right price.

They want the shops to help them understand how they will be affected by the euro.

They want to know the staff will be well trained.

They want to know that the company has played a part in their feeling confident and looking forward to the currency.

In preparation for the changeover, Boots has had close liaison with other retailers through IBEC, the employers' confederation, with banks and with trade unions. The company also identified issues and business risks associated with the changeover - 600 issues and 450 risks, to be precise.

"Issues and risks came down to 100 implementations. Forty of them are complete and many more are at an advanced stage," Ms Burns says. Already, 300 of Boots suppliers are trading with them in euros. Mr Brown started training the Boots staff last month and will be finished by mid-November. Then it's Christmas, as far as retailers are concerned.

He also makes presentations on the euro to other retailers, mainly in the Tallaght shopping area.

"One of the issues with us is trust - trust from our customers, trust from our staff. If the staff don't trust the company, how can the customers?" he asks.

"There are 300 tills in the 29 stores. All it takes is one till to get it wrong and we will have awful publicity and we have an impeccable reputation in that area."

Extra staff will be on duty and key people in all stores will have calculators and will advise customers. Ready reckoners will be given out free. There will be special offers to celebrate the change.

"The biggest calculator is actually at the till point. There is a convert button on it. Every time we zap the bar code it comes out in euros and we can press the convert button and show it in pounds."

He says he is expecting a lot of coins to come in over the period when the old and new currencies are both legal tender. While he would like people to take coins to their banks, Boots will nevertheless take them from you. Three hundred electronic scales will be positioned at each of the 300 tills to speed up the process.

He does think, however, that some people will not take change seriously enough.

"What worries me is that people will say it's a bit of cake. It's very different. That is why only 27 per cent of businesses are going to be totally ready for the euro coming in. We have identified the elderly and very young people as having problems."

But as Mr Brown points out, with pride in the knowledge, changing currencies is not a new thing for the Irish. "We've had 16 changes of currency since 400 BC. We've had ring money (300 BC), Ornaments (50 BC), Islamic dirhams (800 AD), Hiberno-Norse (900 AD), Danish coin (995), Dublin penny (1251), harp groat (1634), gun money (1689), Wood coin (named after a man called Wood, 1722), voce populi coin (1760), cattle money, Spanish coin (1804), pounds, shillings and pence (1928), decimal coins (1971) and independent Irish coin (1978)."