We literally started with a blank sheet of paper - nothing was ruled in or out. However, there was a preference for retaining control of the UK payroll, so outsourcing options were not really investigated. This meant that we knew that we were looking at a 'greenfield site' implementation i.e. we would be creating and building the payroll office and the service from scratch.

The project formally started on 10th July 2000 and was divided into 3 stages.