The March 2019 deadline is less than 5 months away and the possibility of a ‘No Deal’ Brexit is increasing by the day. You need to manage the risks of Brexit to your business now. Delaying your preparations any further will be a commercial suicide.
In our previous article, we discussed how a No Deal Brexit could bring a crisis for the digital sector, highlighting the 8 areas of concern raised by DigitalEurope. In this article, we discuss how to assess those risks and how to approach Brexit risk management for your business.
1) Understanding the business context and scenario planning
The first point to address in assessing and managing risks is realising the context. In what business context are you assessing the risks? What is the likely scenario that you need to ‘model’ your risks in? With Brexit, this can be a complex multi-layered scenario, which makes risk assessment more challenging. To expedite the process, we encourage you to plan for the worst-case scenario i.e. No Deal Brexit. The logic of this is that by preparing to effectively manage risks in a worst-case scenario, any other less severe outcome becomes manageable for the business.
2) Covering all key areas of risk
The second part of risk management is to ensure that you cover all key areas of risk. Many businesses focus on the sales part of the operation. It is equally important to consider the supply side. This includes the availability and supply of skills and talent to the business, which is a big concern for the booming digital sector. It is important that you include the 8 areas of concern listed in our previous article in your risk assessment and mitigation plans.
3) Establishing risk treatment plan
Having determined the impact of each specific risk on the business, the final part is to establish a treatment strategy to manage risks. This involves developing clear plans for how you will mitigate each risk to reduce its impact on the business.
At Shaping Business, we use a structured approach to identify, assess and mitigate risks using a recognised risk management framework. We have worked with EU government funded programmes and with European businesses to help them prepare for Brexit.
Brexit Risk Management Workshop
This knowledge and experience is now available to the local businesses. A UK based initiative has been launched by Shaping Business, a Growth Marketing Agency, to help digital/ technology businesses in the UK prepare for Brexit and continue their sustainable business growth.
The aim of the programme is to ensure that digital/ technology businesses like yours are provided with the tools to enable you to identify, assess and mitigate the risks that Brexit poses to your business. As a participant, you will gain a clearer understanding of the risks and develop an action plan to prepare your business for Brexit.
You can develop the Brexit risk management plans for your business by spending half a day with other business leaders in our outcome-focused workshop.
Register directly on Eventbrite here: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/brexit-planning-workshop-for-business-tickets-49283773092.
