Brexit: navigating change

Brexit dominates the UK government agenda and is a priority for executives looking at the potential business implications. The government has set out its ambition for the future relationship with the EU, which includes a bespoke trade deal to facilitate ongoing EU/UK trade, while enabling the UK to establish new global trade deals. The degree to which these proposals will shape the final deal remains to be seen and the uncertainty caused by Brexit continues to affect the UK’s economic prospects, consumer confidence and business investment decisions.

Proactive planning in uncertain times

We are working with our clients across all sectors to understand, plan for and act upon the potential implications of Brexit to minimise the risks, maximise opportunities and play our part in helping UK business to be Brexit-ready. Through our efforts, we are helping to protect jobs, sustain and grow UK trade and address the UK’s productivity challenge.

We’re doing detailed risk assessments to understand our clients’ level of Brexit exposure against a number of scenarios that may play out – including ensuring businesses have considered what ‘no deal’ – the scenario of most change - would mean for them. Some examples include:

• Helping financial institutions understand the degree to which they will need to relocate some operations and staff to enable operational continuity;
• In life sciences, considering the implications should the UK operate outside of the EU regime for the approval and licensing of medicines and medical devices;
• In manufacturing, analysing the impacts of tariff and non-tariff barriers to trade to test the ongoing viability of UK production;
• In retail and consumer products, helping companies to understand their multi-tier supply chains to assess how increased cost and complexity in the movement of goods could affect the price of goods; and
• Across a number of sectors we are helping our clients to understand the impact on their workforce – the origin of their staff, the potential implications for their talent and resourcing strategies and the provision of clear information to support affected workers.

The level of preparedness of UK business for Brexit will be a fundamental pillar of a strong and prosperous UK outside of the EU. Brexit is a challenge, but one in which we share a collective responsibility to meet in an informed and proactive way. By helping UK business to understand and prepare for the impacts, we’re playing our role in managing the potential negative consequences of Brexit and encouraging a proactive approach to maximising the opportunities ahead. This will, in turn, help protect jobs and encourage ongoing investment in the UK.

Alongside our work with UK business, we’re contributing to the debate on how the UK’s domestic and foreign policy needs to evolve to ensure the competitiveness of the UK outside of the EU. Nick Owen, Chair of Deloitte LLP in the UK, chairs the Professional & Business Services Council (PBSC), which represents a range of areas such as accountancy, legal, tax, and consulting. The PBSC is a key platform to interact with government, and as part of this we have been leading in shaping the ‘Sector Deal’ for services – a key influencer of the Government’s Industrial Strategy. We’re also involved in the Trade Technical Group, which promotes the interests of the services sector in Brexit trade negotiations by providing advice to the government on the specific challenges faced by services businesses.