The business world hates unpredictability and nothing could be more unpredictable at the moment than the fate of the UK and Europe after Brexit.
On June 23, 2016 the British people voted 51.9% to 48.1% in favor of leaving the European Union. Whether this vote was caused by the growing inequality across Britain which further threatens those that are in the margins of society or whether it be because the perceived uncontrolled immigration across the EU has threatened the national identity of the Brits, one thing is certain – businesses are threatened by the possible consequences of Brexit.
There are valid reasons to worry of course – there will have to be talks on new trade arrangements, uncertainty as to access to the single market, and new immigration policies to be put in place among other things.
To make things more complicated, on June 24, 2017 the UK Supreme Court ruled that the UK government under the leadership of Theresa May cannot begin talks with the EU until MPs and peers give their support through a vote.
Supreme Court President Lord Neuberger said that the government cannot trigger article 50 without an act of the parliament authorizing it to do so. Some of the reasons they offered were that the 1972 act that took UK into the then EEC made EU law a source of UK law. This means that unless this act is repealed, the EU law remains to be an overriding source of the UK´s legal system.
Further, withdrawing from the EU removes existing domestic rights of UK residents and it also means significant changes in the UK constitution therefore, a parliamentary vote is necessary.
The Implications
As of this writing, it is unknown how this ruling will be taken both by the Parliament and by the people. It is however clear that from a business standpoint, preparations are necessary.
Businesses especially those that have parent companies or subsidiary companies or have significant businesses in the UK will have to prepare in order to withstand additional certainty. It is important for businesses to have a strong grip of their company’s financial health whatever direction Brexit talks end at.
While many companies today are working hard day and night to modernize the way they budget, report, and forecast it is undeniable that there are still a lot of areas for improvement.
At this time, it is important for businesses to have contingency plans in order to stay competitive and that can only be accomplished by improving the way they do their reporting and analysis of their company-wide real time performance, improving the manner and speed at which they budget and forecast, increasing the accuracy of their forecasting, and ensuring that they have answers to critical business questions for better strategy formulation.
For businesses to accomplish this – it starts with moving away from legacy tools. If the business still operates on Excel spreadsheets for the entire budget process for example where there is intense manual labor, significant staff time needed to fix errors and validate figures as well as months expended before closing the books, it is highly likely that the business cannot keep up with its competition.
Therefore, in these uncertain times it is important to invest in financial planning and analysis software that can streamline and increase the efficiency of the finance department.
Business analytics and financial tracking software like Performance Canvas Financials will ensure that the finance department work in such a way that it can provide the relevant analysis and insights that will be necessary for decision-making whether it be in terms of resource allocation, capital expenditures for the year, or any other decision that the CFO and CEO will have to make to keep the business globally competitive.
Brexit, the impending European elections in 2017, and the new US administration’s unknown policies are few of the compelling reasons why equipping the CFO and the finance department a modern tool for financial control has moved from being a mere want to an absolute need.
To learn more about Performance Canvas and its reporting, budgeting, forecasting, consolidation, KPIs, dashboards, and scorecard capabilities, visit www.performancecanvas.com or email info@dspanel.com to see a live demo of the product.
DSPanel offers cutting edge technology platform for business analytics, planning, and visualization. DSPanel designs, builds, and operates with the end users in mind. Performance Canvas was created by DSPanel to answer the unarticulated needs of the market not addressed by previous available solutions. With Performance Canvas, information is transformed into valuable business insights for the business executives to utilize in their decision-making process. DSPanel currently has over 2500 organizations deploying their solutions.
