Assessing The Impact Of Brexit On Your Portfolio Company Or New Investment

Designed by our Brexit Taskforce, this quick exercise provides you with an opportunity to assess the impact of Brexit on your company. Take your time to evaluate your company against a set of key issues we have identified as particularly relevant, based on our insights and client work. Rather than determine overall risk (or opportunity), our advice is simply: if you score your company at 3 or above on any of the issues on either side of this page, talk to us about how best to tackle important areas of concern. We are here to help.

FTI’s Brexit Cross-Enterprise Audit: 4 key areas of challenge

The Issue: Supply Chain/Production

The big questions:

• Tariffs: will your finished products attract new tariffs or duties? Have you assessed potential tariffs on raw materials or WIP moving EU->UK or EU->UK?
• Customs admin and compliance: have you planned for additional staff and efforts in compliance?
• Logistic flows: Have you looked at all your flows to establish potential costs and risks?
• Disruption–are you prepared for the potential of a no deal Brexit? No deal means no transition deal either – March 2019 disruption could now be a real possibility?
• Stocks: do you have contingency stock in hand to cope with supply chain disruption?
• Location: will you need to move operations to/from the UK to continue to compete?

The Issue: Market Access, Certifications and Contracts

The big questions:

• Does your company have the right to operate in a no-deal Brexit – e.g. financial passporting, product certification, safety regulations?
• Will you lose out on EU research grants in R&D and will this affect viability of your business?
• Have you checked that you can continue marketing your UK products in the EU and vice versa without re-certification in different Brexit scenarios?
• How can you ensure the availability of products under various scenarios (e.g. certification, labelling, safety)?

The Issue: Tax and Legal Structure

The big questions:

• What changes might you need to make to your existing legal structures to continue doing business in both geographies and avoiding punitive costs and delays?
• Have you considered VAT and withholding tax impacts?
• Are your existing contracts still valid after Brexit (e.g. grandfathering rules)?

The Issue: Economy

The big questions:

• What changes might you need to make to your existing legal structures to continue doing business in both geographies and avoiding punitive costs and delays?
• Have you considered VAT and withholding tax impacts?
• Are your existing contracts still valid after Brexit (e.g. grandfathering rules)?

FTI Consulting’s Brexit Top Ten People Issues Preparedness Questionnaire

The Issue: Right to Work and the Law

Have you assessed ‘right to work’ issues and related employment law and employee relations implications for your workforce – particularly in relation to staff working across multiple European and other locations?

The issue: Structures and Processes

To what extent have you assessed the impact of Brexit on your organisational structure and processes – including implications for commercial, shared services and other staff arising from Brexit?

The Issue: Relocation

As Brexit takes effect, how important will it be for you to consider the relocation and related implications for staff affected?

The Issue: Employee Value Proposition

Will it be important to re-think Employee Value Proposition pre and post Brexit – for your organisation and staff?

The Issue: Key Employees

Can you quantify the impact of Brexit against key staff groups in relation to their engagement through the likely period of uncertainty?

The Issue: Communicating Confidence

Will it be important to prepare and execute staff-focused Brexit communications (content, cadence and channels) and are leaders and managers equipped and confident to drive communications as Brexit takes affect?

The Issue: Talent

Have you engaged directly on talent acquisition, management and workforce planning implications, particularly where you employ a mix of European staff?

The Issue: Managing Change

How important will it be to consider the Change management implications of Brexit for your company i.e. enabling people to navigate from the pre-Brexit old way of working to the post-Brexit new way of working, on the basis that they arrive enabled, confident and committed to the new era?

The Issue: Skills and Training

How confident are you that you have assessed skills, knowledge, language and cultural gaps across key categories of employees resulting from Brexit?

The Issue: HR and Comms

Do your HR, Communications and leadership teams have the skills and knowledge to anticipate, block, tackle and anticipate staff issues arising?

FTI Consulting is an independent global business advisory firm dedicated to helping organisations manage change, mitigate risk and resolve disputes: financial, legal, operational, political & regulatory, reputational and transactional. FTI Consulting professionals, located in all major business centres throughout the world, work closely with clients to anticipate, illuminate and overcome complex business challenges and opportunities. The FTI Brexit Taskforce advises and works alongside in-house professionals and to support clients throughout the Brexit process. See overleaf for contact details.