Tag: UK

The UK’s Perfect Storm: Brexit, EU Workers Returning Home, IR35 Changes, and Coronavirus | Blog

Businesses in the UK are facing a spate of challenges; there’s the specter of new Brexit-driven red tape on trade, a staffing shortage as some EU workers are returning to their home countries, and UK changes to the IR35 contract worker tax legislation, which is making it very difficult for companies to hire contractors. A Coronavirus pandemic could be the final straw that breaks businesses’ backs. Let’s face it – there is a perfect storm ahead.

With Brexit and the EU trade negotiations still going on, there is little certainty about the red tape that businesses will face in order to trade with each other across the English Channel. Yet, with the transition period set to end on 31 December 2020, there is little time for businesses to prepare for whatever the new trade requirements may ultimately be.

Because adherence to the as yet unclear regulations will increase businesses’ workloads, a natural response would be to hire more staff. But unemployment is at record low, and many skilled EU workers are leaving the UK and returning to their home countries. Furthermore, the UK Office of National Statistics (ONS) reports that EU immigration to the UK is at an all-time low.

The HMRC’s new IR35 rules, which come into effect in April 2020, are exacerbating the problem. Many companies have had to adopt no-contractor hiring policies and cannot fill temporary vacancies. They are already feeling the impact of the regulation. If they can’t hire staff or contractors, where are companies going to find resources to handle the extra workload of trade red tape?

Additionally, widespread cases of the Coronavirus could lead to prolonged periods of sick leave, further reducing the number of staff who are available to help with the increased workload of trading with the EU. While cases are still far and few between in the UK, the impact of the spread of the disease in China has been great. Empty offices and factories in Chinese cities and manufacturing heartlands are already leading to a shortage of parts for cars and other products that are much in demand in the UK.

Clearly, UK businesses are facing a perfect storm.

Investing in digital and Intelligent Automation (IA) technologies can help them tackle some red tape issues, particularly if they use IA for what I call Red Tape Automation (RTA). This could be automation of compliance form-filling and reporting requirements, weights and measure conversions, or making changes to transaction or product-related data and synchronizing them across multiple systems such as those used for sales and revenue to record value added taxes and other duties. Companies that trade with both EU and non-EU countries could automate the red tape for all of those, using rules engines to fill in the right forms and apply the correct rates.

IA is not a perfect solution, as people will be needed to implement technology, and there is a growing talent shortage. Nonetheless, UK businesses will be well served by investing in learning the art of the possible with IA. While the final details of any trade deals with the EU, or new deals with the rest of the world, will not be known for a while, knowing how to implement the requirements quickly using IA can help them weather the impending storm.

For more information about IA, please check out Everest Group’s Service Optimization Technologies research.

Visit our COVID-19 resource center to access all our COVD-19 related insights.

21 Months to Brexit and the Case for Digital | Sherpas in Blue Shirts

The United Kingdom (UK) and the European Union (EU) officials have finally agreed on a Brexit transition deal. While some aspects of the agreement still need further work, the principles for the period are clear:

  1. The transition period will run to the end of December 2020. This means that the UK will have to abide by EU rules until then, but it will be able to negotiate new trade deals during that period
  2. The UK must treat EU citizens coming to the country during the transition period the same as those who already are residing there
  3. There will be no border between Northern Ireland (NI) and the Republic of Ireland with the back stop of NI remaining in the EU customs union even after Brexit, if no other solution can be found to a borderless relationship between the two

The Road to Brexit is Digital

Following this announcement, organizations now have a clear timetable to prepare for Brexit, allowing them to plan and define an internal roadmap. One of the key factors when planning is to build with agility in mind. If you’re an executive creating the plan, you’ll want to make sure that the business remains flexible to allow for adjustments to the remaining unknowns.

Digital is a big enabler of agility, and in the run up to Brexit, it is more important than ever that organizations invest in it. Boosting spending on digital solutions and automation will help them adapt and adopt to new market pressures, changing regulatory frameworks, and an uncertain labour pool because of the likelihood of many EU workers deciding to return to their home countries after Brexit.

The ways that digital and automation technologies help organizations in times of uncertainty include:

  • Reduce costs and increase process efficiency while maintaining service quality
  • Decrease hiring and training needs while increasing flexibility to handle fluctuating demand
  • Increase speed to market while decreasing the cost of launching new products and services
  • Empower staff to do more and maintain productivity during a time of change
  • Eliminate capital investment in infrastructure by migrating to the cloud
  • Satisfy new trade requirements and custom checks at EU borders or with new trade partners

Digital Skills will be High in Demand

 

Digital Skills will be High in Demand

 

Digital Skills will be High in Demand

Brexit will increase the demand for digital skills as companies prepare for handling new trade and customs requirements. The same goes for the public sector in both the UK and EU member states. For example, they will need a fair bit of digitalization on their borders to deal with the new paradigm of tracking immigration and trade, and handling customs requirements electronically using technology, such as RFID, IoT, and automation, to achieve the goals set out by political agreements while at the same time not creating hard borders.

Meeting Demand for Digital Skills and Services

Investing and tapping into digital skills is a must. This can take the form of internal training and development, recruitment, and contracting outside the organization. In turn, this likely will drive demand for digital consulting and implementation services.

On the supply-side, there are opportunities for service providers and consultancies to provide Brexit-specific services, such as Brexit Competency Centres (BCC) and products. We may well see Brexit specific packaged offerings emerge as well as Brexit specific robots from RPA and AI automation vendors. I expect these will be provided in extended robot libraries or bot-stores.

Northern Ireland – the New UK Gateway to EU

While the approach is unclear, there is certainty that NI will continue to have borderless access to the EU. This would make NI the ideal location for UK-based companies to place new production sites or delivery centres while still maintaining the bulk of business operations in the UK.

The road to Brexit has become clearer this week – but this is only the beginning. Businesses and governments must start detailed planning and preparation for Brexit. In this regard, digital solutions are a key enabler of both business continuity and change and must be on every C-level executive’s agenda.

UK Symposium: Thriving in A World of Change — March 22 | Event

Everest Group’s March 22 symposium, Thriving in a World of Perpetual Change, brings together industry expertise and rich resources to help you identify practical strategies to thrive in a time of global disruption. Join us as we explore ways leading enterprises are planning and organising to take advantage of disruption to improve outcomes.

About the event

Ongoing global disruption – in the form of economic uncertainty, political upheaval, legal/regulatory change, and technological development – is forcing the global services market to completely transform how service delivery is organised and executed. Keeping up with the latest developments is difficult enough, let alone understanding and planning for potential consequences.

What you will see, hear, and learn

  • Findings from our first ever assessment of how leading organisations are achieving Pinnacle, or best-in-class, status in leveraging Robotic Process Automation (RPA) in their service delivery organisations
  • Early findings from our RPA Technology PEAK Matrix™ 2018 research
  • Predictions for how the global services market will evolve in 2018, including demand trends, impact of RPA and other technology trends, digitalisation, the service provider landscape, delivery locations, vendor management and pricing, GDPR, and more
  • A panel discussion about what organisations should do to survive in a changing world

The programme will be followed by a networking session industry colleagues and Everest Group analysts over drinks and canapes.

Date

Thursday, 22nd March, 2018
3:30 to 7:00 pm

Location

Frobisher 2 Auditorium | Barbican Centre
Silk Street, London EC2Y 8DS

Register for the event

Last year’s event exceeded capacity very quickly – register today to save your space!

How Will Brexit Impact Your Europe Delivery Strategy? | Sherpas in Blue Shirts

On June 23, 2016, the United Kingdom (U.K.) voted to leave the European Union (EU) through a referendum, also known as “Brexit.” Indications over the last few months are that it will be a “hard Brexit,” wherein the U.K. makes a clean break from the EU’s common market. If that happens, we can anticipate the following major changes to the global services operating environment:

  • Passporting for companies will become tougher: Banks and financial institutions in the U.K. will find it more challenging to operate/set up new centers across countries in the region, as the U.K. will no longer be a part of the EU free trade market
  • Talent movement across U.K. borders will be a challenge: People will require separate work visas to work in the U.K. and continental Europe. Although this is expected to apply to new work visas, changes to visas for people currently working in these countries are still uncertain.

As many global companies leverage the U.K. and countries in continental Europe to deliver services to all of Europe, passporting and talent movement restrictions could have a significant impact on their business strategy, regardless of their operating location in the region.

Potential Brexit impacts on companies operating in the U.K. and EU

In the wake of the uncertainty, global companies that are planning to service their European customer base would prefer setting up their GICs/back-office centers in continental Europe instead of the U.K. This might cause a surge in back-office activity in continental European locations, and talent demand for multiple IT and business process functions in those countries might go up.

Additionally, companies that are currently operating in the U.K. and the rest of Europe will need to prepare for possible legal/policy changes, and will need to expedite visa, HR, and administrative processes for their employees. We expect this to lead to increased demand for back-office activity in the U.K. and continental Europe.

Moreover, with talent movement restrictions becoming a possibility, companies currently operating only in the U.K. might need to rethink their talent hiring strategy in the region, especially for language-specific needs that were previously easy to fulfill.

To paint a picture of the potential Brexit impacts, following are several sample scenarios about companies operating in the U.K. and EU, and their possible decisions pre- and post-Brexit.

Brexit decision scenarios

What lies ahead for those impacted by Brexit decisions

Until the exact Brexit-related policy changes become clearer, global companies might delay or shelve their investment decisions for the U.K. and rest of Europe. They might also possibly move toward greater levels of automation in their business operations to mitigate potential risks.

While it will be a wait and watch game over the next 10-12 months for companies operating in the U.K. and EU, they’ll need to keep their eyes carefully trained on developments in order to create effective strategies for dealing with the possible changes in the near- and long-term.
For a more detailed discussion on the topic, please refer to the recently released Everest Group viewpoint, “The Road Ahead: A Global Services Perspective on the Impact of Brexit. ”

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