At this point, anything goes. Scotland wants to stay in the EU even if it means leaving the UK and standing on its own; similar voices are coming from North Ireland. To make matters worse many people who voted to leave now want to reverse their votes. In fact, there are over three million petitions already signed to hold a new referendum over the same decision. David Cameron (current UK Prime Minister) said that as an advocate of the “stay camp” he no longer feels he is the right person to lead UK into a future outside of the European Union and announced his resignation.

The UK government still has a way out of the decision to leave Europe and the coming days/weeks/months will determine what will actually happen. Right now anything is possible as there is no legally binding obligation just yet. While the EU heads are getting impatient already and want some clarity on final UK’s decision, the country has been put before a life-altering decision. From the possibility of splitting UK and going from Great Britain to Little England and possible repercussions from the EU side limiting UK’s ability to trade with the “continent” as a show of strength and a lesson for any other EU members entertaining similar idea of bailing, to losing powerful seat at the EU council, the consequences behind UK’s final decision could be felt by more than one generation.

Threats of sudden changes to UK government, splitting the country, and the possibility of having less than favorable position to trade with the European Union (which accounts for 16.5 percent of the world’s imports and exports) has had immediate impact on global markets as it brought uncertainty not just to UK, but also to the EU altogether. Such fears of financial and political uncertainty has sent a shockwave across financial markets dropping British Pound exchange rates to a 30 year low and increased volatility on global stock exchanges. Several credit rating agencies stripped the EU from its AAA ratings due to “weakened predictability, stability, and effectiveness of UK policymaking”.

Europe

Does whether Brexit will happen or not make Europe less attractive as a single market? I don’t believe it does. Although UK is a significant player within the EU it’s just one of the 28 countries which make up the EU; there are other countries like Switzerland and Norway which have free trade agreements with the EU. Europe and the United States have very similar GDP, around €18.9 trillion for the EU and €18.3 trillion for the U.S. at the end of 2015. So while a British exit would impact these numbers it will not make nor break Europe’s attractiveness as a single trading market next to the U.S. or China. Europe is and will remain a very attractive market to foreign businesses looking for exponential growth outside of their current geographical region because access to any large single market is key for an “easy” international expansion.

Companies that want to expand to Europe need to understand that Europe’s resiliency is not built on a single country, and while businesses that opted to HQ in UK might face some unexpected challenges, there are way more than one way to shine a penny. While even the shadow of a Brexit brought a scare to the financial markets, business in Europe will continue as usual even in the somewhat unusual circumstances.

Lessons learned

Some UK citizens are learning some new facts after they have already cast their votes and came to new conclusions. Looking from technological perspective businesses do not need to take the hard way nor do they need to learn everything from their own mistakes. Trading in regional and global economy for a lot of companies has become a digital business and while some businesses try to change and adapt to the digitalization era others undergo transformations and take lead.

Agility is key in today’s shifting markets and understanding technological solutions in order to leverage them for competitive advantage is more important than ever because business environments change continuously; from different customer needs to behavioral patterns and commoditized technology access allowing market disruptions on a whim.

Companies that already operate internationally or have global ambitions need to focus on what’s important for their core business and limit their risks through partnerships. Although this is not possible for all companies or verticals no company should be investing into technology that is not their core business and is already globally available as commodity.

Whether accessing Europe or the U.S. markets from abroad finding partners that can support your business locally limits your risks and lowers your investments, not to mention that it makes you a lot more resistant to some of the hazards like regulatory changes. This rings especially true for tech companies which tend to operate internationally and just recently had to deal with the invalidation of Safe Harbor agreement. The Brexit scenario will add further to the confusion and will certainly not make matters any easier in short or mid-term perspective.

Yet despite all these obstacles the internet and cloud industry growth has been skyrocketing and even in uncertain times the prediction is that businesses will spend slightly less on Information Technology (IT) this year, we are still talking about a $3.49 trillion market for 2016, according to Gartners forecasts, with $22.4 billion going this year into IaaS expenditures.

After all changing a data center or cloud services location when it’s being used as a service is relatively “easy”, rather than having to pack-up, migrate and sell off facilities. Partnership with IaaS and Managed Services Providers (MSPs) is a way to avoid many predicaments from technology, legal, and market perspectives. Companies that offer IT as a service in general are much more versatile in dealing with local regulatory challenges.

Business as usual

The results of the UK’s referendum were rather unexpected and while Brexit is not a fact yet, it is clear that even a threat of a threat can have a massive impact on the markets and that business environment can literally change overnight. There is nothing that businesses fear more than uncertainty and lack of stability.

There is a lesson to be learned here over the design for failure. Being at the very least somewhat ready for sudden market shifts and political changes impacting trade and economic stability is an important part of becoming future-proof and should be incorporated into every company strategy. In the digital era and information driven economy this is much easier than ever before. Leveraging access to Infrastructure-as-a-Service, Software-as-a-Service, Network-as-a-Service, and in general commoditized IT is a part of becoming agile as a company.

Bottom line: uncertainty and change is a part of life and business (now more than ever) and even though you cannot foresee everything nor avoid all risks you can certainly plan for uncertainty and unexpected changes by staying lean, mean, and agile as a business. In order to achieve that find a trustworthy and experienced partner who will assist you in your business ventures.

As the English would say, “Keep Calm and Carry On” …just make sure to do your due diligence.

About the Author
Martin Wielomski is a Manager of Business Development for the EMEA region for PhoenixNAP Global IT Services. He has years of experience in the Information Technology and Hosting industries and specializes in strategy development and international business, sales leadership and product management. He also writes for several international IT oriented magazines and blogs and advises about technology, management, customer relations, sales and international business expansion while leveraging human connection potential in his corporate strategies. Martin believes in lifelong learning and leadership through engagement, while maintaining realistic and down to earth people approach. He can be reached at: linkedin.com/in/martinwielomski

Source: TheWHIR