BI prepared for Brexit

With the Brexit starting gun poised to be fired this month, triggering the now infamous Article 50, there is still an air of uncertainty as to what will happen to our country’s economy and the knock-on effect it will have on a global scale.

Will we have a trickle-down effect on a macro-economic level or corporate level? Many arguments and theories have been put forward, but in truth we just don’t know.

As a Scout, I was taught to make GOOD use of time and ‘Be Prepared’, so I know it makes GOOD business sense to plan for the impact it will have on my company and our clients. A good way to start is to leverage your Business Intelligence and analytics tools, systems and models, and to prepare your company for the inevitable downstream currents that will be seen in the Brexit aftershock ripples.

A few years after the world changing event that was WWI, it was all about making easy money. This continued for most of the 1920s, until it came to a shuddering halt with the Wall Street Crash of 1929. The world went through a very similar crash scenario with the Credit Crunch in 2007, driven by a sharp rise in defaults on sub-prime mortgages. These were mainly in the US, but the resulting shortage of funds created a financial shock that was felt throughout the rest of the world.

For the last 8 years or so, we have seen a gradual economic upturn as countries have reduced interest rates to historic lows to try and fix their economies. But when geopolitical events such as Brexit take the world by surprise, we are in danger of a multi-level domino effect occurring. We have already seen this with knee-jerk reactions after the referendum announcement, with $2 trillion off world markets and the pound dropping to a 31-year low. With everyone second guessing what will happen in this increasingly ever-unpredictable world, it is more important than ever that we all take the Scout approach and ‘Be Prepared’. 

So, what does this mean to your company and organisation, and how can Business Intelligence help you prepare for the unexpected? In the US in the mid-2000’s after the Internet Bubble burst, one prominent airline used their BI to run scenarios on the price of oil and gas, their most important Key Performance Indicator (KPI). As a result, they were able to hedge themselves against any possible price increases, and were able to buy oil at $25 dollars a barrel, compared to the actual market which was well above $100. This airline has since flourished whilst others struggled and went out of business.

So, Business Intelligence can be critical, as it provides insights into the true health of an organisation that are not readily available from your profit and loss statements. But it’s not just about tracking KPIs once a month or quarter, it can include forecasting to avoid process bottlenecks and provide perfect timing for decision making such as purchasing or new hires. An easy-to-read dashboard that is reviewed weekly will help you be more informed and avoid problems in a very fragile market.

By leveraging your most important assets, including BI data and analytics, it will help you prepare for anything that might occur in the coming years. Here at BPS World we take BI very seriously, and are constantly expanding our internal capabilities and offerings to our clients. This way we can keep ahead of the game by regularly monitoring our business performance, ensuring a GOOD recruitment service, and prepare ourselves for the Brexit aftermath and beyond.

How are you using Business Intelligence to prepare your company for Post-Brexit and the future?

For further information please contact Tim Hampton on 01628 857319 or Tim.hampton@bps-world.com