Your business is unlike any other business. The way you operate, the suppliers you have, the team you employ, the suppliers and partners you work with, the trademarks you own….all of them might have an influence on how you need to adapt your company to operate in the EU.
Right now you need to do four things :
- Understand what has changed – how does Brexit and other regulation affect your sector
- Find credible advisors – people who understand what is happening and how it will affect your business
- Find the information that matters for your business – not generalisations or conjecture
- Get ready
This article is to help you with action no. 3 – finding the primary sources of information on how to get your company ready for Brexit.
PRIMARY SOURCES OF INFORMATION
There is no shortage of articles on Brexit and its potential impacts. What will happen, what it might cost. Whether it’s a good idea or a bad idea. Some are very good, some are politically driven. Most are making predictions of what they think will happen . None of that matters. What matters is that it has happened. It is a process we all need to learn about. Your task right now is to keep focus on what matters to your business and your sector. So let’s look at where you can go to get the information as it is published and updated.
OTHER REGIONAL GOVERNMENT SOURCES
Prepare for Brexit is a site maintained by a Scottish Enterprise and other Scottish business support organisations. It is rich in information and covers a number of areas.
Prepare for Brexit checklist is provided by the same organisations and lists a range of “low-risk, low-cost actions you can take across ten areas of business operations “
Brexit Portal is a similar information repository for businesses maintained by the Welsh Government
The London Growth Hub has a Brexit related area with a number of factsheets and information sources for different business sectors.
PROFESSIONAL & REGULATORY ORGANISATION SOURCES
The British Chambers of Commerce have built an extensive set of Brexit preparation resources for businesses of all kinds.
The Financial Conduct Authority runs a section of its website to inform companies and individuals of changes that will affect financial service companies.
The Law Society position on what transition brings and also what it wishes to see for the legal profession post Brexit is available here
The Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales has a “How to Prepare for Brexit” checklist that you can find here.
The Information Commissioners Office details all of the regulatory changes around management of data and data protection that business must prepare for.
EUROPEAN UNION SOURCES
The EU Overview of the state of play and what to expect next can be accessed here.
Stakeholder Guidelines on the provision of Services and posting of workers
Getting Ready for the end of the transition period guidance on several sectors and areas of legislation can be found here
Each EU country also maintains its own guidance on what changes the UK being a third country now has for its citizen, for UK citizens who are resident there and for businesses. You can access these by country below.