Brexit And Trump: Outsourcing In An Uncertain World

We live in a world of political uncertainty. The British are heading for Brexit regardless of their recent general election and the American President surprises everyone on an almost daily basis with his early morning tweets. Does outsourcing continue to work as a business strategy in such an uncertain environment?

John Buyers from legal experts Osborne Clarke recently wrote a feature in Computer Weekly breaking down all the various international risks and his conclusion is that there is more stability than might be obvious at first. The analysis explore five key areas related to the present use of outsourcing as a strategy:

1. Brexit; IT spending continues to rise in the UK so there is confidence in the outsourcing market despite Brexit and the election, but it’s worth monitoring the British approach to migration. Preventing skilled labour from reaching the UK might have a negative or positive impact on how outsourcing is used – at present it is unclear.
2. Europe; The Macron victory in France appears to have halted the decline of Europe into instability that might threaten smaller economies and the viability of the Euro currency. Germany is the next big election to watch for, although there is less fear of extreme parties in Germany, compared to what happened in France.
3. Trump; The Trump dogma is focused on local jobs and big international sourcing giants will need to create more local US jobs if they want to avoid being frozen out of the American market. However, who knows how long he can last in office when so many problems are circling him after just a few months in the job.
4. India; Especially with regard to the British market, some commentators are suggesting that the tried and tested outsourcing to India model might be more popular when business with Europe becomes more expensive. Personally I doubt that any tariffs involved in EU business will outweigh the costs of doing business with India.
5. Data; Tough new data protection rules (GDPR) come into force in Europe in 2018 and this means that British companies will need to follow the rules regardless of Brexit – the earliest the UK can leave the EU is 2019. Pricing and tax of outsourcing contracts in Europe may need to take all these new procedures into account.

I certainly agree with the analysis. These five key issues could be expanded once you consider industry verticals – look at the enormous changes happening with European open banking regulations in 2018 for example – however as a summary of where outsourcing managers should be looking it is a good start. For Europeans doing any business with the UK Brexit will be a key challenge of the next two years. Companies are still investing in outsourcing partnerships so confidence remains and that’s still more important than anything the politicians say or do.