Webinar: 5 months to Brexit – what can businesses do to prepare?

On 25 October 2018, Paul Butcher and Tom Henderson were joined by Ameet Gill, Partner at Hanbury Strategy, and Allie Renison, Head of Europe and Trade Policy, Institute of Directors to deliver a webinar '5 months to Brexit – what can businesses do to prepare?' The webinar considered the current state of the negotiations following the October EU Council summit, the possible options ahead and how businesses should be preparing for Brexit. If you would like to access the recording, please contact Jane Webber.

During the webinar, we sought the opinion of our listeners on three questions:

1. Will the EU/UK agree and ratify a withdrawal agreement by the 29 March 2019 deadline?
2. We talk about analyse, assess and address in Brexit preparations – where 'analyse' is pinpointing your business risk, 'asses' is prioritising your conclusions and 'address' is implementing your strategies. Where do you stand currently?
3. Do you think the overall financial impact of Brexit on your business in the medium term is likely to be neutral, positive, negative?

As to the results:

• 58% believe the negotiating parties will not ratify a withdrawal agreement by 29 March 2019 and there will be an extension of the negotiations, which is what our audience thought during our webinar back in July where we asked the same questions.
• Over 90% of our listeners have started their Brexit planning process, an increase of over 10% compared to the results in July.
• Sentiment towards Brexit's financial impact on businesses has dipped: only 4.5% expect it to have a positive impact, compared to 11% in July.

If anyone has questions arising out of the webinar, they can submit them via the webinar app and we will respond via email.