As economies progress through a transitional phase many businesses will need to adjust their investments to survive the turbulence that lies ahead.
Europe is experiencing a period of uncertainty
Between Brexit, the budget crisis in Italy, and Germany’s Angela Merkel losing favour at home, Europe is set to experience a period of intense turbulence that could cause severe instability across the markets.
Business will struggle with high labour costs and full employment
As minimum wages increase, businesses are feeling the pressure to keep pace to attract the best candidates. This will put a strain on businesses with slim profit margins, especially as the unemployment rate is low and candidates are actively looking for opportunities with attractive benefits and perks.
Virtual PA services, models of which can be seen here https://www.mushroombiz.co.uk/homepage/services/virtual-pa/, will likely deliver many benefits to businesses across a range of industries and sectors, and could also ease labour cost pressures without compromising on quality or productivity.
US based manufacturers will move production elsewhere
The instability of China’s currency and potential issues surrounding the protection of intellectual property could see production moved to other countries, including Mexico, Malaysia, Thailand and India.
Privacy laws are becoming more stringent
After the implementation of the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), there is growing sentiment that similar privacy laws should be adopted in the US as well. Customer data is a hot topic and there will be a lot of discussion surrounding this matter over the coming months.
Equality is a business issue
As more women are elected to key political roles and adopt more leadership roles across business, companies will need to take the time to reflect upon their equality policies. Actively appointing a diverse workforce from the top down is now much more important than ever before, and companies will benefit from prioritising this issue in 2019.
Software as a service (SaaS) will dominate the small business landscape
Many small and medium-sized businesses have previously found it difficult to locate software products relevant to their sector, however, it is predicted that by 2020 more than 70% of all application workloads will be managed using SaaS.
Businesses will be impacted in a variety of different ways throughout 2019 and securing meaningful growth in such turbulent times will certainly require plenty of careful attention, solid strategising and measured planning.
