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The Brexit Effect

By now you’ve probably heard all about Brexit, regardless of what part of the world you live in, if you still don’t quite understand it or why/how it happened you are not alone, most of the United Kingdom are in the same boat themselves. It even seems that a lot of people didn’t even really know what they were voting for, which in itself is even scarier than the uncertainties people have about the future of the United Kingdom, especially when it comes down to the economy. Hence the Brexit effect

You see, no one really knows what is going to happen now and it’s creating panic, projects are being cancelled or put on hold, investments are being scrutinized and in some cases even withdrawn and placed into less profitable ventures (less profitable but deemed more stable). I’ve even read that some debts are being bought up with a guarantee of no profit and probably even some loss, but the current uncertainty makes these options a safer bet than what they have traditionally “gambled” on.

It does strike me as odd that uncertainty is driving people to change, to reassess, to try and obtain some sort of control. The reason I find it odd is that it would imply that there was certainty before. I get that a good investment that has yielded good returns before is likely to continue to do the same, but can anyone be certain of that (?), of course not.

The interesting thing is that during this panic people have started to aggressively do things that they should have been doing all along and pretty much all of these things fall under the same category; spend management/control. All spend is being reviewed to ensure it is currently necessary, does it make future financial sense, is now the best time to buy etc. All of these things are standard practice for most profitable companies, but there are profitable companies that neglect a lot of these things and perhaps being profitable is the reason for not worrying about it. But the fact remains that, with the correct controls in place, they will be more profitable and that’s the name of the game (after all).

Now here’s the part that really blows my mind. As it stands at the moment nothing at all has actually changed, all that has happened is that people are now focused on uncertainty, every day holds uncertainty, no matter what you do or how well you do it, there is never any guarantee that something somewhere won’t go horribly wrong. We all know this to be true, but it’s so normal and understood that we just don’t think about it as much, we occasionally (some more than others) have a sleepless night worrying about what could happen, but for the most part we carry on as best we can without really thinking about it that much and this doesn’t make it any less likely to happen.

So how is it that no change has elicited so many different emotions out of so many people? We’re talking about everything from fear to joy here, so some people have a sense of imminent doom whilst others are currently feeling pride and a sense of victory or relief and the only thing that’s happened is we now know that a little over half the nation decided that they want to leave the European Union.

Funny how knowing one piece of information can disrupt so many things on a global scale, funnier still that in order to defend ourselves against this new breed of uncertainty we are seeking out other bits of information in order to better see our individual “bigger picture” and make it more resilient to any potential pitfalls that may be coming down the road. Spend control is something we should have already been doing anyway, because our regular brand of uncertainty has always been there and is still coming along for the ride. Learn from Brexit.

Editorial.

Since writing this major changes have occurred, but so far they all seem to only be names of government employees.

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