The last several news days have largely been absorbed with the discussion concerning a single topic: the UK departure from the European Union (EU). The so called Brexit has caused a global political and economical debate which is showing little sign of slowing down.
Beyond the politic and economic points, the average MSP may be wondering, what impact does Brexit have on my business, if any at all. I have provided a few of the more likely scenarios where Brexit could have a significant impact on MSPs, both those in Europe and elsewhere.
European MSPs (or those doing business with European Clients)
Brexit has created an unstable environment with in the European Union. The departure of England from the EU has caused several other EU member states to consider leaving as well. The general political and financial fallout from this is certainly possible to have a negative short term impact on MSPs. Currency fluctuations may make it very difficult for projects, goods and services to flow normally within the European community.
Ultimately, things will quiet down.
Non-European MSPs
For non-European MSPs with no operations within Europe, I don't see Brexit having any real lasting negative impact. Although there may be currency fluctuations negatively affecting MSPs (a stronger US dollar could dampen the sale of managed services to non-US customers), the longer term outlook should not be affected much, if at all.
GDPR
In my opinion, the biggest fallout from Brexit is the future viability of the GDPR. Recently, I wrote about the GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation), a framework of laws designed to regulate and ostensibly make data protection and cloud computing safer within the EU.
If the EU falls, so does GDPR. This, in my estimation, provides the greatest threat to MSPs doing business within Europe as the ability to predict and plan for the future is cast into doubt if various EU member states (such as the UK) decide to leave.
For example, if you were a MSP in London and had been planning on changing your service delivery model to adapt to the GDPR, everything has changed since the Brexit vote last week. UK based MSPs with clients only in the UK should probably abandon GDPR adoption planning and stick with their local laws instead.
