Bee: THE CHANGING BUSINESS ENVIRONMENT

The capability of a corporation or of any large organisation to anticipate trends, changes and decisions in the political/regulatory environment and to control and optimise their exposure to the resultant impact, constitutes a major competitive advantage.

Through its combination of anticipation, strategy development and action, BEE provides decision-makers with expert assistance, both to overcome the complexity and uncertainty of the new political and regulatory environment and to optimise the related external risk which affects their strategy and operations.

While the current period is often described as a time of deregulation, BEE believes that it is more correct to refer to it as an era of re-regulation, especially, but not exclusively, within Europe.

The trend towards re-regulation is almost inevitable given the multiple levels of government in the EU. That trend is also being enhanced by rising concerns about the nature of the globalisation process, technological innovation, economic and security upheavals, environmental and food safety risks. Finally, it is unavoidable given the strength of successive waves of political reform which have characterised the last decade and which continue to unfold.

Over the last ten years, the EU has been undergoing a continuous phase of institutional transition, the outcome of which is quite difficult to anticipate. What is more clear however, is a gradual but significant reduction in national sovereignty and the prospect of EU enlargement. This has led to a growing awareness of the need for political and regulatory authorities to address jointly the geo-political, economic, social, environmental, and security challenges with which they are faced. We also notice some gradually decentralising EU policies, increasing recognition and influence of regional/sub-state entities at EU level and the changing nature of public governance.

At the same time, corporations face the increased pressures of globalisation and competition. Enhanced by the convergence between information technology, telecommunications and electronic media, those pressures are resulting in a massive re-structuring of many industrial sectors.

The time of long term periods of stable references and paradigms have clearly past and our environment is now one of constant change. However, while the new political architecture is still not clear, we can detect an emerging business environment which features new players, new stakeholder relationships, new rule-making mechanisms and new rules of the game.

That environment has major consequences for all -political, social and economic stakeholders in European society, not least because of its complexity and because of the uncertainty which it generates.

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