This year will be a very decisive year for all businesses.The year has hardly started with a bang, more like a gentle pop really.
To carry the metaphor a stage futher, the fizz is as strong as yesterdays opened Dandelion and Burdock. That is showing my age!
With the UK market growing, but a a much slower pace than inticipated, SME’s are looking at the European market place as an area to perhaps dip their toe into the water. The one item that these companies will consider is how will the Euro or other European currencies affect the sales process. Some will simply think, ” it’s not for them” ” too risky for a small company” That could be considered at a valid argument if you were going to try to handle it all by yourself, however, help is at hand.
Leasing is a very simple way to ensure that everything will go smoothly, and with Oak as your experienced European Leasing partner, the whole process can be very simple. The fact that once all parties agree to the actual price before documentation, the currency volatility has almost totally dissapeared. It even works the other way, where a European companies choose Oak to arrange their European leasing solution, both in the UK as well as Europe.
There is an air of uncertainty in SME’s who are now beginning to realise that a Brexit could be a possibility. The “red tops” are pressing all of the panic buttons, with rumours, polls and playing into peoples fears. Surprising people are also having fears, Mark Carney last week warned that concerns about Brexit could test “the kindness of strangers” If the UK went out of the EU, it would be wholly dependent on inflows of foreign capital to fund our very large current account deficit with the rest of the world.
There are many factors that merit very serious consideration before making such a change, especially when a politician mentions “thin gruel”, as far as I am aware, that has not been on the breakfast or any other table for a number of years! But perhaps the House of Commons still serves such fare!
According to the Office of National Statistics,this” thin gruel” provides the UK, with its trade in services, the balance with the EU is running a surplus in each year since 2005, which reached £15.4 billion in 2014. The EU in 2014 accounted for 44.6% of UK exports of goods and services, If that is considered gruel, then I must be like Oliver, and ask for seconds! If you ask any company the question, how would you respond to the risk of losing perhaps your largest customer, they would try anything to help keep that customer.
This month, one of the leading Airport GSE manufacturers, a Swedish Company, chose Oak as it’s European Leasing partner. I think that just about sums it up, we need them, and they need us, together we are a vital partnership, dare I say it, just like the UK and the EU!