We are facing a. world where the old orders are collapsing.  Trump’s “America First” and the threat of tariffs and lack of support for international co-operation need to be taken at face value.  They may be negotiating ploys but not all of them will be, and you cannot rely on that.  Putin’s invasion of Ukraine meant that he sacrificed economic ties for a vision of Russian hegemony; China is a rising superpower that is more nationalistic, more menacing, and has its sights set on Taiwan.  The EU is in turmoil, its members moving towards populist government while it’s reliance on America to defend it looks ever shakier.

What does all of that mean to your business?  What does it mean to your supply chains, to your markets.  What does it mean for the skilled people you are trying to hire?

And then there is AI, it’s current powers are still overblown but growing fast.  Is it a threat or an opportunity for your business? 

You have three options: 

1.  The easiest as always is to do nothing: “we’ll wait and see what happens, after all we are: too small to be affected/too large to fail/too global/too local.  The list of excuses is endless. 
2.  The second is to start to think about the risks: “we did a bit of strategising at our last Board Meeting”, we’ve got some ideas, now we need to see how things turn out”.
3.  The third is to take the situation seriously and start doing real risk assessment and MAKING PLANS. This is not an easy process, it needs time, focus and someone external asking the hard questions.  But it is a process you can start now.

If you are not running risk assessment workshops then your business life may be short.