Tag: Brexit

Systems integrator Uni-Systems has given up on its plans to set up shop in the UK after two of its most significant customers committed to relocating their headquarters as a result of Brexit.

Two EU agencies – the European Medicines Agency (EMA) and the European Banking Authority (EBA) – announced intentions to move their headquarters out of Canary Wharf, London, last month, picking Paris and Amsterdam respectively as their new homes.

The move will see more than 1,000 jobs leave the UK – 900 from the EMA and 150 from the EBA.

This has put the kybosh on Uni-Systems’  plans to expand into the UK and Paris to better support its largest customers.

But since the EMA is trading London for Amsterdam, plans for a London office have been abandoned.

This means that Uni will set up in Paris first,  probably in 2018.

The EMA has set March 2019 as the deadline for its relocation to Amsterdam. The Dutch capital was selected out of 19 bids to house the EU agency.

Athens-based Uni-Systems has made a significant push to grow its international sales as the Greek banking sector began to shrivel up as a result of the 2007 to 2008 financial crisis. Loumakis said that hefty long-term contracts with the European Union are vital to boosting overseas business.

HPE CEO Meg Whitman would rather have preferred that Brexit never happened.

Whatever some politicians might  talk about the benefits of leaving the EU, Whitman confirmed there had been a pause in demand in the UK market after the EU referendum.

“I think we are still feeling some after-effects from Brexit, because it’s not clear exactly how this is all going to work. So I would say, the UK market is a bit challenged for us”,  she said.

Public sector spending also being cut back “quite dramatically” and the UK has suddenly become one of HPE’s weaker markets.

Once it was a very important market, but now the rest of Western Europe, the US, Canada, Latin America and Asia were “all outperforming the UK right now”.

It looks like as far as HPE is concerned the UK, rather than growing more important as it asserted its independence from the EU is becoming an also ran behind such wonderful economies as Brazil, Venezuela and Burma. Maybe they should have put that on the Brexit campaign bus.

The UK channel fears more price rises after the UK government triggers Article 50 this month.

The UK is expected to go tell the EU it wants out later this month, if it can get approval from the House of Lords.

So far, lots of vendors have jacked up their prices but there are fears that more could be in store for the channel.

Each time there has been a major Brexit development the pound has received a kicking and some are getting prepared for more potential issues with prices.

HP, Dell, Lenovo, Apple and Microsoft have raised hardware prices between 10-15 percent and software prices by 20 percent, but it is likely that there will be more price hikes in the works,

The hard Brexit is coming when the dollar has seen considerable rises and since hardware components are traded in the US currency, this ultimately means price rises.

Many channel partners avoided passing too many price rises by managing stock but that could be impossible if further hikes come through the supply chain.

When Article 50 is triggered and the formal process starts, the channel is at the mercy of the overall economy which means price rises could be spectacular.

Many of the major vendors supplying from the USA face significant pressure for them to recover ground lost by exchange rate changes.