As Europe becomes more and more integrated, a new wave of opportunities are up for grabs. Some of the opportunities are driven by regulations while some are driven by business scope to take advantage of a single borderless Europe.
The opportunities for IT (Services & Products) companies largely lie in Financial Services, Engineering Solutions, Energy sectors – currently and immediately – where there are various regulations driving the “Integrated Europe” geo-political model. These regulations will have significant impact on an Organization, Processes and Systems. If these regulations are understood and implemented in a positive spirit, it will lead to a strategic competitive advantage, with a wider reach-out for the organization into the pan-European market. For a technology provider, this is a forest with hidden treasures everywhere.
From a macro regulations direction, services and utilities sector have to undergo a shift to align their business processes that translates to plethora of opportunities from a technology need perspective.
For starters, Solvency II is Basel equivalent in Insurance sector, with the regulation impacting the internal control processes, governance, risk management frameworks, further integration of group companies, Capital raising mechanisms etc. CEA regards that around €4bn-€6bn will be the estimated initial compliance costs and €0.6bn-€1bn will be the ongoing per annum costs for an individual insurance company because of Solvency II regulation. Needless to say, a huge part of this cost will be towards modifying existing IT systems to be Solvency II compliance.
Energy supply is one of the key issues facing the world today, and effective usage of available energy is one of the measures that need to be taken to alleviate this problem. Integrated Europe opens up cross border transfer of energy between various European nations. In Electricity and Gas, measures are underway to build market coupling inter connectors to facilitate the same. This opens up various opportunities for energy trading, and market coupling systems to facilitate the inter-country energy transfer. This, in combination with the Unbundling exercise that is already underway and for which the compliance horizon is not very far away, lead to a variety of opportunities for said companies in providing key and necessary services.
The old manufacturing war horse has gained strength from the lows of 2008 now. It is ready to globalize and run different world courses. An integrated supply chain with a tight control on materials will be the future platform. Engineering products engineered globally was the first transformation most Industrial organisations went through in Europe. The success and the local growth needs that are becoming dynamic both in demand and product definitions are driving the design to markets where products are placed.
Regulations that drive the new wave of growth opportunities and traditional manufacturing & engineering gaining strength, is a good place to surf.