Political geography is no longer just a threat – it is a strategic variable. From major competition to technological transformations and broken commercial order, today’s fluctuations are reshaping international business. Oliver Jones, Head of the Geological Business Group in Ey-Parthenon Global financing How are the aspiration companies include geopolitical thinking about their risk frameworks, investment decisions, and long -term planning.
Global financing: What are some of the most urgent geological risk factors that companies should feel in the next few months?
Oliver JonesI think I will start by saying that many issues that affect companies are global in nature. So the way I see often is to understand the trends that support both risks and opportunities across multiple areas.
If you look at Outlook for the year 2025, we really define three large topics. One of them is the shift from these superior elections in 2024 to a new government, thus making new policies.
The second primary trend is a type of rehabilitation or enhancement of geopolitical competitions, almost a kind of ancient geography that has the largest energy, and active conflicts/wars that are still unfortunately present and continue.
Third, he turned into economic competition. It is no longer only about Shoring, or Shoring Friend. There is a real allowance for the industrial activity that takes place on the beach in the local market. Now we see some of the most modern interventions, for example, aimed at seeking to compete on things such as large language models and the Toulidi AI, which are seen as an economic competition.
GFWhat does this mean for international business, and how should they plan for the future?
JonesOne of the features of this scene is that the geopolitical risks, but the geopolitical opportunity can also be found in almost all geographical regions at the present time. Thus, the interesting question for management halls and C-SUITE is the place where opportunities may lie. Where does the stadium become the most level? How can I change the investment planning away from being almost alive to prosperity and take opportunities.
GF: So if we are able to think about analyzing the risks and geological opportunities in terms of the framework. Where do we start?
JonesIt is really important to give your approach to your approach. The first thing to do is to wipe the environment, and the survey means understanding the outside world and understanding the powers that make up your environment. It seems very essential, but we know that many companies are really struggling to do so. It is also important to follow a quantitative approach in this instead of just a qualitative approach and that you have a wide range of sounds and the rule of evidence in order to understand what is really going on. The second is the focus, and what we mean is to focus on what it means to work – influencing the future strategy. You must really integrate political geography into your current risk frameworks and it is important to have a budget for risk management a voice in the council.
GFWho should take responsibility for understanding the risks and geopolitical opportunities?
JonesThe evidence that we have at the present time is that there is no specific coordination of governance. Sometimes one individual is given responsibility. Sometimes a committee gives responsibility. But there are some things that are very decisive, one of which is that a specific person or a certain body should bear the responsibility of driving. This could not be something distributed between three or four parts of the company. There should be one entity to bear the final responsibility.
The second decisive thing is that this entity – whether it is an individual or a group – must extend across the entire company. They should be able to see the image automatically across all different functions because geoesis affect all parts of the companies.
GFWhere do you see the job of financial manager and financing better in terms of analyzing strategic geological risks?
JonesI think that the financial manager and the financial job should be central for each stage, and the reason for this is to return to the point that the political affects many different dimensions of your work. For a person like the financial manager, it is important to understand these issues, but all different aspects of work understand these issues as well and interact in the right way.
I think the financing function can play an important role in the quantitative modeling of these effects – what happens to the cost base; What you do for potential revenues across all different dimensions of the company and how to combine this in the strategic plan. It is clear that this is the introduction and in any agenda of the financial manager.
