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Business Risk Services
Our Business Risk Services team deliver practical and pragmatic solutions that support clients in growing and protecting the inherent value of their businesses.
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Corporate Finance and Deal Advisory
We offer a dedicated team of experienced individuals with a focus on successfully executing transactions for corporates and financial institutions. We offer an integrated approach, with our corporate finance specialists working seamlessly with tax and other specialists to ensure that every angle is covered.
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Economic Advisory
Our all-island Economics Advisory team combines expertise in economics and business with a wealth of experience across the public and private sectors.
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Forensic Accounting
We have a different way of doing business by delivering real insight through a combination of technical rigour, commercial experience and intuitive judgment. We take pride in delivering responsive and tailored solutions to all our clients, capitalising on the wealth of experience housed within our Belfast and wider Forensics team
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People and Change Consulting
The Grant Thornton People & Change Consulting practice works with clients on these issues as well as on all aspects of how they attract, retain, engage develop, deploy and lead their people.
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Restructuring
We work with a wide variety of clients and stakeholders such as high street banks, private equity funds, directors, government agencies and creditors to implement solutions which provide the best possible outcomes.
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Technology Consulting
Motivating and assisting our clients to pursue, maintain and secure the benefits of digital solutions is at the core of our Digital Transformation teams' agenda and goals. We work with business leaders to deliver efficient digital strategies and operating models that provide new or enhanced capabilities.
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Corporate and International Tax
Northern Ireland businesses face further challenges as they operate in the only part of the UK that has a land border with a country offering a lower tax rate.
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Employer Solutions
Our team specialises in remuneration and incentive planning and works closely with employers, shareholders and employees to ensure that business strategies are aligned and goals achieved in the most tax efficient, cost-effective manner.
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Entrepreneur and Private Client Taxes
Our team of experienced advisors are on hand to guide you through any decision or transaction ranging from the establishment of new business ventures, to realising value on exit, to succession planning and providing for loved ones.
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Global Mobility Services
Grant Thornton Ireland offer a different approach to managing global mobility. We have brought together specialists from our tax, global payroll, people and change and financial accounting teams across Ireland and Northern Ireland, while drawing on the knowledge and insights of our global network of over 143 offices of mobility professionals to provide you with a holistic approach to managing global mobility.
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Outsourced Payroll
Our outsourced service provides valued service to over 150 separate PAYE schemes. These ranging from 1 to 1000 employees, working for micro, SME and global employers. The service is supported by the integrated network of tax and global mobility teams and the wider Grant Thornton network delivering a seamless service. Experienced staff deliver a personal service built around your business needs.
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Tax Disputes and Investigations
Our Tax Disputes and Investigation team is made up of tax experts and former HMRC investigators who have years of experience in dealing with a variety of tax investigations. Our expertise and insight can guide you through all interactions, keeping your cost at a minimum while allowing you to continue with the day to day running of your business.
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VAT and Indirect Taxes
At Grant Thornton (NI) LLP, our team helps Northern Ireland businesses manage their UK and global indirect tax risks which, as transactional taxes, can quickly become big liabilities.
Business continuity planning has never been more important
19 May 2020Anticipating events that could have a catastrophic impact on your business is the responsibility of owners and senior management. Whether that event is a natural disaster or a cyber-attack, or indeed a pandemic, every business needs a business continuity plan. The best time to build a roof is when the sun is shining. It’s often too late to develop a robust plan in the middle of the storm, as many businesses are finding today.
Business continuity planning is not something new. Whether it was the last financial crisis in 2007 or terrorist attacks, businesses must identify those events that are unlikely to occur, but if they do, will have a significant impact on their very survival. For example, it is widely quoted that more than 40% of businesses affected by the 1996 Manchester bombing went out of business.
In today’s fast moving world where businesses are prone to a host of disasters that vary from minor to catastrophic, it is no longer an option not to have some form of Business Continuity Planning in place. This is an agreed system of prevention and recovery from potential threats to the business.
Business Continuity Planning is all about protecting personnel and assets and making sure they can function quickly when disaster strikes. It is about outlining the planning processes for developing prior arrangements and procedures to enable the organisation to respond to an event, so that critical functions can continue within planned levels of disruption. It is more comprehensive than simply a plan focusing on recovery of a business IT system after a crisis, as it contains contingencies for every aspect of the business, which might be affected such as business processes, human resources and business partners.
There are several steps many businesses need to follow to develop an effective Business Continuity Plan; identifying functions and resources that are time sensitive, the potential effects of disruption of processes and functions, steps which need to be taken to recover critical business functions, which functions to prioritise, and who should be driving both the planning and recovery phases.
As no two businesses are alike, these plans must be bespoke and built from an in-depth knowledge of what makes a particular organisation work. There is good guidance on the web, together with a number of templates businesses can use to build this up but this is not something where one size fits all.
A UK government publication titled, ‘Expect the unexpected, Business Continuity in an Uncertain World’, published in late 2014 contains good advice on creating simple but effective plans. Whilst it was written from the different perspective of counter terrorism, it is as relevant today for dealing with the COVID-19 issue as it was then.