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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.
The COVID-19 pandemic has had a devastating impact on our society and economy. As the initial shock of lockdown subsided, a great deal of thinking has been devoted to the type of economy into which we would re-emerge. The hope as we entered lockdown was that the economy would go into a deep freeze and would pick straight back up from where it left off after the thaw. While queues of people outside shops that are re-opening after three months gives some sense of consumers willing to splurge after being denied the opportunity to shop, the much hoped for V shape decline and immediate bounce back seems an ever more distant hope. There is an increasing body of evidence to suggest that some longer lasting damage is being inflicted on our economy and that employment losses will gather pace as Furlough supports end.
Regardless of the path the economy takes, the pandemic and subsequent lockdown have prompted consumers and businesses to make dramatic changes in behaviours and practices. For example, necessity has greatly accelerated the trend towards online retail that has been evident for some time, and in the business world, expenditure on laptops and other equipment to enable home working was carried out at a pace that would have been unfathomable before the crisis. Some organisations would still be drafting the business case for flexible working if their hand hadn’t been forced.
Organisations have much to consider as the economy starts to emerge from lockdown. That old phrase that can kill business progress stone dead - ‘we’ve always done it this way’ – can surely never be uttered again with any credibility. Having to try new things at pace, and having pushed our technology hard in the way we have, suggests we can give serious thought to implementing more radical ways of working.
Might we see a period of business innovation unleashed? Driving this will be a need for business (and indeed country) resilience and contingency planning to come to the fore like never before. Within this, automation, robotics and artificial intelligence adoption will, undoubtedly, gather pace. While automation and ‘industry 4.0’ has been talked about for years, the COVID-19 pandemic has already seen a greater reliance on robots emerge. Floor scrubbing robots are cleaning the aisles in some US supermarkets, and drones were used by Italian police to enforce social distancing. Here, there are already examples of local businesses pressing ahead with investments in robotics as a way to ensure a more resilient production line.
Automation and robotics are often associated with a drive to replace large swathes of people. The labour market is definitely set for a period of change, but greater use of automation and robotics could also make it more feasible for Northern Ireland to manufacture more products here, thus building more resilience into businesses through shorter, more localised supply chains. However the coming months and years go, business has shown a remarkable ability to adapt in recent months. Perhaps that will trigger a mood of innovation and invention.