Geopolitical risk and your business
Xander talks geopolitics on the Perch Pod
Fans of ReConsider will be familiar with Jacob Shapiro. Jacob and Xander worked together at Geopolitical Futures, where Jacob was the Director of Analysis, and Jacob has appeared on ReConsider before as well.
Currently, Xander and Jacob work together at Perch Perspectives, a business consultancy founded by Jacob that researches geopolitical risks. In this crossover episode, Xander appears on the Perch Perspectives podcast, where he and Jacob talk about Covid risk data, the US’ dismal 2nd quarter GDP figures, a bunch of other events in the world of current affairs.
Listen to the episode on ReConsiderMedia.com
To learn more about Perch Perspectives, and how it can help your business needs, check out Perch’s website here. To subscribe to Perch’s newsletter, scroll to the bottom of the page and sign up there.
What is geopolitical risk consulting?
Over the last thirty years, the global economy has become increasingly intertwined. With the fall of the Soviet Union, liberal capitalist economies seemed to be the unstoppable wave of the future. Many thought that these two — liberalism and capitalism — were intertwined, that capitalism would inevitably lead to political liberalism.
During this time, the focus on competitive advantage was primarily an economic one. Free trade regimes established by the United States allowed multinational companies to maximize their profit by building in countries where costs were lower. Today, however, we’re seeing a re-emergence of blocs — both economic and political — and this means that companies will be forced to think beyond economics when determining how to manage their business risks.
Geopolitical risk is a more comprehensive survey of the state of the world than what is generally provided by orthodox economic analysis and business management consultancies. It takes into consideration long-term historical trends, cultural norms, political forces, and other events that tend to fall outside of traditional business or economic risk coverage.
I can speak from some personal experience here. I graduated with an economics degree from a fairly traditional econ school immediately preceding the Great Financial Crisis, and subsequently worked in an industry that’s similar in many ways to management consulting (investment banking). Unless you’re in a specialized group, businesses and management consultancies tend not to think too frequently about the deep historical context shaping the political environment in which their clients do business.
That’s where Perch Perspectives comes in. Perch gives you the long view, and doesn’t presume that any single model or framework of analysis will fully capture the unique risks that your business faces. Our analysis is not defined by four squares that need to be filled in no matter what. Instead, we recast and review each client’s unique situation from different…ahem…perspectives. That means that, internally, we’re always reviewing, always playing devil’s advocate and red teaming ideas. And, importantly, Perch uses multiple frameworks to constantly recast your company’s challenges in a new light, to make sure we aren’t missing something by merely depending on what’s familiar.
You can check out more about Perch here. If you don’t have a business that’s impacted by geopolitical risk, but are interested in learning more about it, you can subscribe to Perch’s twice per week newsletter, where Jacob Shapiro unpacks some of the most important global events that you may not have even heard about.
More about Perch
Perch believes that unique challenges demand unique solutions and that you can’t apply a universal methodology to every single problem or question. Complex global issues require new approaches and alternative ways of thinking.
The future is never prewritten despite the irony that we’re in the business of writing about it. We study the past and anticipate the future not for its own sake, but to impact our clients’ decision-making in the present.
We acknowledge our biases instead of denying they exist. Ignoring bias is a fallacy, and the belief that people and organizations are powerless to affect their own circumstances is a disservice to our clients and our own work.
Perch Perspectives was founded by former Stratfor and Geopolitical Futures analyst Jacob Shapiro on the idea that history, culture, and human experiences are as important to business and political strategies as power dynamics, economics, and geography. An analysis of history is an analysis of power. Economics is a representation of culture. Human experience is defined by geography. These forces are inseparable, and we strive to understand the roles they play in identifying and solving important business and political challenges for clients.
Learn more about Perch by clicking here.
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