Among the many challenges that come with growing a business are legal obstacles. As your company grows, you’ll want to be able to identify potential snags and hitches along the way – and being caught out by a lack of knowledge of the rules can seriously hinder your prospects in the long term.
So, how might a new business deal with these obstacles?
Establishing a Robust Legal Foundation
The earlier you start to think about legal questions, the less likely you’ll be to run into problems later on. By consulting extensively, and performing the necessary groundwork, you’ll be able to structure your organisation, and your approach to things like contracts, in such a way as to minimise risk, and support your growth in a way that can be sustained over the coming months and years.
Regulatory and Compliance Challenges
Compliance is an ongoing challenge, because the regulations your business faces will change over time. In some industries, the complexity of the regulations can pose an even greater problem – which is why a decent knowledge of the rules as they stand, as they might be shaped in the future, is essential. Of particular concern might be the Employment Rights Bill, the Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act and the Data (Use and Access) Act 2025. The former is sure to influence your approach to hiring and firing; the latter must be considered by any business that deals with consumer data.
Managing Risk in Contracts, IP and Funding
The way that you draft contracts and protect your intellectual property will surely change as you expand. You’ll need to ensure that you devise your agreements and other legal documents in the right way, and that you periodically review them in order to protect key individuals, like founders and investors. The larger the business, the greater the risk you’ll be assuming.
Seeking legal advice will allow you to do this easily. This might mean consulting with a specialist local firm. If you’re based in Oxfordshire, the legal offices Oxford has to offer are well worth investigating.
Employment Law and Workforce Planning
We’ve already touched upon the importance of the Employment Rights Bill, and the impact it will have on hiring decisions once it’s passed into law. The right time to think about your changing obligations is now: by putting in changes early on, you’ll be able to manage a phased transition into your new way of operating, and ensure that you aren’t caught off guard by changes in the law.
