Preparing Your Business for Expansion to the US
This article was kindly provided to BAB by Dominique Thew, Communications Manager, Precision Global Consulting. You can find out more about them here.
The business world is continually developing and emerging throughout the world, and it’s more important than ever for companies with ambitions for international success to keep up with the pace on global expansion.
Venturing into a new international market can be equally daunting and rewarding for any business leader. The United States offers plenty of attractive prospects for a growing business. California’s economy alone surpassed the UK in 2017 to become the fifth largest in the world with Silicon Valley serving as the headquarters for almost half of all businesses in the Fortune 100. However, the US is also a particularly complex and at times difficult market to deal with.
Each state operates differently in culture and employment regulations, with laws varying as much as they do from one European country to another. Understanding the landscape, determining the right location and building an effective team are key to your strategy. The US is very litigious so doing a deep dive due diligence and getting the right advice before you set-up office is vital in avoiding headaches, and even penalties, later on. In preparation for a move, you’ll need to think about the structure of your team and the complexities of becoming an employer in the US.
The Department of Labor oversees and enforces more than 180 federal laws governing workplace activities for about 10 million employers and 125 million workers. Whether you decide to incubate and move over existing company members, or hire local talent, there are challenges ranging from visa eligibility to costs and available talent in your chosen location. In addition, details such as getting the correct employment contracts in place for that specific state and dealing with payroll, insurances, benefits and government forms will all need to be considered.
If you’re attempting to manage all aspects of expansion yourself or through different service providers, you may feel as though you have too many irons in the fire. Using a comprehensive Employer of Record solution, like we offer at Precision Global Consulting (PGC), alleviates the risk associated with global employment.
We work with businesses to understand their workforce needs and what successful US expansion looks like to them to find the right solutions to suit. We also have dedicated teams that offer valuable support to both clients and workers, providing data and legal services as well as managing the onboarding process and engagement of new workers effectively.
If global growth in business is constantly evolving, then the evolution of technology in the modern workplace is moving just as fast. How that technology is utilised within an organisation can be crucial to scaling-up, especially in the early stages of growth. A good place to start is identifying the needs of your business and how technology can help with scalability, be it the automation of processes or the challenges of offices in different time zones.
SaaS solutions such as PGC’s proprietary platform Precision™ are part of a growing trend in cloud-based workplace technologies that business leaders are deciding to add to their back-office ecosystems. It offers visibility on live data in real-time, between multiple locations. The US is well-known as a place at the forefront of technology and IT operations, creating the perfect opportunity to explore this part of your business if you haven’t already.
Dominique Thew, Communications Manager, Precision Global Consulting