Moving your business premises can be both exciting and worrying. Relocating your business abroad is even more intense. Whether you are moving abroad with your business or expanding overseas, here are four tips to make the business move easier and more profitable.
Carry out a graceful removal
One of your first priorities when planning to a business move abroad should be organising the physical move itself. Depending on how far you are going, different modes of transport will be needed.
To begin with, you’ll need a removal company you can trust. This is especially true if you’re going to be moving heavy, large or delicate equipment.
Finding recommendations on the right company for your removal operation can be difficult.
Residential and commercial removal experts AnyVan have a system where users can list their removal job, which vast numbers of professional removal firms are then able to provide quotes on.
Each of these firms are reviewed by other customers, giving you a key insight into the quality of service on offer, in one central place. Other markers of reliability include industry accreditations, such as the one from BAR (British Association of Removers).
When you leave your old headquarters, make sure you clear it in an environmentally friendly way to help reduce waste culture.
In some cases, you could be fined for leaving things behind, while in others, your waste could harm the environment. If your office clearance fails to fulfil your duty of care, you could be looking at both.
Study the law
Moving your business abroad is guaranteed to have various legal ramifications. If your company is UK limited, it must always be based in the UK. The only way to move your headquarters abroad is to dissolve it and incorporate a new business in your country of choice. This can be a difficult and time-consuming process.
It is simpler to keep your current headquarters open, and trade in your new home as another branch of your UK business. For those who want to move away from the UK fully, this is obviously not a viable option.
However, moving your UK headquarters to a virtual office – a storefront for your operation, which forwards any correspondence to your main address – might be one way to get the best of both worlds. This article from i2 Office compares the benefits of virtual and serviced offices, both of which could be used from abroad.
Whichever way you decide to move, make sure you check the relevant laws before you do it.
Consider your finances
There are two central ways your finances will be affected by a business move abroad. The first is in the actual cost of moving. Think carefully about the large investment required to pay for moving, a new office, and a whole new life in another country before you go.
The second is the money that your business will have to pay abroad. Every country has a different tax system with different prices. Some move their business abroad to an ‘offshore tax haven’ in order to pay less; others move abroad for more legitimate reasons and pay whatever is required.
Whether you are paying more or less in tax, you will still need to open a bank account in your new country of preference. If you plan to trade in a different currency, it may be wise to find the best exchange rate you can to transfer funding from your UK account.
Learn your market
Though the foreign market was likely a large factor in your decision to move abroad with your business, it is worth carrying out extensive market research into whether your business will perform as well or better in your new home as it does now.
This could be as simple as reading about local business trends or conducting your own surveys. However, it could go as in-depth as using satellite imagery to make extremely educated deductions. As an article from Quandl states, earth observation from space is helping various types of markets to blossom, even enabling businesses to count cars in retailers’ parking lots, and therefore estimate quarterly earnings ahead of the street.
Agricultural organisations in particular stand to benefit enormously from the application of satellite data in assessing potential for crop growth. If your product or service depends on the landscape, this could be crucial.
Grasping a country’s layout, culture, and sensibility is very important if you want your business move to be successful. Bear these tips in mind while you move and you will have a very good chance.
Further reading on business moves
