relocate your business

Under certain circumstances, businesses need drastic change to reach their full potential. One of these changes may actually be the complete relocation of the business overseas. There are many factors to consider if you think this may be the best course forward for your business. While it could save your company, it could also destroy it as well if you’re not careful.

Determine If You’re Moving for the Right Reasons

Relocating your entire business to a completely new country is a huge step. In fact, according to Harvard, most companies actually fail at this process. The decision to relocate should not be made lightly. Instead, there must be very good reasons behind this decision, and that rationale should be backed up by data produced from extensive research. Many companies make this decision as a strategy for cutting costs for the long term. This could be true, for example, if the cost of resources like labor and materials are cheaper in a foreign country. Other businesses may have other rationales. For example, if your product is only successful as an export, it may make sense from a cost-cutting perspective as well as a deeper cultural and strategic perspective to make that move.

Make Sure You Have the Technical Capability to Relocate

Beyond the strategic implications of relocating to a new home country, the technical aspect of pulling off such a move itself can be an extremely daunting challenge to overcome. Once assets have been situated in a certain location, they can be hard to move. This goes double when moving overseas. You may require access to auto transport, sea transport, air transport, and even rail to actually complete every aspect of the relocation. Make sure to choose the right transport company carefully. Make sure they have plenty of experience in the industry and can provide the customer service and insurance safeguards you need. If the physical aspect of your move fails, the entire project may come crashing down.

Consider the Human Resources Aspect

Another huge challenge to consider is your ability to move talent as well as recruit and retain the new talent you will need in that new country to make your relocation a success. Just because a relocation sounds good on paper does not mean it will work in practice. Oftentimes, this is the result of management that is simply unable to adapt to the new realities of managing a foreign workforce and delivering and marketing products to a foreign customer base. In most cases, you’re going to need employees at all levels of the organization that understand that culture well. What you learned in a management school in the US may simply not cut it when it comes to these foreign workers. If you don’t have the talent with the knowledge, experience, and cultural background to make this transition work, you are probably going to fail.

Factor in the Effect of the Federal and Local Government

Relocating to a new country can also involve facing other significant roadblocks. This can include roadblocks put up by the government both on the federal and local levels in that new country. You may have been able to conform to the rules and regulations for starting a business in the United States. Overseas, however, you may face new challenges. Most other countries are far more protectionist and isolationist than the United States’ rather open form of capitalism. They feel a need to give preference to their own companies. As such, relocating may require making more changes than you had first anticipated. This may even include being forced to have more foreign ownership of your stock or even being forced to change who sits on your board of directors. More money than you expected may also end up going to the government to allow for the relocation to be approved and for your company to continue receiving local support in the future.

Overall, relocating will be a huge complicated process with many challenges to overcome. Don’t rush into the process. Instead, study the subject over a period of months or even years. If you come to the decision to relocate, still take your time and make sure each stage of the process is performed as competently as possible. Doing so will help you avoid the mistakes of the many companies that failed to relocate overseas.

By Anurag Rathod

Anurag Rathod is an Editor of Appclonescript.com, who is passionate for app-based startup solutions and on-demand business ideas. He believes in spreading tech trends. He is an avid reader and loves thinking out of the box to promote new technologies.