Have you ever considered using HR as a service in your business expansion strategy?
A common way to step on new markets include making a strategic acquisition of another business or merge with them. In the first case you buy another business and end up controlling it. In a merger you integrate your business with another and share control of the combined businesses with the other owner/owners. Businesses that seek to expand on new markets often use the tactic of acquiring resident companies in order to achieve market positioning and diversification. Some of the benefits include increasing their market share, expanding the workforce, broadening the portfolio of existing products and services, growing the revenues, achieving economies of scale, cost reductions through shared budgets and greater purchasing power.
The challenges of multinational market presence…
However, maintaining a stable and growing presence on multiple markets is also challenging. Enterprises must run smoothly the management of a more complex portfolio and a larger multinational workforce, while navigating the business growth through the cultural and economic specifics of the “new land”. Last but not least, businesses entering new markets through acquisition must also secure the retention of a larger and more diverse customer base.
There’re multiple levels of importance for an enterprise to look after during and after finalizing the stages of a business acquisition. That’s why companies often choose to outsource to a third party the operative activities that are not directly related to the core of their business or require assistance and maintenance from resident professionals.
In this article we’ll explore the benefits of outsourcing the HR, payroll and office maintenance obligations to a trusted partner here in Bulgaria.
The advantage of local a HR outsourcing partner
Who will do the work on a local level better than the natives?
Sometimes a company enters new market that is not very similar to the headquarters’ cultural aspects and time-zone. In such cases it is an especially good practice to rely on the support of native partners and professionals.
A local HR partner provides you with clear knowledge and support in regard to the:
- legal obligations in the employer-employee relations
- cultural specifics of the workforce
- overall economic factors affecting your newly acquired workforce
that need to be taken into account when going through or just closed a business acquisition on a new market. The competent native HR outsourcing partner will provide you with valuable inputs for your total operational cost. They will give you actual information and guidelines in relation to:
- costs of employment (salary ranges upon profiles, taxes, insurance and other costs, payroll and so on),
- real estate obligations (if you require office management in the service package),
- talent –pool availability trends and market specifics, etc.
All this is important information regarding your budgets and business plans on the local market.
The matter of employees’ transfer
With company acquisition comes the legal matter of transferring the employees from the old owner to the new one (You). Speaking of Bulgaria, as a member of the EU, country has implemented within its legislation the EU directive. It regulates the resources transfer (including assets/rights, obligations, factual relations). A competent, native HR outsourcing partner helps in the process of a smooth and compliant to the BG Code employees’ tranfer from acquiree to acquirer. Explore more information about the Transfer of employment in Bulgaria in this material.
Delegating the above mentioned tasks to a trusted outsourcing partner ensures your organization legal compliance and efficiency in the processes while saving you time and effort.
Which operational activities you can outsource to a native, Bulgarian HR partner?
1. The transfer of employees
As we already mentioned, a competent native partner knows the legal specifics and regulations that need to be followed to ensure compliance and legal security for both employees and employer. As such partner, we ACS Bulgaria, look after the interest of all parties involved. We make sure to meet the legal deadlines as well as the pre-agreed deadlines with the customer for the execution of transfer.
2. HR as a service – partial or full outsourcing of HR–related tasks to a third party
You may choose to outsource the whole process cycle of recruitment, headhunting, ongoing HR support, and payroll or parts of it to a trusted HR outsourcing partner in accordance to the needs of your business. If you delegate the full set of tasks it is crucial to rely on a competent partner that is capable to offer a more holistic approach. By that we mean a service provider that:
- has the know-how and experience in set up & management of teams and operations (especially with foreign businesses here in Bulgaria)
- has access to a skilled talent pool relevant to your business needs
- makes sure to obtain good understanding of your business goals and needs, therefore performs tailored solutions in their hiring strategy properly
- continuously proposes solutions for improvement in spending and cost optimizations where applicable
- applies good practices for retention, people development and management
- ensures legal security in the employer-employee relations
- has clear and competitive pricing policy, relevant to the high quality of their services
2.1 Staff leasing availability for your company in the Bulgarian market
At some point your organization may need a temporal workforce increase. In this case you could hire skilled personnel through third party (a certified agency). In Bulgaria the Agency contracting regulation manages the process of staff augmentation . It has pretty clear rules in regard to the terms and conditions your enterprise may increase their workforce using outside skilled professionals temporarily (or for up to 3 years). These employees are the so called agency contractors. Agency contracting is the only legal and safe frame for staff leasing service in Bulgaria.
With this said, we’d like to point that ACS Bulgaria is a certified staff leasing agency. We work fully compliant to the Bulgarian legislation. So, as your HR service partner we can also provide you with temporal skilled workforce when your business requires such resources.
3. Management of office premises
You don’t have to do it yourself or engage a team member to find office space for your Bulgarian headquarters. Simply outsource the task to a service partner. After agreeing on the parameters (which may include some or all of the following: space, equipment, monthly rent budget, location preferences, maintenance budget, supplies provision, etc.), it is your outsourcing partner’s priority to find the place that fits best to your requirements.
The capital city of Sofia , as well as major cities like Plovdiv, Varna, Burgas and others offer prime office premises (class A, Class B). Office space rents in Bulgaria stand at very competitive rates compared to the rest of the Balkans and Central Europe. If you’d like to delegate this part of the obligations around setting up your Bulgarian headquarters, we’ll be happy to assist. It would be our priority to help finding the right place and location, as well as their maintenance.
Conclusion
Growth through business acquisition on new markets is not for every organization. Often, it is the established enterprises that choose this strategy as one of their drivers for business expansion. It is understandable as the process is complex on multiple levels. The acquisition takes some time and often transactions involve considerable legal work and the approval of local legal authorities.
Since the main focus of the enterprise is running their business it is a good practice to offload their core team from operative tasks that are not directly related to the main business activities and outsource those obligations to a competent third party. HR, Accounting, office facilities management could be delegated to a trusted outsourcing partner, whose main focus would be the proper execution of all mutually agreed parameters. When a foreign company enters a new market through acquisition it is a huge plus to use the services of a local outsourcing partner, who is well versed in the local legal requirements and cultural specifics especially in regard to the management of the workforce.
As HR outsourcing partner, ACS Bulgaria, has the competence and experience to support your smooth mid- and post-acquisition state in Bulgaria. We are customer oriented and the flexibility of our service models makes us the right choice for a long-term partner who looks after the changing needs of your company on the Bulgarian market.