New markets: where to go?When a European, American or Chinese entrepreneur looks at the world map looking to identify a promising region to expand its business what does he see? Invariably he sees Brazil and it ́s not only because we are a continental country that occupies a good part of the world map, hiding other smaller countries from his vision, but it is because Brazil remains an important destination for business for any company that wants to operate globally. These companies that want and need to expand their horizons, certainly already do business with their territorial neighbors and most likely already operate in the most economically advanced countries. Apart from these countries of this equation, it remains, or rather, only Brazil stands out as a promising market.
Despite our ups and downs, Brazil is and continues to be an important goal for foreign companies that need to expand their business and mandatory destination for any entrepreneur who is seriously trying to increase their share in the global market.
We do not need to enumerate here the advantages that Brazil has to offer, nor its size, its natural resources, its climate, its infrastructure, its workforce, its industrial park, the availability of state-of-the-art technologies in the most varied sectors, such as banking automation, digital processes, the metalmechanical industry, the clean energy generation sector, agriculture, where we are world leaders in livestock and in various branches of this segment, in the hotel sector with our more than 7,000km of sea coast and in many other segments... This information is already known by entrepreneurs who have a real intention to enter and compete in our market.
The recipe for establishing a foreign company in Brazil is simple, it is not easy, but it is feasible.
What these companies do not know, and most of the time do not bother to know, is how our bureaucracy works, our taxation model, our labor laws, our habits, personal and commercial, and so many other aspects that need to be known so that their entry and consequent participation in our market is in a quiet and orderly manner. Brazil has a welcoming, friendly people and always willing to cooperate, but it also has its unwritten rules that are rooted in our culture. It is our way of doing it which is a very important aspect and often misunderstood by foreigners who arrive here without proper preparation.
When a foreign company decides to open a branch in a neighboring country or a first world country, as I mentioned at the beginning, everything is simple and uncomplicated, which is why it is expected that when deciding to settle in Brazil, it would be enough to repeat the recipe applied when they started their expansion years ago, but that invariably does not work here.
The bureaucratic way to establish a company, especially with regard to the necessary acts with government agencies, is quite complicated, time consuming and confusing and sometimes do not even make sense, even for us Brazilians who are experts with our bureaucracy.
Imagine a foreigner who is not accustomed and does not even know what our modus operandi is like. It is certain that we are improving a lot in this area of bureaucracy, but we still have much to do to get closer to our foreign colleagues. And it is these aspects, very important, that the candidate to start his game in Brazil needs to pay attention and it is often exactly these points that are neglected, resulting in a much more difficult and expensive process to establish a branch in Brazil. It is a fact that if the entrepreneur is not well advised it will create a very negative image of our country. Sometimes the process is so painful that it ends up causing the investor to give up settling in our country, or worse, cancel the whole process in the middle of the road.
The recipe for establishing a foreign company in Brazil is simple, it is not easy, but it is feasible. Just hire a company that has knowledge about Brazilian laws, specificities, market and customs and specializes in the procedures to found a company in Brazil. If this local company is still familiar with the culture of the entrepreneur who wants to establish itself in Brazil, even better, because knowing the culture brings people closer and establishes a link of trust between the parties, precisely by sharing a similar vision for the personal and commercial affairs of the day to day. More time should be made in planning and preparation to allow execution to be fast and efficient.
