Logistical issues of running a remote business

If you are running a viable business, you should be aware that you are no longer restricted by boundaries. The internet and technology innovations are making it much easier for business owners like you to do business anywhere in the world.

Many lines of now can be based in one country and provide those products and services to people in many other countries. Should you choose to do so, you, of course, would have to consider logistical issues of running a business with remote employees and international customers. At this point, a discussion about potential logistical issues seems in order.

Logistical issues you might encounter with a remote business

Keep in mind, you’ll be trying to run your business from hundreds to thousands of miles away from where your services with be administered. The primary logistical issues you will likely encounter include:

• Securing and paying for equipment
• Communication with support resources
• Hiring and paying employees and contractors

Let’s take an in-depth look at these issues.

Securing and paying for equipment

In all likelihood, it would be cost prohibitive for you to rent/purchase the necessary technology and equipment in your home country and have someone ship it where it’s needed for your remote employees. As an alternative, you can purchase internet online and ship it direct to your remote staff, or have them purchase what is needed locally and expense it to you.

When is comes time to pay your vendors, you would have different options, including bank account checks, ACH transactions, wire transfers an cash transfers through international third party cash transfer companies (more on this below). The only thing you have to worry about is matching up your payment process with what your vendors might require.

Communication with support resources

With all your support resources located abroad, it’s not always easy to communicate to coordinate operations. The good news is you do have access to some easy to use communication tools that are available throughout the world.

With the latest in calling and conferencing technology, you can literally have meetings and important conversations with dozens of relevant parties at the same time. By doing so, you can quickly and efficiently communicate what your needs are abroad for next to no cost. This points to a very important rule you should follow if you want to do any kind of business abroad: You need to take advantage of any technology that’s available to make your business endeavor as painless as possible.

Hiring and paying employees and contractors

Any notion that it’s difficult and time consuming to hire employees and contractors in your backyard will pale in comparison with how difficult it is to accomplish those goals abroad. We just discussed the communication process above. The use of modern communication tools would certainly help the process. Where you are likely to run into most of your issues is trying to pay individual employees.

In an effort to point out the real issues, you might consider what it’s like to try to do business in a third-world country like the Philippines.

Some Filipinos and other remote employees may not have bank accounts. And some small businesses can prefer doing business on a cash basis, especially with foreign concerns. This issue eliminates bank transfers and wire transfers as viable payment options. What’s remaining? That would be cash transfers through third party cash transfer services.

If you want to reliably transfer money to the Philippines, or any other country you are doing remote business in, you need to find a service that’s affordable for you and easily accessible to the recipients. The best way is to compare services and select the one that meets your business needs. This same process applies to a lot of other countries as well.

Expanding the scope of your business might well be a prudent decision. If you want to be successful doing so, you must first make sure you have confidence in your ability to run the business abroad through the latest technologies.