The Netherlands was home base. The UK was already in play. Switzerland was next.
For a fast-growing quantum technology company, every new market brought opportunity and another set of rules to navigate.
Employees were already on Dutch payroll, with two UK employees working through an Employer of Record (EOR). Now the company was establishing a Swiss entity and preparing local hires while transitioning its UK workforce to a new payroll model.
The footprint was expanding. The finance team wasn’t.
Industry: Quantum Technology/Technology
Headquarters: Netherlands
Partner: The CFO Centre
Countries supported: United Kingdom; Switzerland
Solutions: Entity Establishment; Directorship; Domiciliation; International Payroll
The challenge: expansion created complexity faster than capacity
The company was managing several international models at once.
In the UK, two employees were transitioning from an EOR arrangement to Non-Resident Payroll (NRP) run from the Netherlands, alongside Dutch shadow payroll for tax.
Switzerland introduced a different challenge. A new entity and local hires would bring their own setup, governance and compliance requirements.
Each decision made sense on its own. Managing them together was the harder part.
Payroll requirements could span jurisdictions. A new entity brought responsibilities beyond incorporation. Every additional market increased the number of moving parts behind the business.
All of this was landing on a lean finance function already in transition, with a part-time CFO preparing to leave and fractional legal support.
The company had the ambition to keep expanding. It did not have unlimited internal capacity to manage what expansion created.
The partnership: one business, multiple markets, fewer moving parts
The CFO Centre was already supporting the business as its finance function entered a period of change. At the same time, its international needs were becoming more complex.
The UK raised payroll questions. Switzerland brought entity, governance and local presence requirements. Future markets would bring more.
Solving each one separately risked creating exactly what the company didn’t need: more providers, more handoffs and more complexity.
The CFO Centre connected the company with GoGlobal to bring specialist international support into the picture.
GoGlobal gave the company access to that specialist support without creating another set of country-by-country relationships to manage.
Switzerland changed the plan
Setting up the Swiss entity was not simply a matter of incorporation.
The company initially planned to appoint one of its local employees as director. As the setup progressed, that changed.
Directorship and domiciliation were added to the scope, giving the Swiss entity the local structure it needed without placing those responsibilities on an employee.
It was a small change on paper. But it captured something bigger about international expansion: the plan that gets you started is not always the plan that gets you operational.
GoGlobal could adapt the setup as the requirements became clearer, without sending the company back to square one.
The result: more markets without more moving parts
Switzerland added another market to the company’s international footprint without leaving the finance team to piece together the local requirements alone.
As the entity setup evolved, directorship and domiciliation could be added without the company having to source and coordinate new providers itself.
As new requirements emerged, the company had somewhere to take them instead of starting another provider search.
The business could keep expanding its footprint without expecting its internal resources to multiply at the same rate.
By the numbers
- 2 UK employees transitioning from EOR to direct employment
- 2 components in the new payroll model: UK NRP and Dutch shadow payroll
- 1 Swiss entity established
- 2 services added as the Swiss setup evolved: directorship and domiciliation
The next country is never just another country
International expansion looks simple on a map. Add the UK. Add Switzerland. Add the US.
Inside the business, each dot on that map can mean another payroll system, another set of tax rules, another legal structure and another group of local requirements.
For a lean team, the real challenge is not ambition. It is multiplication.
The international footprint was growing, but building a separate internal capability or provider relationship for every requirement would only multiply the problem.
The answer wasn’t to make the internal team bigger every time the map got bigger.
The CFO Centre and GoGlobal gave the company another option: bring in the specialist support each market demanded without recreating the infrastructure behind it each time.
Growth could add countries without adding the same weight internally.
“The danger isn’t international growth itself. It’s allowing every new market to create another process, provider and problem for a lean team to manage. Part of our job is spotting when that complexity is starting to build and helping the client get ahead of it.”
Gill Jennings, Regional Director | The CFO Centre
“There isn’t one playbook you can copy from country to country. The right payroll model in the UK won’t answer what you need for an entity in Switzerland. Our role is to solve those local requirements while keeping the bigger international picture connected.”
Harry Dhillon, Partnerships | GoGlobal
About the GoGlobal–CFO Centre partnership
The CFO Centre gives growing businesses access to experienced fractional CFO support, helping leadership teams strengthen financial strategy and make confident decisions.
When those decisions lead across borders, GoGlobal brings the local expertise needed to put them into action.
From entity establishment and accounting to tax, payroll and HR, GoGlobal supports the practical work of entering and operating in new markets.
Together, The CFO Centre and GoGlobal help businesses expand across markets without piling more complexity onto internal teams.
Planning international growth? Schedule a consultation today and turn your next market into an operating plan.
