7 Important Points to be Considered Before Finalizing Business Setup Consultant in Dubai–UAE
Setting up a business in tax-free haven on earth – Dubai UAE, a place where there is zero tax on income, is always a dream for majority of businessmen across the world. There are several reasons for this other than the tax benefits which have been discussed in our previous blogs.
In order to start a business, it is must to register the company with appropriate Government departments and to obtain required approvals. A prospective investor would like to appoint a business setup consultant / advisor to assist him or her for correct advisory, efficient documents processing and cost saving by timely delivery of the job.
However it becomes increasingly difficult to figure out the reliability of business setup service providers in Dubai as hundreds of consultants are launching websites and company’s social media pages with misleading information about their years in business, number of clients served and staff strength. Such consultants also put misleading contents about different procedures and documents requirements. Such companies can cause deep trouble for investors if by chance he / she fall in wrong hands.
So, I have decided to write this article to highlight few points which each investor should verify before signing with any business setup consultancy firm and making any payment. In the current age of technology and social media, it is very easy to cross check the claims made by the companies.
Following are the points of major concern for which each investor has to make due diligence about service provider
- Number of years in business
- Number of clients served
- Number of employees in company
- Consultancy Company’s legal registration and office infrastructure
- Approach to research based advisory and integrity of an advisor
- Authentic advisory and not just advocating specific authority / jurisdiction
- Price war type of approach from an advisor
Number of years in business
It has been widely noticed that newly formed consultancy company claims to be in business for a long time. Kindly always check who owns the company and how long he/she is in the UAE, what was his/her profession before starting this business, etc. If the advisor feels hesitant to give a reply, then consider it a stop signal. Also check online about Google reviews and see from which year / month the company has started receiving client’s reviews. If the company is old in business then it must have started receiving reviews from many years as well. Also try to check Linkedin profile for firm’s owner and other employees.
Company which is long time in business must have many employees worked with it and could easily be seen on professional networking sites. This factor is very important to make sure that the company has sufficient knowledge to make advisory and also it has enough financial strength to make sure continuity of their business and protection of documents and proper utilization of payments made. Also check from which date the company actually has started posting articles on their Facebook or Linkedin pages. This will also give an idea about the number of years in business. One can also check the Alexa traffic rank of website as it is impossible to achieve high traffic on newly built websites through organic searches.
Number of clients served
It has been noticed that newly formed business setup services company or even if it is few years in business, claims to have thousands of clients. In my experience even with high marketing, strong business development team and long time presence in the industry, it is extremely difficult to have thousands of clients. And if anyone has actually served so many clients then go and check their online reviews from clients. See if they actually have more than at least 500 reviews from their clients.
Less experience in serving clients can result in big mess for client as sometimes consultant will learn to setup particular type of company at client’s expenses. Always check online Google reviews for the company which can give you fair idea about the strength of the company to deliver the promises made. In my opinion it takes strong internal systems, transparent approach and customer centric policies to achieve high customer satisfaction and agreed delivery; and increase the number of clients served.
Number of employees in company
Many times one-man show or companies with 3 to 4 employees claim to have team of 30 or more employees. It is always advisable to go and check their Linkedin page and see how many employees are working or have actually worked in that company. Maintaining the high numbers of employees for long duration of number of years is only possible if the company has done consistent business. It is also very important to know the employee strength of the company as it will prove their capabilities to deliver the job on time with quality. Make sure to visit their office and check the office environment and how many people are actually there in the office at the time of your visit. If required you can request to make a tour of the office. If the request is denied then think twice before closing the deal.
Consultancy company’s legal registration and office infrastructure
Some business setup companies are registered on flexi desk free zone or mainland companies. These types of companies do not have office and staff nor outsourcing partners. Without having proper manpower, such companies will fail in delivering the jobs on time and maintaining the quality and in extreme conditions, the investor might lose the money once the consultant stops answering the calls or switch off his / her mobile. Always insist to visit the office before closing the deal. Do not make transactions sitting in hotel lobby or coffee shops in malls. Always make payment in the office premises of the consultant and obtain appropriate service agreement and payment receipt. This will also give you an idea about the financial strength of an advisory firm. Do not close the deal if you feel a doubtful environment in the office. Many times, the legal license to operate is not in place or not renewed. If required you can ask to service provider to see their license copy.
Sometimes many companies are showing number of offices in different cities and countries to show its global presence. Upon detailed enquiry it comes to notice that all those are just virtual offices and contact number for freelancer / relative living in that city or some diverted landline number on voice mail.
Approach to research based advisory and integrity of an advisor
This is an extremely important aspect any investor should consider before closing deal with any business setup advisory firm. It is an internationally accepted fact that the quality of work of any professional goes extremely high when he or she is involved in research based advisory. This can be reflected from the articles and blogs posted on their company website and linkedin / FB company pages and personal profiles. See the topics, quality of contents and its usefulness for the readers. Only high standard companies have this approach to invest a lot on research work. This type of research work eventually benefits the clients. It takes hours and days from the advisors to research and author an article which can truly bring a change in the minds of readers.
It is also necessary to cross check the integrity of the company and its involvement in completing some jobs in illegal ways. Government definitely has its own strict course of actions but as an investor, it is also your duty to make own due diligence about the legitimacy of an activities of the company. Any company promising to complete the job without having appropriate documents, then surely stop else it might lead to serious consequences. These documents could be attested degree certificate, attested marriage certificate, NOC from current sponsors, office ejari, approvals for visa quotas or any other documents as and when asked by the authorities. Be careful dealing with such consultants. Check online if any legal issues reflect on the company or not.
Also please check the service agreement from the advisory firm. Particularly check if they are allowing you to change the service provider as and when you want or once you dealt with them then it is impossible to come out of that. If it is Mainland Company, please also check if the consultancy firm allows you to change UAE national share holder / service agent as per your choice in future or not. Also please check the renewal charges from beginning.
Authentic advisory and not just advocating specific authority / Jurisdiction
Each client has a specific business plan in his or her mind. Each client has specific business goals to be achieved. Many business advisors ignore this fact. And just concentrate the product where he or she has a more profit or commission. This will surely lead to a wrong company formation. Fundamental responsibility of an advisor is to understand the business plan and goal to be achieved and based on that should propose appropriate authority where company should be registered. Many clients been advised to form free zones companies while their business plan was only suitable for mainland. Vice versa many clients have business plan suitable for free zone but advised to register on mainland. Here it is very difficult to understand the intention of the advisor. So I would recommend the client to do his or her own due diligence and check online about the similar types of businesses and where they are actually registered.
Price war type of an approach from an advisor
Advisory field is considered as high quality professionalism. It is not appropriate to make commercialization of it as a traded commodity else it will lose the essence of its research and guiding the investor who is intending to invest huge amount of money. If an advisor is not able to make sufficient charges on advisory then an investor can’t expect quality of research done behind it and high quality customer experience. Many business setup consultants have been found offering some package deals which actually not possible to be offered considering the efforts and resources deployed by an advisor in research and employees to achieve high quality customer experience. So surely clients will have to either face low quality services or something which might not be legitimate. I strongly advise clients to take a holistic long term approach in choosing a consultancy firm who is charging reasonably but not something unbelievably low. For such low prices, surely some trap is waiting.
We at Flyingcolour prioritize the practice of building trust with great importance before going forward with any kind of deal with our every client looking for reliable business setup service in Dubai. This blog is written by Mr. Raj, Chairman of Flyingcolour Business Setup, Accounting & Tax Services, who believes that the single most important ingredient in the recipe for success is transparency because transparency is the first step towards building a life-long relationship. Feel free to call us today for a quality consultation related to your business setup queries. Please send inquiry to info[at]flyingcolour[dot]com or call +971 4 4542366.
