What Has to Be Ready Before Cross-Border Growth Gets Complicated?

Cross-border activity can begin before a founder formally decides to expand. Nagesh Devata, executive growth leader, SVP and head of APAC of Payoneer, points to customer interest and suppliers outside the home market as early signs. Eldred Wee, founder of Corporate Service Provider Network and Edenity, whose Edenity work focuses on M&A for Singapore SMEs, says collaborators can be found around the world. 

Nagesh argues that SMEs with global ambition should build cross-border thinking into their mindset, planning and execution. Eldred says it is easier to plan the structure from day one than to play a catch-up game later. 

Key takeaways 

• Nagesh says it is never too early for an ambitious SME to think about growing beyond its home market.
• Nagesh says complexity creates friction as businesses manage multiple currencies.
• Nagesh says trust is especially important when businesses operate virtually and across borders. 
• Eldred says trust compounds when businesses do what they say they will do.
• Eldred says corporate services providers can evolve from an administrative checklist into potential business partners. 

When does a business start becoming cross-border?

A business can become cross-border as soon as demand or supply reaches outside its home market. Nagesh points to two early signals: customers from elsewhere showing interest, and suppliers outside the home market providing goods or services. 

“I don’t think it’s ever too early.” — Nagesh [00:04:42] 

For Nagesh, the point is not to build today for every possible future scale. He explicitly says businesses are not being told to build infrastructure for five years down the road or for a 1,000-person company. Instead, he says they can keep an eye on the pieces that help them optimize and represent the business around the world. 

Eldred adds another operating lens. He says businesses may begin with a fixed idea of their ideal customer profile, then discover a broader picture involving clients, vendors and payments as they evolve. His recommendation is to plan the structure from day one rather than play a catch-up game later. 

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What breaks first when financial systems become fragmented? 

The first problem Nagesh emphasizes is complexity. He says operational friction can show up in currency management and reporting, alongside financial compliance and KYC when an SME connects with a financial service provider. 

“Complexity creates friction, right?” — Nagesh [00:11:38] 

His example is straightforward: five customers in Southeast Asia can mean five currencies to manage, while three suppliers around the world can add three more currencies. Even a business that sells only in Singapore can create complexity if it buys goods or services from outside Singapore. 

Eldred describes an operating pattern in which a business focuses first on firefighting rather than infrastructure. He says what is expected to last one month can stretch to three months, six months and eventually a year, leaving a backlog to address. 

For Eldred, correcting those errors later can take more effort and more money than addressing infrastructure earlier. 

Why do payments become an operating issue, not just a finance issue?

Payments can shape the experience a business creates for its customers. Nagesh says finance and fintech may once have been thought of as “the plumbing,” but he describes that infrastructure in terms of experience, risk, confidence, credibility and trust. 

He also makes timeliness part of the operating promise. If a business says a payment will arrive tomorrow, he says it needs to land when it is intended to land. 

“Trust is always compounded.” — Eldred [00:21:39] 

Eldred makes the same point through execution. He recalls a situation in which a bank rejected his letter and a transfer was delayed by another three days. He says that kind of explanation “doesn’t cut it out” and describes trust as doing what a business says it will do. 

What does “unified” financial infrastructure mean in practice? 

For Nagesh, “unified” means visibility rather than a growing collection of disconnected relationships. He says SMEs can end up with a bank, a fintech and other service providers in a piecemeal setup without having planned it that way. 

His definition is visibility of money movement “under one hood”: seeing what was paid to a supplier in one currency, what was received from another party in another currency, where the money is, and when to move it to another bank account. He says a unified view can give a business more control and influence over how it manages that money. 

Vanessa introduces reconciliation as another operational challenge. Eldred says nobody likes reconciling thousands of entries and recalls manually matching printed bank statements during his audit work. Nagesh says he had spent part of that weekend going through two years of personal statements and manually summing information, then says that approach is not a way for an SME to operate or scale. 

How are corporate services providers moving beyond administration? 

Eldred says corporate services providers can do more than administrative work. He says they typically do the books for SMEs, which can give them visibility into a client’s financial position. He also says a corporate services provider could become a route to a key vendor, a key business partner or a key investor.

He describes the role as evolving from an administrative checklist to a potential business partner. In his account, a provider may have ideas and connections to give a client, while the client may not yet have the infrastructure to accept them. 

Nagesh says a founder going global may want one corporate services provider to help navigate that journey. If that provider cannot navigate something itself, he says it can connect the founder to somebody who can. 

What should SMEs and service providers decide early? 

Asked for one operational decision businesses should make early if they plan to scale internationally, Nagesh answers: 

“Have one relationship for all your business globally.” — Nagesh [00:40:26] 

Eldred identifies the biggest mistake as: “Not planning early and going all in for relationships.” He also advises identifying an ideal investor profile in the far future and then working backwards to build the infrastructure from day one. 

Nagesh’s final advice is that relationships with a fintech or a corporate services provider should be viewed as growth drivers.