Tools & templates
Country expansion sequencing scorecard

Score your next market in 8 questions.

Eight weighted dimensions, one honest answer. Use it to sequence your next 3 to 5 country entries instead of arguing about them.

Score the candidate market

Revenue pull

Existing pipeline, signed customers, partner demand in the market.

Weight 22%

Talent depth

Density of skills you need at the salary band you can pay.

Weight 18%

Cost of operating

Fully-loaded employer cost vs your benchmark country.

Weight 12%

Speed to first hire

How fast you can be live with a compliant employee.

Weight 10%

Compliance complexity

Labour law, employer burden, mandatory benefits, audits.

Weight 14%

Tax & PE exposure

Permanent establishment risk and corporate tax footprint.

Weight 10%

Strategic optionality

Will this market unlock other markets or lock you in?

Weight 8%

Leadership bandwidth

Do you have a sponsor with hours to spend on this country?

Weight 6%

Sequencing verdict

60

out of 100, weighted

Next wave

Fast-follower. Stand up 1 to 3 EOR hires in the next 90 days, revisit entity case at 12 months.

Type a country name to personalise the verdict. Recalculates as you change the inputs.

How to use it

Six principles behind the score.

Follow revenue, not LinkedIn maps

Pipeline pull beats theoretical TAM. Sequence the country where money is, not where everyone is hiring.

One country at a time, until 5

Concentration wins. Five sequential entries beat fifteen in parallel for the first 18 months of expansion.

Cost is a tiebreaker, not a driver

Cheap talent in a market with no demand is still wasted. Price filters between two strong options, never picks the option.

Compliance compounds

Two complex markets (Brazil + Indonesia) at once will eat your ops team. Stagger them, learn one, then the next.

A local sponsor in HQ, always

Every market needs a senior owner who is in the room when budgets are set. No sponsor, no entry.

Reset the score every quarter

Markets move. The scorecard is a recurring artefact, not a one-time exercise. Re-run it at every QBR.

Score bands

What each band means.

Lead market

78 to 100

Sequence this in the first wave. Start on EOR within 30 days, plan entity conversion at 20+ hires.

Next wave

60 to 77

Fast-follower. Stand up 1 to 3 EOR hires in the next 90 days, revisit entity case at 12 months.

Watch list

40 to 59

Hold. One light-touch hire only if a specific deal demands it. Re-score in 6 months.

De-prioritise

0 to 39

Skip for now. The cost of distraction outweighs the upside. Free up the leadership bandwidth.

Sequence with us

We help sequence the next 5 countries.

Bring your top 8 candidate markets. We will run the scorecard against real cost, talent and compliance data, then build the 12-month sequencing plan with you.

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