Expanding Beyond Borders: The HR Challenge for Australian Companies

For Australian HR leaders, expanding into new global markets is both a major opportunity and a significant challenge. The ability to hire top talent anywhere in the world can accelerate growth — but navigating international compliance, payroll, and legal entity setup can slow progress to a halt.

That’s the dilemma Fluent Commerce, a Sydney-based global technology company, faced when planning its expansion into Canada. Having already set up entities in the US, Ireland, France, and Singapore, the company knew that replicating the process would be time-consuming, costly, and complex.

About Fluent Commerce

Fluent Commerce provides global retailers with a powerful platform that delivers accurate, real-time visibility of inventory. This allows businesses to fill online orders confidently and minimize cancellations and delays.

Headquartered in Sydney, Fluent Commerce is a fast-growing tech company with operations across multiple continents — and a mission to help brands optimize fulfillment and improve customer experience worldwide.

The Challenge: Global Ambition Meets Operational Complexity

Fluent Commerce’s HR team understood that international growth depends on more than market opportunity — it depends on people. But hiring in new regions presented several obstacles:

• Time: Setting up a new legal entity delayed hiring and slowed market entry.

• Money: Legal, accounting, and setup costs added unnecessary financial pressure.

• Compliance Risk: Local labor laws and tax regulations were unfamiliar territory.

Like many Australian companies with international ambitions, Fluent Commerce needed a solution that balanced speed, compliance, and flexibility.

The Solution: Partnering with Safeguard Global

To simplify global hiring and reduce compliance risk, Fluent Commerce partnered with Safeguard Global, leveraging its Employer of Record (EOR) solution.

Through the EOR model, Fluent Commerce could:

• Hire Canadian talent quickly without establishing a local entity.

• Access in-country HR and compliance experts to ensure every decision met local labor laws.

• Avoid administrative overhead and focus on strategic HR priorities.

By acting as the legal employer, Safeguard Global handled payroll, taxes, and compliance while Fluent Commerce retained full control over its people and culture. The result was faster expansion and greater peace of mind.

The Results: Risk-Free Growth in a New Market

The partnership delivered immediate and measurable results:

• Rapid expansion into Canada — without the delay or expense of entity setup.

• Reduced operational risk through expert compliance management.

• Improved agility, enabling Fluent to compete for top talent in a new market.

Fluent Commerce successfully built a compliant, competitive workplace that attracted skilled professionals and strengthened its presence in North America — all while maintaining full confidence in its global HR operations.

Key Takeaway for Australian HR Leaders

Fluent Commerce’s success demonstrates how Australian businesses can scale internationally without adding complexity or compliance risk.

With an Employer of Record solution like Safeguard Global’s, HR leaders can:

• Test new markets quickly and confidently.

• Hire top talent anywhere, without setting up local entities.

• Stay compliant with international employment laws.

• Focus on strategy and culture — not paperwork.

For HR decision-makers, an EOR partner provides the flexibility to think globally and act strategically — a vital advantage in today’s competitive talent landscape.