When the distributor is no longer enough
The question almost everyone asks - “how much revenue, how many employees do I need to open a foreign subsidiary?” - is only half the question. Size is a necessary condition, not a sufficient one. A company does not open a structure abroad because it has reached a certain size: it opens one when the cost of its own absence from a market - lost sales, margin ceded to intermediaries, the inability to serve, contract or deliver locally - exceeds the fixed cost of running a structure of its own. A subsidiary is not a reward for growth: it is a threshold of commitment.
