Legal Name Change Georgia: Understanding the Process for Internationalizing Your SME
Legal Name Change in Georgia: Overview and Step-by-Step Instructions
For development purposes, one of the criteria that is important for scaling up of businesses is their ability and strategy to expand to international markets. It is important that the business transformation strategy is harmonized with sustainability goals and rationalizing operational costs. The experience of Up4Scale shows that the companies which need to scale up reach out to foreign markets in order to be competitive and acquire new processes. New opportunities of investment and partnerships in local markets (in particular in Georgia, Armenia and Italy) bring good examples and practices of expansion to SMEs and Transforming Businesses.
In order to effectively approach these opportunities, transformation process should be planned in a way that the communication plan and the engagement process with new partners, new markets and new customers are based on an integrated approach. The capacity to manage legal procedures is an important tool that can be effectively used for the overall success of business transformation.
According to the in-depth guide on comprehensive legal name change processes in Georgia, overcoming barriers to innovation project had some cases that considered legal name change for SMEs. More specifically, in Georgia, the legal name change is a specific requirement regardless of the type of business and activities. First of all, it requires the necessary changes in legal status of the enterprise, leading to the transformation of the company’s association form or the reorganization of the whole enterprise. Changes in legal status must be registered in the court register, so that the new name is officially valid and effective.
Why legal name change could be required for SMEs? The legal name change process in Georgia is an opportunity for company’s branding and re-branding, attracting new employees and partners and generate additional market share. It is not that rare practice when companies decide to change their legal name. In some cases, this is the result of a merger, a buy-out or sell-out. It can be postponed for a while, but should not be avoided at the end. In the case of SMEs, primarily, there are three reasons for the upcoming changes from legal name perspective: (1). a merger; (2). acquisition; and (3). transformation of the SME into a new legal association. For example, it may be required for joining a business network and, ultimately, expand to new markets.
In this respect, the Association of Business Service Providers (ABSP) developed a practical guide for SME’s which aims to provide step-by-step instructions for business owners in Georgia in order to handle this process legally and effectively. The mentioned guide is going to be published in both English and Armenian languages, this way enabling cross border business transformation and development processes. In addition to that, the innovative approach of ABSP aims to provide business service providers with the practical knowledge of legal name change process so that they would enable the local businesses of adopting to the new reality.