nortal.com WHITE PAPER Start a business in 2 minutes EASE OF DOING BUSINESS The days when starting a business took months and involved a lot of red tape are over. With the help of strategic thinking and technology, the time to register a company can take far less time than boiling an egg. This white paper shows how this can be done. “Every responsible government has the mission to build and maintain a thriving business climate in order to maximize wealth for society.” Rein Lang, Estonian ex. Minister of Justice The Seamless Society Where government, businesses and individuals meet How to do this? First, by approaching the mission from the investor’s perspective. Investor expects the communication with the government institutions to be transparent, secure and fast. And all this is possible today. Nortal Estonia used to hold the world record for registering a new Nortal helps governments to company in 18 minutes. In 2015, a new record has been set by improve local business climate Oman, where the fastest new company registration was via reforms powered by completed in only 1 minute and 6 seconds. technology. We call them Nordic talent (Nortal) solutions. Both records became possible thanks to Nortal’s expertise in building a seamless e-government. Ease of doing business 03 Setting trends for the world Starting a business Nortal Vision What affects the ease of starting a business: “Every responsible government has the mission to build Investments flow in and and maintain a thriving business climate in order to 1. Number of procedures economic activity speeds up, 2. Time (days) because company registration is maximize wealth for society.” 3. Cost (% of IPC) easy and can be done online in 4. Paid in minimum capital less than an hour. The paid in minimum capital is suitable for Rein Lang, All these indicators are measured by World Bank startups and company is entitled Estonian ex. Minister of Justice and they affect the rank of the economy in the to act without paid in capital. annual ranking list Doing Business. Change should be used not only to speed up company registration, but to rethink the scope of services to entrepreneurs by e-government. The Seamless Society Where government, businesses and individuals meet How to do this? First, by approaching the mission from the investor’s perspective. Investor expects the communication with the government institutions to be transparent, secure and fast. And all this is possible today. Nortal Estonia used to hold the world record for registering a new Nortal helps governments to company in 18 minutes. In 2015, a new record has been set by improve local business climate Oman, where the fastest new company registration was via reforms powered by completed in only 1 minute and 6 seconds. technology. We call them Nordic talent (Nortal) solutions. Both records became possible thanks to Nortal’s expertise in building a seamless e-government. Starting a business 1 Digital 24/7 Business register 2 Digital Business reporting 3 Digital 24/7 Public announcements 4 Integrated Obligations register 5 Business activity supervision Good luck with your new business! Starting a business 1 Digital 24/7 Business register 2 Digital Business 1. Digital 24/7 Business Best Practices reporting register STRATEGY Every country has its own laws and rules to manage business Register all legal entities in one register. registration. Our experts have been involved into creating and Regulate in the law the scope of 3 reviewing commercial laws in multiple countries. Based on our information collected and processed by the Business register. expertise and best practices, we can transform business Legalize digital signing and regulate digital registers to allow doing business easier while reducing signatures. Digital 24/7 Public government costs and minimizing the risks. BUSINESS PROCESSES announcements We believe that business register should also serve the Avoid asking documents on paper as much entrepreneurs and government in other areas than simple as possible. Use digital signatures to sign registration and providing an undertaking a name and number. documents. 4 Appointing and changing company signatories entitled to act Empower notaries or other certified legal professionals to be service providers for on behalf of the company should be made available for Business register to deal with people who entrepreneurs online 24/7 and the list of signatories should be cannot or do not want to use e-services. Integrated open to the public also 24/7. Business reporting and credit Consider discounting state fees for online Obligations register information can also be integrated to the register. services. Provide standardized articles of Business register can be developed to an open „one stop shop“ association for company registration for entrepreneurs where one can communicate with the online. government and obtain information regarding laws and TECHNOLOGY regulations in force and get basic information about their Integrate business register with trademark 5 potential partners. registration system in order to avoid naming conflicts. Future registers are BUSINESS PORTALS, serving people and Avoid duplicating data. Build Business activity government agencies 24/7. system-to-system integrations. Create electronic audit trail for all changes supervision in Business register. Good luck with your Provide walk-through videos for e-services. Use international classification for commercial activities registration and data new business! processing. 06 Ease of doing business Ease of doing business 07 2. Digital Business Best Practices reporting STRATEGY One way or another, companies report about their activities Define national level taxonomy and and wellbeing to government. In most cases they report to practices for Business reporting. multiple government agencies and more than often those Use reporting obligation as a tool to keep reports have overlapping parts. Our vision is to consolidate the business register clean and remove companies that are not active. reporting as much as possible and share data among different Make statistics public on a regular basis parties. such as: number of registered companies by legal form and status, number of new At the same time, governments have information about companies by legal form, number of submitted applications, average time of companies that can be very interesting for potential business registration, number of companies under partners and other market participants. Some of this liquidation or liquidated. information should be made available to everyone in order to increase trust towards business climate. For example, it should BUSINESS PROCESSES be public information who are major shareholders of a Enforce Business reporting at least on company or what are the business activities the company is annual basis. Otherwise information might performing. We know what information should be public and get too old. how to convince decision makers to make it public. Consolidate reporting requirements from different government agencies and provide only one channel for company to report. TECHNOLOGY Make Business reports public and enable search criteria (e.g. name, registration code, commercial activity, investors, signatories). Make company basic information available online and free of charge to everybody. 3. Digital Public Make company information available via Best Practices machine readable interface for system-to-system integrations. announcements Present information in a visual format for STRATEGY information such as Business relations. Commercial organizations’ events that have to be made public Legalize electronic Public announcements (renaming, bankruptcy, removing signatory, etc.) are portal as official channel instead of or parallel with paper based channels. traditionally printed in small font in a daily newspaper. This is expensive and rather inefficient nowadays in the digital world. TECHNOLOGY We can provide a modern solution for that. We know that such Publish in electronic format all change is uncomfortable for newspaper owners, therefore we announcements regarding registration in help to manage the transition for them. Business register. Public announcements should be In Estonia, paper based public announcements are history for generated automatically based on changes eight years already. Everything is online, easily reachable and in business accurate. In Oman, all public announcements from business register are automatically published online. Nortal has prepared a legal change to eliminate a requirement to print public announcement in major newspapers. Ease of doing business 07 3. Digital Public Best Practices announcements STRATEGY Commercial organizations’ events that have to be made public Legalize electronic Public announcements (renaming, bankruptcy, removing signatory, etc.) are portal as official channel instead of or parallel with paper based channels. traditionally printed in small font in a daily newspaper. This is expensive and rather inefficient nowadays in the digital world. TECHNOLOGY We can provide a modern solution for that. We know that such Publish in electronic format all change is uncomfortable for newspaper owners, therefore we announcements regarding registration in help to manage the transition for them. Business register. Public announcements should be In Estonia, paper based public announcements are history for generated automatically based on changes eight years already. Everything is online, easily reachable and in business accurate. In Oman, all