Insight
Using a Virtual Branch Manager for day-to-day Iraqi operations
A Virtual Branch Manager is a named local representative acting within a written scope — not a country manager and not a signatory.
Companies managing Iraq from abroad reach a point where correspondence and telephone calls are not enough. Somebody has to go and look: at a supplier's warehouse, at a delayed delivery, at a customer who has stopped responding.
That is the Virtual Branch Manager's job. They are a Salt coordinator acting for you within a scope you have written down.
What the role covers well
- Attending meetings with customers, suppliers and counterparties on your behalf
- Visiting supplier premises and reporting on what is actually there
- Chasing deliveries, approvals and responses in person rather than by email
- Receiving and acting on official correspondence the day it arrives
- Coordinating purchasing, transport and administrative tasks locally
- Producing a weekly status note and a monthly operations report
What the role should not cover
This is where scoping matters. A Virtual Branch Manager should not be asked to commit you financially beyond an agreed limit, to represent you in any legal or regulatory capacity, or to act on a general authority that has not been written down.
If the role is scoped as "represent us in Iraq", it will eventually be asked to do something it should not. Scope it as a list of tasks and a financial limit instead.
The employment question
A Virtual Branch Manager is not your employee — the role is a service, performed by our staff to a defined remit. If you need a person employed rather than a function performed, that is a recruitment and payroll question, and it can run either way: employed by your own entity, or employed by us for your account. The two arrangements are frequently used together — a Virtual Branch Manager while you assess the market, then employed staff once the workload justifies them.
Powers of attorney
Sooner or later somebody proposes a power of attorney so the representative can sign things. That is legal drafting and it carries consequences well beyond convenience. Salt & Associates advise on and draft powers of attorney; we administer them, track their expiry and hold them in custody, but we do not draft them and we do not recommend granting one to solve an operational problem.
Scoping it properly
A useful scope document names the person and their back-up, lists the tasks they may perform, sets a financial limit above which your approval is required, states the reporting cadence, and says explicitly what they may not do. It takes an afternoon to write and prevents most of the problems the role otherwise creates.
Where this touches legal work. Powers of attorney, any form of legal representation and questions of authority are legal work. Salt & Associates must be engaged separately.
What would you want someone to do in an average week?
That list is usually the right scope.