Insurance technology & operations

Standing up a 50-person Malaysian operation on a PEO framework

Client anonymised. Named references are available under NDA during due diligence.

The client is a global insurance technology and operations provider building regional capability in Malaysia. They needed staff on the ground, and an office for those staff to work in, before their own local entity existed to employ anyone.

Canaan provided a Professional Employer Organisation (PEO) framework to carry the workforce, the payroll and the premises across that gap — and to hand all three over intact once incorporation completed.

The challenge

Three constraints ran at the same time.

Over 30 experienced expatriates and 20 local staff had to be recruited, onboarded and deployed within three months. A fully operational Kuala Lumpur office, with daily support staff active inside it, was needed within two. And every part of it had to satisfy Malaysian labour law — HR, payroll and statutory compliance — without that compliance work becoming the thing that delayed market entry.

The constraint underneath all three was that the client had no legal entity in the country yet. Until incorporation completed, they could not employ, could not run payroll, and could not sign a lease.

The solution

Canaan ran the full PEO and HR lifecycle: recruitment, visa and expatriate management, onboarding, and attendance and leave administration.

Payroll was turnkey — monthly processing, statutory contributions across EPF, SOCSO and tax filings, and pass-through expenses, administered in full compliance with Malaysian requirements.

In parallel, office space leasing, secure IT equipment procurement and facility readiness were delivered inside the two-month window, so the people arriving had somewhere to work from on day one.

The engagement was designed to end from the moment it began. An entity novation strategy was agreed with the client so that the entire workforce and operational setup could transfer to their own local entity in a single planned move once it was established, rather than being unwound and rebuilt.

The outcome

Over 50 staff — 30-plus expatriate and 20-plus local — were deployed and daily operations activated in Kuala Lumpur within two to three months.

When the client's local entity was ready, the entire workforce and operational setup were novated to it with zero downtime. Full legal and HR compliance with local labour standards was maintained throughout the expansion phase.

The client entered the market on the timeline they needed, and arrived at their own incorporation with a working operation already running inside it rather than a hiring plan to begin.

Each figure is published with its calculation basis on request.

50+
Staff deployed (30+ expatriate, 20+ local): 2-3 months
From engagement to live daily operations: Zero
Downtime during entity novation: 100%
Legal and regulatory compliance maintained

Key takeaways

What carries across.

A PEO model lets a company scale a large, mixed local and expatriate team in months rather than quarters.
Market entry and compliance are not sequential — the compliance work is what makes the entry possible, not what follows it.
Designing the exit at the start is what makes the handover a transfer rather than a rebuild.
A pre-planned entity novation framework preserves immediate operational flexibility without compromising the long-term corporate structure.