Premises, funding, the corporate relationship documented, and a supervisor identified. Preparation that starts before these are settled tends to be redone. The applicant's qualifying employment abroad also needs a chronology check against the relevant preceding period, which is independent of how ready the new operation is.
Do not date the opening from the filing
Business plans often assume the specialist arrives on the day the operation begins trading. Preparation, filing, any visa step, admission, and permission to work are separate events with their own durations and no promised dates. Build the operating plan with a gap in it, and decide in advance what the local team can and cannot do without the transferee if that gap turns out longer.
Hypothetical example: a Port Moody manufacturer of industrial adhesives plans to send the applications technologist who wrote its bonding-cycle specifications, and the operating plan assumes she is on site the week the new operation begins trading. A first review would test that assumption against a calendar the business does not control, and would separately check her qualifying year: one continuous year with a qualifying entity abroad within the preceding three years, in a specialized knowledge, managerial or executive capacity. If four months of that period were spent seconded to an unrelated customer, the chronology needs to be established before any date is promised to the operating team.