| Water,
water, everywhere and not a drop to drink ... As executives,
professional service providers, and area representatives have discovered in
recent years, the challenge in the direct investment field is not the
availability of information.
The available information is as vast as the oceans and the global scope
of investment alternatives facing executives today.
Like the oceans, however, it's not all pure enough to drink, or very easy
to navigate safely without experience. Consultants make a very good
living not just because of the knowledge which they can bring to the
investment process, but also because of their practical experience at the
challenge of trying to "purify" and "navigate" all this information into
knowledge which can actually be applied to the decisions at hand.
In fact, the challenge of making sense out of all the available data can
make database research and analysis a viable core business - just
to sort through all the data and try to find value in it. Since the
data comes from so many inconsistent sources, the traditional analytical
tools to support database analysis are not easily applied effectively.
There are now thousands of websites organized by the promotional
representatives of areas which are seeking to attract and retain business
investments, plus all of the promotional materials and advertising which
they use to try to attract the attention of executives. There are all
the websites and promotional materials of the professional service
providers, too. There are databases full of statistics, property
listings, and other potentially useful information.
Sometimes, an obvious and easy solution isn't obvious at first
Almost everybody seems to recognize this problem intuitively. Lots
of information is being "pushed" at investors, but it remains very hard for
executives to "pull" out valuable knowledge and contacts according to their
interests at any given time. We all seem doomed to live with this.
Nobody we know has suggested a solution which works. Many leaders
we know have asserted that the problem simply cannot be solved.
It's like that famous scene in "Raiders of the Lost Ark", in which
Indiana Jones seems doomed for certain as he faces a menacing swordsman.
Sometimes you just need to think on your feet, and change weapons.
Consultants may call that a paradigm shift, or changing your mental map,
or thinking "outside the box". It's really just uncommon sense.
We believe that, by simply working together one step at a time as a
global network or "community" in this niche, it is possible through services
such as GUIDE to soon build a consistent, well-structured base of local
knowledge all over the world. The self-interests of thousands of
capable professionals can combine to quickly change the world.
In short, change weapons. Shoot the bugger, and move on to the real
challenge of making direct investment flows work better than today.
GUIDE is a completely new tool in the direct investment toolkit
The idea isn't to create a massive, centralized database for this company
or anybody else to try to maintain. That would be a nightmare, not a
solution. That would be like trying to have one organization develop
and maintain all of the knowledge on the Internet. Absurd.
Instead, like the Internet, the solution is to provide a consistent
process and the basic infrastructure to empower local people with the
relevant knowledge to openly share what they know so that it becomes easier
for executives everywhere to do valuable business with them.
Then, with such a process in place, one needs to "take it to market" so
more executives are actually aware of this resource, and make use of it, and
can contribute to a continuous process of improvement.
GUIDE : Globally Uniform Investment Data & Experience
The various GUIDE products, from the free Network Survey to the
independently researched Experience Report, are designed to build that
shared base of knowledge within a consistent global framework so that it
becomes easy for investors to find comparable knowledge anywhere on a 7x24
basis.
That is the meaning of GUIDE, which is designed to address two key
dimensions of executive confidence which drive the speed and effectiveness
of potential decisions which drive investment flows :
- the Data dimension - factual knowledge which can be
independently verified and used to help identify and screen an investment
alternative for suitability for the intended purposes, either as a service
to the general market in advance or as "due diligence" by a skeptical
investor or advisor
- the Experience dimension - what peers and advisors have
discovered in practice through their own investment experiences already,
and are willing to share openly as feedback, or privately through their
own professional services to investors.
This changes everything. We're consolidating the world of direct
investment decision making into a more efficient marketplace. It's
like building a financial market for direct investment projects.
Think about that. This isn't a data-aggregation business. The
mission here is to transform the world of direct investment decision making
and change how quickly and effectively capital flows through projects all
over the world.
We aren't simply trying to gather a lot of standardized data elements so
that it becomes easier for consultants or executives to do the same old data
analysis. We are trying to transform how executives identify and
learn about their investment alternatives anywhere in the world, and make it
easy to find the contacts and knowledge they need at any stage of their
decisions.
We have demonstrated, through this initial website and the further
knowledge and research which is available to participants, that we know how
to chart an efficient path through the existing ocean of information,
however salty it may be, and we have identified many resources which
investors can use to make sense of such information for their purposes.
In short, we have to play the hand that is dealt to us. The world
today is full of very imperfect information, but we know how to deal with
it. This website already provides a fair amount of evidence to prove
the point. That wasn't done as a "freebie" just to make life easier
for everybody in this business to do things the same old way. We made
a very substantial investment to "throw down the gauntlet" and show everyone
what can be done if we agree to work together, and get on with it.
This isn't a charity, but it is a business which is rooted firmly in
social responsibility. The work so far is like "venture philanthropy",
not venture capital. We showed what can be done, but now need others
to join us so that we can achieve far more together than is possible alone.
The vision here is to change that world so that direct investment can
become a vastly more efficient market. We may not be able to purify
that entire ocean of information, but we don't need to do so. There
will always be lots of promotional information and statistics available of
marginal value to investors, just as there is a lot of information in the
financial markets which is of marginal value to investors. We just
have to improve the quality of what we make readily available to executives,
whether through the existing sources or new services such as GUIDE. We
need to build a trusted marketplace, full of valuable products and
knowledge, like the favorite retail store to which you always return.
In summary, GUIDE improves the quality of available knowledge by
providing a consistent structure for presentation of local knowledge which
is maintained at the local level or by independent research work. SICR
is then our process to take that knowledge to market, along with everything
else of value which we can find to help executives.
Please
join our efforts
We hope that executives, professional service providers, and area
representatives will all join with us to make this vision a reality.
The launch of this website and these services is just the start, and we can
obviously do even better together, one success at a time.
For many reasons, the world of direct investment decisions has been "a
house divided against itself" since the dawn of recorded history. The
opportunity today is that the challenge which we have dubbed "Corporate
Development for a Networked World" can become a process by which local
professionals, acting in their own self interests, unite to transform the
world of economic development through more effective and successful direct
investment projects worldwide. We can all change the world by work
within our own area of responsibility so that investment can flow more
efficiently from anywhere, to anywhere to benefit us all - even though every
area must obviously focus on the flows within that area.
We're just trying to help that proverbial "invisible hand" connect Supply
and Demand in the global direct investment market more efficiently. |
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