Global Direct Investment Solutions

Corporate Development for a Networked World

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Short form GUIDE Network Survey

Bruce Donnelly   bruce@gdi-solutions.com    (Biography)

Executives and their advisors can already access your website through our regional directories of contacts for free to obtain further details.  The function of the Survey is therefore to highlight key points about the area in a consistent and succinct way, like an executive summary to call attention to unique services or advantages of the area which may arouse interest among investors.  It is also intended to help raise awareness of an area, and minimize misperceptions.

For those areas which do not yet choose to participate in our more comprehensive services to support investors, such as our GUIDE Area Profile and SICR marketing and referral work, please inform us briefly for reference as we work with investors: 

1.  Contacts : who to call in your area to support project referrals, and how investors or their advisors can reach them.  If there are multiple contacts, please clarify who to call first, or for what purpose.  Name, position, phone, fax, e-mail, address

2.  Geographic area served, and other organizations you partner with to serve investors (such as those with other roles or overlapping areas of responsibility).

3.  Scope of support services offered to existing or potential investors in the area.  What do you do for them directly, or through area partners?  Why should they contact you (or your partners)?

4.  Suggestions of reliable sources of information and local knowledge to support investors (other than your website).  For example, another local organization may offer good labor market information, logistics expertise, project finance, etc.

5.  Information challenges which investors may confront (misleading or obsolete data, stereotypes, etc.).  Please  suggest reliable sources other than your own website since that is already readily available for reference.

6. Competitive advantages of the area from the perspective of potential investors.  Examples.  Why are past investors glad they set up there?  What differentiates the area?

7. Highlights of recent major changes, new investments, or closures in the area.  What might investors or their advisors not know which might arouse interest or influence their decisions?

Replies which we agree may be of likely interest to executives can be published in summary form upon request for a small fee (see the Order Form), as illustrated by various examples.

Please alert us if a Survey reply contains any sensitive content for our own reference which should not be openly published.  Since the purpose of the Survey is to share very basic local knowledge with executives and their advisors, the replies should not be sensitive.

We publish further area details as one aspect of the GUIDE Area Profile service, which involves a closer working relationship to become more familiar with the area and maintain timely knowledge through periodic contact with local area representatives. 

The GUIDE Area Profile service is recommended for those areas which may want us to maintain and publish greater local knowledge about the area than the basic Survey response provides. 

SICR is for those areas which want to more actively support our ability to develop and maintain relationships among leading executives for major project referrals, typically to complement the reach of their own promotional activities.

Refer also to the Order Form for our various other services.

Please send GUIDE Network Survey replies to :

survey@gdi-solutions.com

Please also consider making referrals, as explained in the section about recycling active project work.  Areas can potentially benefit by making more executives aware of these services, and by encouraging peers in other areas to do the same.

If participating areas help introduce more executives to our services, we will have more referrals to offer than just the projects we can identify  through our own relationships and marketing efforts.  The executives involved will probably be glad to receive a helpful suggestion even when they may not have been interested in investment in your area at this time. 

We can also take referrals into consideration in the pricing of GUIDE and SICR services.  Good referrals can drive down the costs of SICR in particular, and grow our market reach faster through the combined capabilities of a growing Network of active Participants.

Publication of Survey responses

This website will indicate when we have a GUIDE Network Survey response on file (a column in the regional tables).  This will show the date when the Survey response was received and, if the response is published, will link directly to such content.  When a Survey reply is not published, it will still be available for our internal reference through a global contacts database we use as we work with investors and their advisors.

A published Survey response can include links to relevant website pages for the seven topics, rather than just to the home page of the website of the Survey respondent.   This is intended to make it easier for executives and their advisors to find such information quickly.

The GUIDE Area Profiles are more detailed than published Survey replies, with more such links available, as one aspect of a working relationship to maintain better knowledge of the area.  Contrast the above Survey response example (which could be more detailed) to the Area Profiles for Tri-Cities, WA or County Durham, England.

A six page form is available to download which elaborates on the various topics above and provides for a very structured and thorough but succinct response by e-mail to expand our knowledge of any area in a consistent manner.  This knowledge is very helpful for our work among investors, particularly at the "long list" stage of planning.

Please note that we do NOT need to be on mailing lists or e-mail broadcasts to maintain knowledge of developments in an area.  It is far more useful for us to receive the periodic Survey response and an updated Survey whenever the content has changed significantly.  By the nature of the topics, changes to replies should be infrequent.

Survey responses are more easily integrated into the process we use to support investor enquiries.  Promotional materials are too numerous and inconsistent in content and structure to easily find the information we need and integrate it into our records so that it is available when we actually need it.  Although the Survey is simple, it provides this very basic structure to help organize information in a consistent way.