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Our Mission
We personally introduce the executives who are responsible for
business location strategies and site selection choices to relevant professionals and economic development
contacts according to their needs. We also perform targeted market
research, marketing,
and relationship development work for such professionals and communities to help them reach
relevant
executives who would value their capabilities.
Contact us for
independent research, assistance, or professional referrals in confidence.
Our work also helps communities to develop, present, and
continuously improve their competitive case to attract and retain valuable
business investment projects. This reflects competitive analysis of existing business
clusters, supply chain linkages, and their competitive strengths, weaknesses,
and perceived opportunities or threats which may influence their investment promotion and business retention strategies.
We work with national, state, provincial, regional, and
local economic development organizations which actively compete to get "on
the short list" for major projects because of the many benefits which a
growing base of successful companies brings to their areas. |
Value Proposition - and Delivery We deliver value by
independently organizing market research field work and useful visits in
cooperation with leading professional business advisors and corporate
executives who are responsible for business location strategies and project
site selection decisions.
As executives redeploy their operations to pursue the
perceived strategic opportunities of a changing world, we make it easier for
them to find the places and services they need.
We introduce professionals whose capabilities are relevant
to the promotional strategy of sponsor areas so that they become familiar
with the potential opportunities for their clients, maintain timely
knowledge of the area, and provide helpful feedback and services to
improve the competitive investment attraction and promotional efforts of
such areas. In short, we help communities to become
more competitive as they seek new investments. We help companies and
their advisors to become more competitive in a fast-changing world.
Our work also helps the consultants to evaluate unfamiliar locations or
maintain timely market knowledge and networks of contacts in areas of
potential interest to their clients. |
Company Profile
We don't compete with site selection consultants or publishers.
Instead, we work independently in cooperation with multiple professionals.
We refer new clients to them as appropriate, and help to develop more efficient
and effective market research tools and networks of contacts to quickly find and
evaluate potential solutions for the needs of their clients. We make their
business location research work easier - try our custom
SEARCH features in this regard, which create a new and easy way to look
for relevant locations.
At the same time, we independently help communities to draw
the attention of such professional advisors and corporate executives to what
their areas have to offer. We specialize in targeted marketing and corporate
relationship development and referral work, including cluster development
initiatives through executive-level B2B networking activities.
We reach executives who may welcome assistance with their
research or investment plans, and we introduce them to relevant service
providers and other resources according to their needs. Rather than
compete with such
professionals, we can refer new clients to them like a concierge, creating a "win-win" situation
as we help
executives to efficiently find who has the relevant capabilities they are seeking
in this niche market. |
Global Direct Investment
Solutions
www.gdi-solutions.com
This "On The Short List" service basically involves the
selective
development of professional "familiarization tours",
market research work, introductory referrals, and feedback about
competitive market considerations in cooperation with leading business
location selection and incentives consultants.
More about GDI Solutions.
Article :
Getting "On The Short List" (download
PDF copy)
This complements the work of GDI-Solutions as an independent
and more comprehensive
global distribution channel or marketplace to share useful market knowledge, information resources, and
contacts in this niche. Our marketing, market research, website content and personal referral work helps executives
and their project advisors to find what they want.
In effect, this is somewhat like a concierge service, and
the field research work performed through familiarization tours helps to
improve the market knowledge we share and our professional ability to provide
relevant project referrals with greater confidence. |
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Experience : 1000+ projects
Bruce Donnelly led the North American
business development work of the site selection and corporate location
strategy consultants of
PricewaterhouseCoopers for five years before setting up this business, after
previously doing investment promotion work for a regional economic
development agency.
After setting up Global Direct Investment Solutions a few
years ago, Bruce developed better contacts and working relationships among
many of the top professional advisors, particularly because of the ability
to introduce potentially well-qualified prospective clients as an
independent marketing, B2B networking, and referral service. This has
expanded to include collaboration with a global B2B partnering service in
England.
Bruce has personally met with executives at more than 1000
companies to support their expansion plans, and has talked to countless others to
qualify their project interests. |
Three large networks of contacts We share practical
market knowledge and contacts through working relationships with :
- Top executives facing strategic choices about
where they do business - such as where to establish, expand, move or
restructure their operations or alliances as markets and plans change
- Professionals representing areas which are
motivated to attract and retain companies
- Professional service providers for projects in
North America, Europe, Asia or worldwide
Our main website attracts 300,000+ visits per year and
provides links to 20,000+ resources worldwide. Relevant content and
links can be found quickly through the directory structure and navigational
links or the Google site search feature. |
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What is The Professional Site Selection Tour? Refer
to the more detailed description, but the
context is that our many GUIDE services (Globally Uniform Investment Data
and Experience) focus on two dimensions of project planning - the objective
data (whether the location seems to match project criteria) and
subjective experience (what other investors say it's really like to
do business there).
Both are factors in the decision about whether a potential
location is perceived to be relevant to a project, and thus likely to
get "on the short list" for closer scrutiny out
of many alternatives. Consultant visits can also be useful in this
regard - especially if the local market knowledge shared through such tours
is actually shared, as we do here.
We already provide many services to share better market
knowledge on the data dimension in a globally consistent way, but the event
preparation and field research work involved in the Tour in cooperation with
sponsors and top site selection consultants is now intended to share better
knowledge about the experience dimension while, at the same time, helping
both the consultants and the communities involved..
The two "data" and "experience" dimensions combine for greater confidence in
business location choices. Tour visits can expand such market
knowledge and increase confidence in the relevance of a location. The
Area Profiles and Area Reports (Tour visit reports) make it easy to both
browse through such locations (Locations and
Area Search) and to find them through such
executive summary content by using the SEARCH
tools.
This should help communities to get "on the short list" to
win relevant projects. It should also speed up the research and
planning work so that projects develop faster and better. |
How does the "On The Short List" website differ? The
www.gdi-solutions.com site serves
as a global distribution channel or marketplace for this niche, making it
fast and easy for executives and their advisors to
search and find over 20,000 sources of information about locations or
professional services of potential interest. By contrast,
OnTheShortList is far more selective as a site selection research tool which
highlights those areas and service providers which support our market
research work.
It consolidates local market knowledge at a high level
(directories and executive summary presentations designed to facilitate
searches for locations or services) and provides links to the details.
Executive summary content about business locations and services (Surveys,
Profiles, and Reports) complement the directories to make it easy to find
relevant contacts.
This makes it as easy to find out what differentiates an
unfamiliar rural community or county as to research a state or city.
It similarly makes it easy to find "boutique" consultants in this niche,
rather than just the large brand name firms, and discover what
differentiates their services. It also supports the project "lead
generation" work and independent relationship development, marketing, and
project referral work we do
in cooperation with participating organizations.
This website, in contrast, will focus in greater depth on
Tour host and sponsor locations, as well as active participants in our other
services. Although the SEARCH features
make it convenient for the executives and consultants to find information
all over the world, which helps to attract their interest, we will highlight
participating areas and services on this site. That
knowledge will also be shared through our main website, but this website
will provide another way to highlight such areas and services to the
executives and advisors they want to reach, and support our independent
marketing and referral work on their behalf. |
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Not to be confused with : Site Selection magazine
Global Direct Investment Solutions, the "On The Short List" services, and
the Professional Site Selection Tour have no affiliation with Site Selection
magazine, the official publication of IAMC (Industrial Asset Management
Council), which is a service of Conway Data. We are independent - not
affiliated with any one publisher, association, or service provider.
GDI Solutions has advertised in Site Selection and other
magazines which are respected publishers in this niche market,
and we may choose to do so again in the future. We do not compete.
We provide very different services.
They publish magazine articles and are funded by
advertising. Their market research work focuses on developing
interesting stories for subscribers and their advertisers. We focus on
personally helping executives and their professional advisors to
find what they are seeking for a specific
project. We perform marketing and relationship development work to
personally reach such executives and directly support their own project
interests through well-qualified referrals, rather than just to provide a
free magazine subscription.
Various associations and publishers in this niche market
are listed on our main website. Once again, this reflects the fact
that we do not compete. Our work is complementary. They provide
one way to "reach" potential investors - through advertising, PR coverage,
and advertorials. We provide a very different service, with no known
competition for what we do, anywhere in the world.. |
We are not a publisher - we serve top executives directly
Our role is to help executives and their professional advisors to identify
and research the business locations and services which may help them to
develop their own projects faster and better.
Although we share our research work and visit reports as a
service to our sponsors and the executives and business advisors we serve,
we do not publish and distribute a magazine, nor is our work funded by
advertising sales. We publish content because it helps us to provide a
better service by openly sharing useful knowledge about the service
providers and communities we know in a globally consistent way.
In short, our goal isn't to grow advertising sales and a
subscription base to justify higher advertising rates. Our goal is to
find and refer major projects to the people who can help executives to grow
their companies and thereby benefit the communities where they locate.
"Project lead" referrals are not an incidental reader service for us to help
promote advertising sales. They are the core of our business.
The content we publish just makes it easier to connect executives,
professionals and communities as our fundamental purpose.
Our role is more analogous to a concierge - organizing
useful market knowledge and contacts in advance with the support of our
sponsors to provide personal, relevant referrals in response to specific
investment project interests by the executives and business advisors we
serve. The focus is to introduce them to do business with each other,
rather than just to publish news about recent developments or trends in this
market. |
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