Innovation Driven FDI
How to attract Foreign Direct Investments with your Innovation Capabilities
Unless you work in Economic Development, the term “Foreign Direct Investment” - FDI - may not be that familiar to you. Even if you do work in Economic Development, but you haven’t actually done FDI work, this term may sound vague and fluffy.
I did FDI from the U.S. to Finland for four years. I’ve also headed R&D and Technology Marketing teams at a multinational corporation, and founded two startup companies, but FDI, that job was the hardest.
It’s hard because unlike in the business world, you are at the same time responsible for creating the product as well as for selling the product. Sure, you will have a team in your host country (that is the country that will be receiving the investment, in my case Finland), who create beautiful marketing materials on how attractive the host country is. But none of that material is by itself useful to your client, a company who needs to make a business decision on where in the world to design or manufacture their existing or new products.
“They don’t care if your country is the happiest country in the world. They need a solution to a business problem.”
How Innovation impacts FDI
Over the course of my FDI career at Invest in Finland, we experienced Covid, and Russia’s attack to Ukraine. Both of these events halted FDI globally, but the latter hit especially hard in countries that share a border with Russia. Which Finland does.
I had to discover capabilities that Finland has to offer to North American companies which would be unique and attractive enough to get my foot in the door. This is how I started creating industry and company specific papers, webinars, and presentations on what Finnish know-how in quantum, photonics, nanotechnology and materials, AI, camera and imaging technologies, microelectronics, or radio technologies could offer to American companies working in automotive, space, or high performance computing industries.
But the thing about innovation is, you don’t need to be a country like Finland who measures high in innovation measured by output of intellectual property. There are many kinds of innovation, and countries as different as the Republic of Serbia and South Korea are executing Innovation based FDI from their own baselines.
New Online Course
I have been presenting the case of Innovation Driven FDI at the Advanced Foreign Direct Investment Leadership Programme with the Moller Institute, Churchill College, University of Cambridge in 2023 and 2024 to dozens of FDI leaders from all over the world. Now, I wanted to bring the course online for everyone to attend.
I’m inviting a group of Beta Testers to complete the course in exchange for a sizable discount. You can do the course on your own, or as a team. Read more information about the course here, and get in touch with me for discount coupon codes.
From the archives
Invest in Finland webinar series ‘Momentum for US’; Finland’s Quantum Ecosystem Open for US Collaboration (2020)
Invest in Finland webinar series ‘Momentum for US; Multimodal UI – Computer Human Interaction in the Future Car (2020)
Invest in Finland webinar series ‘Momentum for US; Space Technologies and Environmental Sustainability (2021)