Session 10: FDI Client Centric Support

The following is an extract from Session 10 of the Copilot for FDI Attraction Toolkit Course.

"Welcome to Session 10.  

"Ready to take your FDI client support to the next level?  

Session 10 of the Copilot for FDI Attraction Toolkit is all about helping you align your support with your client’s market entry strategy — using Copilot to deliver smarter, faster, and more personalised advice.  

In this session, you’ll learn how to use Copilot across six key processes — from understanding the client’s business model, to mapping their support needs, and aligning your services with their strategy.  

You’ll discover how to anticipate client challenges, co-design support plans, and simulate leadership diagnostics and strategy steps — just like a top-tier consultant.  

And you won’t just be watching — you’ll be doing. You’ll collaborate on 3 exercises with a IPA colleague, sharpen your performance, and build confidence in delivering high-impact support.  

This session is designed for IPA professionals across the board — whether you’re based in-market, at HQ, or working in a sector team. If you’re ready to become more consultative, more strategic, and more client-centred — this is for you.  

Because Session 10 isn’t just about learning a tool — it’s about transforming how you work. It’s about becoming the kind of adviser your clients trust to guide them through international expansion.  

So join me, and let’s reimagine FDI client support — powered by Copilot.  

This session will help you to provide more customised support, add more value, and increase your FDI client’s probability of market entry success.  

Market entry is problematic. Consultancy studies by Bain & Co, and other firms show that most international expansion project fail to deliver.   

And remember, research by Bath University Management School reveals it can take over ten years to generate more than one per cent Return on Assets from international sales. 

The more value add you can give to your FDI client as a service provider, the more likely they are to succeed in your market which will help drive economic growth.  

Earlier in this course I shared comments from IPA industry leaders who have explained that they expect AI will enable IPA teams to become more consultative.  

We’ve explored this already in the context of consultative selling and pitching. Now it’s time to explore what this means for IPA client centred support.  

The quality of your client support is all part of your competitive offer to FDI clients. Winning the investment is just the beginning, supporting your client to successfully enter your market and overcome the hurdles in their path will help you stand out in the crowd.  

Glowing testimonials from happy FDI clients are powerful. They are a significant marketing asset for IPAs as we’ve seen in previous sessions. They can serve as proof points to validate your promise of support as you communicate your value proposition.  

The business world is experiencing profound disruption by AI. Business models, workflows, and service delivery are being transformed. Complacency isn’t an option.   

Instead AI adoption is a top priority for businesses and government agencies but it needs to be deloyed responsibily, strategically and creatively to maximise the value benefits.  

Your IPA AI governance framework and Gen AI usage policy will provide you with the guidance and guardrails you need to use this tech wisely.  

It will help you to mitigate the risk of using inaccurate data generated by AI. It will also help you to manage any dependency on this innovative technology.  

This is important. Once we discover how powerful AI can be as a content generator it has the potential to be addictive just like some social media platforms are designed to be.  

We also need to be careful about using AI personas. There are risks there to be aware of and managed carefully. We’ve all heard the stories in the media.  

Another risk that has been highlighted is that Gen AI users may rely less on their own creative or analytical skillsets even impacting their cognitive functioning.   

I can see this might be a risk but at the same time I know from my own experience of using AI that it can also expand understanding and enhance performance.  

By using AI to generate questions and to facilitate live user interaction it requires us to engage, listen, consider, analyse, respond, and even advise fictional FDI client personas.  

This simulated FDI client role play can help to sharpen our personalisation and strengthen our performance. Practice makes perfect. But it should still be augmented with peer to peer training in my view.  

In this session you will be deploying Copilot to create a challenging, thought provoking professional FDI training experience involving both Copilot and IPA peers.   

We’re going to step up the challenge level.  

FDI clients look to IPA professionals to help them to:  

• Co-design their roadmaps  

• Think ten steps ahead of them  

• Point out the key milestones on their market entry journey  

• Alert them to common pitfallls to avoid; and  

• Highlight, early on, support they can access at each milestone whether it’s from the IPA, another public sector stakeholder, or from a commercial partner.  

FDI clients look to IPAs to help them:  

• De-risk the design and delivery of their market entry strategy;  

• Accelerate their international expansion;  

• And free them up to focus on their own business development.  

Because their time is precious and they still have to focus on domestic operations.  

This requires IPA pros to really understand the strategic context of the FDI client.   

What is driving their international expansion ambitions? Is it saturation of their domestic market, access to new markets, demand from customers, global competition, pressure from investors, access to funding, IP protection, access to R&D expertise? The better you understand their drivers the more effective your IPA support will be.   

How does greenfield FDI as a market entry model option compare to other FDI client strategic levers of growth such as domestic sales and marketing campaigns, product innovation, diversification, joint ventures or acquisitions?   

In previous sessions we’ve explored how to use Copilot to analyse investment decision-making factors whether they have been expressly identified by an FDI client or identified in hypothetical scenarios.   

These factors and the related location selection criteria provide IPAs with a helpful structure for designing a bespoke support package.  

Just as you’ve worked hard on your unique value proposition to FDI clients, so your FDI clients need to work hard on their own understanding of local market conditions, what makes your market unique, their product market fit, and the tailoring of their value proposition to target customers.   

Too many investors have failed due to insufficient local market research and analysis, not understanding local cultural norms or customer needs, or by failing to adapt to local customer preferences.  

Investors can sometimes also miss out on government incentives such as R&D tax credits or capital allowances; or engage in business activity that is not compliant with local immigration or taxation laws; or miss important international patent protection deadlines.  

Some of these errors may become immediately apparent involving the authorities but others might only come to light later down the line in a sale of the business spotted by a buyer’s professional advisers’ due diligence.  

These market entry challenges are all opportunities for IPAs to add value by leveraging insights and facilitating introductions to experts. Early introductions to professional advisers can be hugely beneficial.  

FDI clients want to know you’ve got skin in the game and that you’re covering their back. You can’t be expected to advise on tax but you are expected to get them to connected to advisers who can. One Fintech investor I interviewed for an IPA review highlighted the importance of an IPA proactively indicating the range of intros that can be facilitated at each stage of the process early on.  

Once you’ve attained a strong understanding of your FDI client’s market entry strategy you will be better placed to introduce the client to local network brokers who can introduce the client to potential partners, initiatives, projects and events where they can interact with potential customers. The insights shared by these brokers represent priceless market intel for an FDI client. These network broker meetings can have significant multiplier effect benefits for your clients.  

It’s all about understanding your FDI client.  

NEXT SLIDE – QUESTION  

So how can you use Copilot to increase your IPA support - FDI client alignment?  

NEXT SLIDE – PROCESSES  

We will focus on these six processes:  

1. The FDI Client Business Model Canvas   

2. The FDI Client Target Market Opportunity Analysis   

3. The FDI Client Market Entry Strategy Canvas, Strategy Selection, Ten Strategy Steps   

4. The FDI Client Market Entry Leadership Assessment  

5. The FDI Client Market Entry Support Needs; and   

6. The FDI Client – IPA Market Entry Support Alignment  

In Part 1 we will explore mapping Copilot end uses for FDI Client Centric Support across Copilot Chat, Copilot M365 apps and Copilot Researcher using the same approach of process map tables and fictional IPA examples.  

In Part 2 we will explore Copilot Chat prompt toolkits across the six processes. I will illustrate these with a series of short stories – just like in previous sessions.  

In Part 3 you will read through another FutureBuilt Podcast episode and answer individual reflection questions.  

In Part 4 you will practice FDI client centric support by engaging with Copilot and a colleague. This will help you to activate what you’ve learned from Parts 1 and 2.  

Finally in Part 5 I will summarise the key learning points from this session and introduce the two Session 10 exercises.   

IPA Persona Audio Clip Extract

The following is an extract from Session 10 Part 2 of the Copilot for FDI Attraction Toolkit Course.

"Here’s Chloe, an IPA investment adviser based in Sydney telling her colleagues about how she used Copilot to generate FDI client business model canvas insights.  

“I’ve got this new agri-biotech client coming in next week, and I’ve just finished prepping with Copilot Chat—it’s honestly changed the game. Their materials were all over the place: pitch deck, a few PDFs, bits of info on their website. Normally I’d spend half a day trying to piece it all together, hoping I hadn’t missed something crucial. But this time, I fed everything into Copilot and asked for a business model summary. Within seconds, I had a crystal-clear overview—value proposition, customer segments, revenue streams, key partners - everything. It even flagged that their model relies heavily on R&D partnerships to co-develop IP, but they haven’t yet explored how IP ownership would be structured in a cross-border context. That insight alone helped me shape the questions I want to ask when we meet—like whether they’re open to joint IP agreements with local universities, and how we can help them navigate IP frameworks to protect their innovation while collaborating locally.  

Then I ran a SWOT analysis using Copilot. It highlighted their strengths—like their proprietary CRISPR tech and strong capital position—but also flagged weaknesses like their lack of international presence and a small sales team. It surfaced opportunities too: our government’s pro-innovation policies, and again potential partnerships with local agri universities. And it didn’t shy away from threats—regulatory hurdles, talent shortages, existing competitors. I’ve now got a strategic lens on their expansion potential before I’ve even spoken to them.  

And I even ran a simulated dialogue with their CEO using Copilot. It helped me rehearse how to respond to tough questions - like why we’d recommend a pilot project first, or how we’d support them in finding specialised talent. So when the real meeting happens, I’ll be ready. I won’t just be reacting - I’ll be anticipating. I feel like I’ve already met them, and I’m walking in with a head start. Copilot didn’t just save me time - it sharpened my performance and gave me an edge. I’m genuinely excited to meet them now. It’s like having a strategist, analyst, and coach all rolled into one. Total game-changer.”  

Book a Demo Call Today with Greg Rogers, the Course Trainer to find out how the Copilot for FDI Attraction Toolkit Course will help your agency to attract more high value FDI faster.

Get in touch with Greg at: info@marketentryleaders.com