Amsterdam in business, the official foreign investment agency of the Amsterdam Metropolitan Area in the Netherlands, engaged FDI Center to develop a new strategy for attracting foreign direct investment.

The objective of amsterdam inbusiness was to become more selective and proactive in its approach to investment attraction, while aligning its activities more closely with those of important stakeholders in the region.

Over a 14-month period, FDI Center worked closely with the agency’s management and team to develop a new approach for attracting FDI. During this time, FDI Center performed the following tasks:

• Conducted a full review of the agency’s activities, which involved individual interviews with each member of the agency’s management and staff.
• Defined the key benefits of attracting FDI to the Amsterdam region, which provides the basis for prioritizing future FDI attraction activities and positioning the value of the agency to stakeholders.
• Supported meetings with key stakeholders in the Amsterdam region to generate their support for FDI attraction and identify opportunities for collaboration with the agency.
• Introduced a process for “proactive investment attraction” that involves identifying target groups for FDI attraction and directly contacting potential investors in those groups.
• Helped to create a system for qualifying potential investment projects and streamlining the service provided to investors.
• Assisted in forming an “Operational Excellence” team within the agency to continuously improve processes for supporting investors and internal communication.
• Held several workshops with the agency’s management and team and coached individual teams to guide the changes involved in implementing the new strategy.

The project was completed successfully and amsterdam inbusiness has transitioned to a more structured and focused approach to investment attraction based on our support.