Europe
Europe is one of the main focus areas for SAI. Although our local presence in some countries reflect our client focus, we engage in projects that span all over Europe. A lot of our business has been in relation to addressing France for new entrants and other markets for them. We have worked over an entire spectrum of French BtoB sectors, with both SMEs and listed firms, helping towards the development of their international business. Amongst our French institutional clients, we can list in both FDI and export development for SMEs.
Germany is an important market in Europe, SAI has had an office in Germany for over 20 years. Our focus in this case has been on developing partnerships for foreign companies in food, retailing, and also in process engineering. We are also in connection with German clients in renewable energy, more precisely in solar energy; which is where German companies excel and are considered as world leaders.
Companies based in the Nordic countries, especially Finland, have provided a significant source of our business. Such companies, often a high‐tech product or service is offered, the search to expand outside the confines of their home markets. We have worked intensively with Nordic institutions, regional development councils and export promotion agencies in hands‐on SME internationalization programs, and with export development and FDI agencies in benchmarking and active investor search.
North America
Our mission in North America has been two‐fold: we work with European and Asian clients in developing their business throughout North America via Eastern Canada, and we work with our associates in the US in developing innovative concepts in market segmentation.
Many good arguments for approaching the US from a Canadian base exist. In previous projects, we have worked with partner finding in process and raw materials industries; with cheaper‐and‐better Asian textile companies, with a broad array of European high– and medium‐tech businesses.
In the case of larger companies, we have been successful with a number of Canadian acquisitions, for developing country agencies with SME programs and non‐traditional imports. The latter has involved addressing the retail and distribution sectors for clothing and food products.
In addition, we have assisted North American firms in their search for business opportunities in Europe. These projects are both raw materials‐based (forestry and mining) and service‐oriented (software and internet related).
Asia
SAI recognized the relevance of Asia as a necessary dimension of trade and capital projects since its inception, around 30 years ago by establishing SAI Hong Kong. Over the years, the importance of Asian markets for European and American companies has only increased. In 2011 SAI Shanghai was opened to better serve clients in both Europe and China.
We have worked with European clients with service offers (technology & management) for capital investment projects in Asia. Sourcing from Asian manufacturers has been foremost in these projects (especially in machinery and electronics) as well as FDI (finding Asian investors for Europe).
We have also assisted Asian clients in gaining access to European markets via production agreements and acquisitions. Two sectors stand out in particular, the pharmaceuticals and real estate.