We regularly conduct in-depth research studies for individual financial centres.
We can conduct many types of research using the GFCI database that has been developed over the years. The type of research we most perform most regularly for leading financial centres covers the selection of a relevant 'peer group' of competing centres and for these centres reporting:
- The number of assessments;
- The mean of the assessments;
- The standard deviation of the assessments;
- A breakdown of assessments by location;
- GFCI ratings and ranks over time;
- GFCI ratings and ranks by industry sector;
- GFCI ratings and ranks by area of competitiveness.
We then examine the instrumental factors used in the computation of the GFCI and:
- Calculate the correlation of each factor with the GFCI and the sub-indices;
- Take the most highly correlated factors and identify the centre's performance in each of these against the peer group;
- Identify the factors that can be influenced by policy-makers and the private sector;
- Run peer-group specific GFCI models for the industry sectors (banking, asset management, insurance etc) and areas of competitiveness (business environment, human capital, infrastructure etc.);
- Where a centre performs poorly we will run 'what-if' calculations to see the sensitivity of the centre's rating how the instrumental factor scores affect the ratings.
From the above research, we then write a report of publishable quality where we:
- Present the findings of the research;
- Summarise the key strengths and weaknesses of the centre suggested by the research;
- Identify opportunities and threats to the centre as suggested by the research;
- Suggest target factors for improvement;
- Identify potential strategies and priorities for improving the competitiveness of the financial centre.
We tailor our research to the requirements of each centre and often include further primary research including online questionnaires, face-to-face interviews, telephone interviews and workshops. Many centres have found this type of analysis very informative and we are often asked to do follow-up work, helping create and implement strategies for improving the competitiveness of a centre.