A deep understanding of GDP, Balance of Payments, and in general public accounts, is a fundamental backbone for the development of any public policies.

Whiteshield specialises in all types of public accounts at the supernational, national, and city level and how they interrelate with different policies that may affect citizens. These include but are not limited to:

1. GDP
2. Balance of Payments
3. Trade in Services
4. Trade in Goods
5. But also city level accounts and how to link company level profit & loss and balance sheets with national level proprietary accounts.

Some key questions we address:

• How to effectively collect public sector statistics?
• How to measure complex metrics like Trade in Services?
• Which indicators best help measure and track public performance and project impacts?
• Which technique to select and governance model to follow-up on results?
• How to link nations, regional and city level indicators?
• Which survey techniques to implement to ensure higher return?

Whiteshield uses three methodologies to address public accounts:

1. Traditional statistics training that we provide to policy makers and institutions covering all types of public accounts. Examples of public account types include trade, education, investments, and finance, in addition to traditional public accounts needed at a national level such as Balance of Payments or GDP.
2. Advanced modelling techniques that allow to link up company level data to macrolevel data, thus helping to profile and to adapt specific policies to specific regions.
3. Whole-of-country models that help to reflect the impact of policies on public accounts – be it GDP or GRP at a city level, or specific services or goods – and what is the impact of policies on those proprietary accounts. Such models help to better calibrate policies and to understand their impact on public accounts on an annual basis with a potential forecast of up to 20 years.

Understanding the impact of health, economic, social, or political shocks on the labour market is fundamental. This is even more important in times when black swans and unforeseen shocks are distorting expected outcomes (e.g. COVID-19, unforeseen wars). To address the resilience of work and markets, Whiteshield has developed a series of tools and techniques covering trade, labour and city, among other areas.

What does resilience mean?

Resilience refers to the ability to address and absorb shocks in a certain economy. Such shocks could be at the level of a city, labour, or an entire economy (e.g., trade). Some key questions that need to be answered here are:

1. How to anticipate potential shocks on an economy?
2. What type of response to adapt in the short term and long term?
3. What are the structural and cyclical reforms to put in place to ensure any economy is more resilient?
4. How does any economy compare to another and how to improve your ratings?

To address these topics, Whiteshield has created three models:

1. The Global Labour Resilience Index is published on a yearly basis in Davos under the chairmanship of Sir Christopher Pissarides, Special Advisor and Director at Whiteshield. This report is now regarded as an authority in the market to understand what drives the resilience of labour and which policies can be adopted to anticipate and address it. 
2. The Global Freight Resilience Index covers more than 100 countries and looks at the ability of economies to resist trade shocks by looking at the policies they put in place and capabilities within their economies.
3. The City Resilience Index assesses the ability of cities to develop clear comparative advantages that enable them to sustain internal or external shocks.

The corporate world cannot currently operate without understanding the wider environments, the priorities of civil society and requirements of the regulator. Addressing those imperatives requires speaking a different language; a language that both the public sector and private sector can understand and align on. Such alignments mean that any corporation today must invest much more into its public sector strategy.

How to map and address the fundamental drivers of a knowledge economy and productive

Supporting businesses with their public sector strategy means enabling them to speak the language of the public sector and align with the priorities of government.

Whiteshield can help companies looking to improve their public sector strategy by asking, and addressing, the following questions:

1. How to put in place an Environment, Sustainability and Governance (ESG) strategy?
2. How to ensure the organization is impacting GDP productivity and the entire supply chain in having an impact on the economy?
3. How to align with regulatory requirements, hard or soft, that are needed by central banks, governments or specific authorities, while keeping in mind the financial returns of the company?

These questions are being addressed by Whiteshield by looking at two aspects:

1. Understanding what are the requirements of governments and civil societies, and how to translate them into actionable strategies for corporations.
2. Analysing and understanding the economic and employment impact of any organization through socioeconomic impact analysis. Socioeconomic impact means looking at every aspect of an organisation, and understanding how it impacts the economy, employment, trade, and all indicators that typically matter to governments. This can include, for example, analysing the future of work in a company and looking at its linkages with the wider economy to make sure that the work being done is in sync with developments across the entire economy or at the global level.

Building on the concept of Economic Complexity developed by academics from Harvard and MIT, Whiteshield has developed a methodology to gauge relative capabilities at national and subnational levels, incorporating manufacturing and services. The capability mapping enables policymakers to identify actions to strengthen their relative positioning in the knowledge economy and generate opportunities for developing new and related products & services.

Whiteshield has helped numerous governments achieve whole-of-government results by developing and implementing an innovative set of highly effective policies. Our ‘Policy to GDP’, ‘Industrial Policy 4.0, ‘Manufacturing 4.0’, and ‘Performance Impact Tool’ are used by policymakers to design whole-of-government policies and associated economic growth strategies. Our models and approaches were recognised in leading publications and forums, including Harvard Business Review and the World Economic Forum.

Connecting the dots between different areas of public policy is fundamental to understanding the impact on citizens. To grasp this impact, a combination of advanced modelling, public policy experience, and a deep understanding of the private sector is needed.

We address questions such as:

How to rethink government policy measures to complement each other?

What institutional arrangements are most adapted to design and implement these policies? How to best coordinate and align public resources?

What type of next-generation industrial policy to put in place?

What role can digital technologies play in making government more connected, effective and efficient?

Which performance indicators are best adapted to monitor progress?

Whiteshield addresses these questions by using a combination of three elements:

1. Leveraging advanced Data Science Models. These include our proprietary:

• City Navigator: Using agent-based modelling system dynamics and econometric models to better understand how to manage a city;
• Future of Country Navigator: Anticipating and addressing the impact of public policies at a national level.
• System Dynamics Tourism Model: Gaining a better understanding of specific sector impacts based on new technologies and new behaviours such as tourism.
• Modelling is not enough. We use advanced foresight analysis and scenario planning to look at the anticipation of the future of work at a detailed level and the typical new technologies and capabilities built in any economy. 

1. Understanding the future technologies and future trends which are impacting different societies. Government 4.0 is not just about new techniques of public policy but also understanding what is driving the future of work, what is driving the future of technology and what is driving the different innovations.
2. Embracing a national agenda and looking not only at governments as a comprehensive area to tackle but the country as a whole and embedding into any public policy the feedback and the absorptive capacity of citizens, the private sector, as well as civil societies at large.
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4. Combining these three methodologies allows us to comprehensively approach policy reform at the supernational, national, regional, or city levels.

Our economic public policy practice is founded on a globally recognised innovative and highly quantitative modelling and proven experience with numerous governments.

A deep understanding of public accounts and economics is the backbone of any public policy. This includes addressing questions such as:

How to positively transform lives?

How to drive the fundamentals of manufacturing and innovation?

Which public strategies can directly and precisely impact GDP and national indicators?

How to avoid the typical pitfalls and turn generic strategies into concrete projects to implement?

Our economic public policy practice is founded on globally recognised innovative and highly quantitative modelling and proven experience with numerous governments. 

We cover economic public policy areas and sectors, including:

Policy Areas

• Access to finance and financial markets
• Anti-corruption
• Behavioural economics
• Competition policy
• Development Assistance
• Employment & Job Creation
• Energy policy
• Environment and climate change
• Fiscal policy
• Human Capital Development and education policies
• Industrial policy
• Infrastructure policy
• Innovation, Intellectual Property, patents and trademarks
• Investment policy & promotion
• Labour policy
• Political Economy of Reform (or Making Reform Happen)
• Science & Technology Policy
• SME policy & Young Innovative Companies
• Special economic zones
• Sustainable Cities and Urban Planning
• Trade
• Venture Capital and Private Equity

The Risk Practice of Whiteshield is a unique offering for government and corporate leaders to navigate the complexity of the current world. This is achieved through tailored economic, social and geopolitical briefings and intelligence leveraging our unique set of algorithms and economic analysis. The Risk Practice is based on the Global Risk Navigator© which allows our clients to interactively manage the global risks of the company and develop and implement risk mitigation strategies.

The Whiteshield Risk Practice allows our clients to understand dynamics, both in the leadership of the countries and within key publicly and privately owned entities in the country, the level of the risk across the globe and product opportunities. A new look at the “state of the game” may be required to protect client operations and interests, and even expand business operations. Such a perspective integrates both the wider context, but also shorter-term imperative. The Risk Practice allows us to address the following questions: 

1. What is the new political, social, and economic landscape in the countries across the globe? What are the related changing dynamics in the leadership of the countries? Who are the ‘winners’ and ‘losers’? 

2. What is the level of the risk in the country in terms of the economy, health, policy and regulations, geopolitics, climate and cybersecurity? What amount of client’s revenue is at risk?  

3. How might the new landscape and stakeholder dynamics impact client operations, in both the short- and long-term? How should clients best anticipate those fundamental trends and align their interests?

4. Which strategies and tactics should clients adopt? What are the options?

The Whiteshield Risk Practice proposes two fundamental building blocks to answer the questions above:

Risk tools: 

• Full risk profiles of clients’ major products based on the Whiteshield Systems Risk Assessment© methodology. Whiteshield updates the assessment of the overall risk profile of the client based on individual products and their interactions. This process includes revised mapping of the full product mix by the client’s location, developing a quantitative systems analysis of the products, and developing product risk cards for each product. Whiteshield provides country risk assessments detailing stakeholder mapping, revenue risk profiles and product opportunities for each country where the client operates.
• The Global Risk Navigator© Dashboard, which provides clients with efficient access and overview of risk profiles of all global countries of operation. The key components of the Global Risk Navigator© Dashboard include (1) Detailed stakeholder maps; (2) A country risk index with specific descriptions of each risk category; (3) Client revenue at risk by pillars of the risk index; (4) Client product opportunities. The Dashboard is constantly updated to provide in-depth risk profiles of each country, in addition to current revenue risk and interactive stakeholder mapping.

Decision support

• White Papers: Comprehensive assessments including full country geopolitical, economic, and stakeholder analyses linked to implications for companies, with strategic directions proposed. For each country, the assessment includes: 1) mapping of the new political, social, and economic landscape that may impact the perception and operations of client, and 2) the implications for client, possible options, and a recommended advocacy strategy.
• Decision Support Briefing: Structured analysis with recommendations based on a specific problem the client faces. Examples include country regulatory due diligence, socioeconomic impact to support analysis and advocacy, market entry support and others.
• Pre-Mission Briefings: Short risk profiles that provide overviews on specific countries, including the risk profile and overview, analysis of the situation, stakeholder overview, and insights for client executives.

ESG is quickly becoming a standard on the international markets, due to evolving regulations led by the European Union, the alignment of financial analysts’ requirements with benchmark EU regulations, and investors’ expectations. The “ESG race” is spreading fast, and it will shortly involve all global markets. Those organisations that will be ready to manage the ESG opportunity will enjoy a lasting competitive advantage.

How Whiteshield can help

Whiteshield can support organisations to assess options for ESG compliance, but also to potentially update their business models in a comprehensive way, and incorporate ESG as an integral component. To achieve this strategic goal, we address four critical questions:

• What are the minimum obligations for ESG compliance? 
• Which capabilities are needed for ESG reporting? 
• Which organisational adjustments are needed for ESG communication? 
• What are the opportunities for the ESG-based business, and what are the strategic, organisational and operational requirements?

Whiteshield addresses the four questions above with a three-phased approach:

• Phase 1: Diagnostics and strategy direction, including ESG framework review and baseline assessment 
• Phase 2: Options and Roadmap, including options analysis for ESG approach and roadmap 
• Phase 3: Detailed assessment, including detailed review of the company’s financials, products, and client portfolio, analysis of potential new market segments, types of clients to target, recommendations on incorporating the elements of ESG strategy into the company’s products

How should companies enter new countries while managing government expectations? How should they navigate the policy, regulatory, market and compliance requirements while optimising returns? Which specific opportunities, which risks, and which returns should they focus on? Over the years, Whiteshield has accumulated a significant stock of experience and knowledge in how to enter new markets while aligning with government imperatives. From retail to manufacturing and telecom, we specialise in complex market entry strategies and executions, and provide assistance with practical local support.

Our approach aims at addressing the following questions:

• What are the overall economics of a country, growth and employment imperatives and sector regulations?
• Which partners, which players and which intangible ecosystem in the relevant sector should be targeted?
• How to ensure decisions are made on the basis of sound data in a data-scarce environment? 
• Which scenarios and options to consider based on deep business analysis and overall country assessment? 
• Which road-map for action should be pursued?

Whiteshield helps transform government structures, semi-public and private sector organisations by ensuring mandate, resources and capabilities are fully aligned. We bring deep knowledge of public transformation and policy reforms to organisational change management.

Addressing organisation transformation requires an understanding of strategy, identity, and decisions within any organization. Some of the key questions we address are:

• How best to design a public or private sector entity to align resources with the overall objective?
• How to set-up client centric ministries, companies, or organisations?
• Who should be responsible, accountable, consulted, or informed?
• How best to establish effective roles & responsibilities? 
• What is the best way to ensure effective change management?

Whiteshield addresses organisation design by looking at these specific components:

1. The requirements of transformation. 
2. Understanding what the change imperatives of any organisation are. To do this, Whiteshield uses a systematic approach that looks at both tangible and intangible change requirements. The tangible change requirements cover changes related to strategy, the decision process and the cultural & identity. On the other hand, the intangible change requirements cover the untold and unspoken wishes of organisation members. This work is done via focus groups, surveys, and specific interview techniques that enable Whiteshield to better understand what the actual change requirements are, and if they are understood and absorbed by a certain organisation.

Whiteshield supports our clients in identifying key dynamics in the economic, social and political landscape of the countries. Our analysis covers and connects the key trends of how the developments and changes of the economy shift the aspirations in the society.

Economic dynamics and changes affect the well-being and social movements in a country. Social movements in turn can affect the political landscape. In this regard, some key questions to address are:

• What type of fundamental economic and social trends should be considered 
• How social trends affect the political landscape in the country 
• How to ensure public sector support is effective, and avoid typical pitfalls 
• Which policies are trending up and down

Whiteshield can support policy makers to address social and economic challenges with three phases: 

• Phase 1: Diagnostics and assessment of the current economic, social and political landscape 
• Phase 2: Options and Roadmap, including options to address the most pressing social issue, while balancing the pressure on the economy 
• Phase 3: Detailed assessment, including development of the detailed portfolio of public policies and initiatives, identification of the key stakeholders, development of the communication and change management strategy, and implementation support

Good corporate governance is the essential building block of a successful entity and not only empowers the economic responsibility, but also supports the entity’s stakeholder network including staff, customers investors, etc. The application of good governance principles and concrete facilitation is crucial to support and accelerate sustainable growth.

Corporate governance is at the heart of an entity’s functions and dynamics and can have a wide range of influence on anything from rules and procedures to management styles and reporting dynamics.

Our experience in supporting complex public private partnership has taught us that the core aspects of a good governance structure come down to:

Leadership:

Ensuring a suitable and responsible board of directors is actively engaged to direct the entity’s overall direction