Ten years ago, “Internet Plus” permeated every sector, advancing rapidly and achieving success everywhere.
No one could have imagined that “investment promotion” would intersect with “Internet Plus,” giving rise to the innovative “big data-driven investment promotion” model.
This directly broke away from the single-track approach to investment promotion, allowing diverse entities to participate. Local government documents on investment promotion have also proposed “market-oriented investment promotion.”
Market-oriented approaches have become the trend in investment promotion, and leveraging “Internet Plus” has opened a new window of opportunity. However, investment promotion remains fraught with challenges.
Let me venture to ask: exactly where does the difficulty lie in “Internet Plus Market-Oriented Investment Promotion”?
Site selection and investment promotion—every step involves detours
Some argue that under a market economy, the concept of “Internet Plus Market-Oriented Investment Promotion” does not fully hold true.
First, enterprises independently screen investment opportunities and choose regions suitable for their development.
Second, success should not be measured solely by GDP, nor should it be swayed by fluctuations in short-term economic indicators.
Furthermore, the government should focus on improving people’s livelihoods, streamlining administration, and returning to the essence of public service.
At this stage, under a market economy, “Internet-based investment promotion” is essential, but specialized tasks can be handled by a diverse range of stakeholders.
01 Difficulty in Achieving Information Symmetry
Indeed, we are in the information age. Whenever there is even the slightest hint of investment, local governments rush to court investors, overlooking the fact that information can only emerge in a fragmented manner.
Previously, when smart manufacturing companies were selecting sites, they reported being unable to find a contact person at the industrial parks they wished to visit, while places that did not meet their site selection requirements or factory construction conditions approached us for cooperation.
This process inadvertently increases investment promotion costs.
For companies looking to expand their operations and enter new markets, they need information on regions, industrial platforms, and supporting infrastructure to select the best locations that align with their development goals.
For government-run industrial parks, however, their understanding of different industries and enterprises is often limited, making it difficult to immediately identify a company’s core site selection requirements.
To bridge this information gap, both parties are searching for and organizing resources. However, time is a hidden cost in investment promotion. Due to resource limitations, neither side can obtain valuable information quickly.
Is it that corporate needs are “tailored,” or that the infrastructure is “mismatched”?
02 Limited Access to Resources
High-quality enterprises often find it easy to connect with the appropriate government agencies, markets, and capital.
The arch-enemy of investment promotion is “resources”; resources are inherently scarce, and so are good projects.
Corporate investment is a market-driven activity. When it comes to a specific project, if a company chooses Location A, it could just as easily choose Location B—this requires local governments to actively compete for investment through targeted efforts.
Whether it’s local delegations conducting investment promotion—employing the “five-step approach” of showing videos, reading scripts, setting up booths, hosting events, and toasting with investors—or small teams going out to “catch sparrows” in a grassroots style, these efforts consume vast amounts of manpower, material resources, financial capital, and energy, yet rarely yield results.
Faced with limited capital and elusive investors, no matter how hard we rack our brains, it remains a case of “too many cooks spoiling the broth.” Companies looking to invest cannot find suitable locations, while governments seeking projects cannot find suitable investors.
So, where do these compatible project resources come from through “Internet Plus”?
"A craftsman who wants to do his job well must first sharpen his tools." Having a mobile investment promotion tool can make the process more efficient and faster. To this end, Investment Network, based on mobile "Internet Plus Investment Promotion," has launched the [Investment Network Investment Promotion App], enabling seamless connections between investors and investment promotion staff to seize project leads at zero cost and with high efficiency.
How can you attract potential investors? How can you identify the right target companies?
After claiming an organization on the [Investment Promotion Network App], information about government parks and investment promotion staff will be synchronized and displayed on the Investment Promotion Network desktop platform.
03 Fierce Competition
The landscape of investment promotion has long since changed, suggesting that without reforming methods, standing still is tantamount to falling behind. Competition for investment is intensifying across regions; it is no longer about “attracting” businesses, but rather “snatching” them.
It is worth noting that local governments are employing various means to “snap up” businesses, with methods that are endless and diverse.
The “Investment Heat Map” is essentially an “Internet Plus database” disguised as a map. Localities have rolled out hundreds of inspection routes, dozens of investment platforms, and detailed requirements for industrial land and investment cooperation projects—this is undoubtedly the most sincere “invitation” extended to the world.
By leveraging “big data” platforms, local governments maintain databases of target enterprises and key investment prospects. This not only enhances the efficiency of supply-demand matching across the industrial chain but also enables them to quickly identify core enterprises based on industry development trends. In the context of investment promotion, this reflects a proactive mindset focused on “securing projects.”
Precision and compatibility—both are major challenges
At this stage, relying solely on traditional, brute-force methods to “get a clear picture of the situation” is far from sufficient to succeed in the competitive landscape. With the rapid development of “Internet Plus,” traditional approaches are gradually being upgraded and replaced.
As certain investment promotion methods are gradually phased out by the times, the pressure on local investment promotion efforts has inadvertently increased.
If we say that in the past, it was the “struggling students” who had to scramble desperately, then the current situation is so severe that even the “top students” must constantly explore and innovate investment promotion methods, continuing to seek channels and attract projects as always.
In short, as markets, environments, eras, and development trends constantly evolve, it is imperative to move beyond the old model that relied solely on policies, capital, and talent. By leveraging external expertise, think tanks, and advisory groups, market-oriented investment promotion requires collaboration between platforms and institutions to achieve new breakthroughs.
In practice, many regions are experimenting with and adopting various “Internet-plus market-oriented investment promotion” approaches. However, the challenge lies in achieving data precision.
This precision primarily refers to accurate targeting and project selection.
In investment promotion planning, some regions frequently propose familiar-sounding concepts such as “XX R&D Center” or “XX Industrial Base.” While this pioneering mindset is indeed forward-thinking, it often exceeds local capacity, leading to overlapping positioning, resource wastage, and intensified competition among investors.
Another key factor is project suitability, which follows the “three major alignment” principles:
First, the enterprise’s core business and investment sectors must align with the local government’s key industrial plans; second, the enterprise’s investment direction and needs must align with the region’s distinctive industries and resource advantages; and third, the enterprise’s investment projects and resource requirements must align with the local government’s major project layout.
Based on 14 years of hands-on investment promotion experience, the prerequisite for GuChuan United’s precision investment promotion is “data alignment.” This is an issue that all “Internet-based market-oriented investment promotion” platforms cannot avoid when put to the test.
With a portfolio of over 960,000 project resources and experience from more than 7,300 successful projects, Guchuan Alliance insists on strategic planning and foresight. We strengthen “industry + enterprise” research, closely monitor investment trends in local leading industries, and leverage the innovative “Internet + Investment Promotion” model to capture corporate investment dynamics. We continuously advance investment promotion efforts across regions—building new industrial chains where none exist, strengthening existing chains, filling gaps in broken chains, and extending short chains.
In today’s landscape, where investment promotion is becoming increasingly specialized, segmented, and industry-integrated, GuChuan United not only drives the digital transformation and upgrading of traditional industrial investment promotion models to strengthen its core competitiveness but also prioritizes the alignment between a company’s industry and the region’s dominant industries, achieving precise matching between project resources and investment needs.
Platforms and Innovation: Both on the Rise
At this stage, the full-scale implementation of “Internet-based market-oriented investment promotion” still faces certain challenges.
On the one hand, few of these platforms have reached maturity, making it difficult to select suitable partners to entrust with investment promotion.
On the other hand, local conditions vary widely, and only a handful of platforms have established a nationwide offline presence to support investment promotion efforts.
For governments, while many localities have introduced incentive schemes for intermediary investment promotion, implementation remains challenging.
This is because the implementation of a project involves the participation of various departments, requiring direct communication, interaction, and even negotiation between enterprises and the government. Most investment promotion platforms find it difficult to operate independently of both the government and enterprises.
Furthermore, in some regions, incentive mechanisms and application procedures are complex, and many projects have long lead times from inception to implementation—all of which are factors constraining market-oriented investment promotion.
It is worth noting that most investment promotion platforms can only provide information; they cannot fully guarantee the suitability, precision, or even the authenticity of the projects.
Therefore, “Internet Plus Market-Oriented Investment Promotion” relies not only on the transformation of government functions but also on the professionalism and maturity of high-quality investment promotion platform companies.
Regional competition is becoming increasingly fierce, and the costs of investment promotion will rise further, particularly the costs associated with identifying targeted projects.
To secure a foothold in future competition, investment promotion must inevitably shift its mindset by digitally organizing, visually presenting, and disseminating various investment resources online, thereby enhancing both the quantity and quality of investment promotion efforts.
It is inevitable that the market will play a decisive role in the investment promotion process, while the government must keep pace with the times more swiftly; possessing top-level thinking and a forward-looking vision is indispensable.
Crucially, we must neither blindly follow trends nor leave everything to the market, nor should we bury our heads in the sand and take on everything ourselves; instead, we must gradually increase our acceptance of the "Internet Plus Market-Oriented Investment Promotion" model.
