ElevareExport - Founder Perspectives

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Most conversations I have around FDI tend to focus on attraction: who is landing projects, which locations are performing, who is “winning”.

But to be honest, I have always found the more interesting question is the other way around: where are companies actually putting their money, and how does that link to how they sell into those markets?

That side of the story has shifted quite a bit over the past couple of years.

From what I am seeing, despite global implications and tariffs things have not stopped, but they have slowed down in terms of pace and confidence.

There is still capital moving. Trade is still happening. But everything feels a bit more… considered.

• Decisions take longer
• There’s more internal challenge before anything gets signed off
• Risk is talked about much more openly
• And supply chains are constantly being reassessed

It is not that companies are pulling back completely: they are just being more careful about where they place their bets.

On the trade side, it is similar. Volumes are holding in many sectors, but routes are shifting. Businesses are spreading risk, trying not to rely too heavily on one market or one supply chain.

So I would not call it a downturn. It feels more like a reset.

One thing I have noticed more and more is how closely trade and investment are now linked.

Companies are not jumping straight into setting up overseas like they might have done before. More often, they:

• start by exporting
• build relationships
• test demand
• and only then look at investing

Or they invest in a very targeted way, tied directly to something they are already selling.

It is a lot more deliberate than it used to be.

The UK is still very active globally, particularly into the US and Europe.

But what stands out to me is that UK companies do not tend to just invest and move on. There is usually an ongoing connection back to the UK.

You see it a lot in:

• financial services
• tech
• energy

They will invest into a market, but continue exporting services, expertise, or support from the UK.

So it is not just capital going out, it is an ongoing commercial relationship.

That is probably one of the UK’s biggest strengths, in my view.

Ireland feels more straightforward.

Strong export base—pharma, tech, ICT—and then investment follows that.

There is a clear pattern:

• build export strength
• establish a presence
• invest to support it

A lot of the outward investment is tied into multinational structures, but the logic still holds.

What I think Ireland does well is consistency. It knows what it is good at and sticks to it. There is not a lot of noise around that.

Italy is slightly different again.

Exports are the backbone—manufacturing, machinery, design, food. But more and more, companies are backing that up with investment closer to where their customers are.

You see:

• production moving nearer to key markets
• more involvement in regional supply chains
• less reliance on long-distance setups

It is a practical shift. If your customers are in Europe or North America, it makes sense to be closer to them.

And that’s exactly what’s happening.

Across the UK, Ireland and Italy, the lines between FDI and trade have blurred quite a bit.

It’s less:

• “we export here”
• “we invest there”

And more about how the two support each other:

• exports open the door
• investment strengthens the position
• and both build over time

You see that clearly in sectors like life sciences, energy, advanced manufacturing and tech.

If you are working in this space (investment, trade, policy) there are a few things that feel pretty clear to me:

FDI and trade should not be separate conversations anymore
They’re too connected for that now.

Being general does not really work
The more specific you can be about sectors and strengths, the better.

Looking beyond your own market helps
Some of the strongest opportunities sit across borders, not within them.

I do not think the global environment is weaker, it is just more measured.

Companies are still expanding. They are still investing. They are still trading.

They are just thinking it through a bit more.

And for markets like the UK, Ireland and Italy, that is actually an opportunity if the approach is clear and joined up.

In the last piece, I focused on how companies are changing the way they approach trade and investment: more joined up, more deliberate, and less rushed.

If that was about how decisions are changing, this is about what those decisions actually look like in practice.

What I am seeing more clearly now is that companies are not choosing a single location. They are building across a small number of markets, each doing a specific job.

Quite often, that setup involves the UK, Ireland and Italy at European level. 

A few years ago, expanding into Europe was fairly straightforward: pick a country, set up, and grow from there.

That still happens, but it is not what comes up most in conversations now.

The discussion tends to break down into parts:

• Where should the commercial side sit? 
• Where should higher-value activity be based? 
• Where should production or delivery happen? 

And those answers rarely land in the same place.

There are a few consistent factors sitting behind this shift.

Tariffs and trade friction are influencing where production is placed and how goods move.
Geopolitical tension is making companies less comfortable relying too heavily on one market.
Cost still matters, especially energy, labour and logistics, but it is being weighed alongside reliability and proximity.

What stands out in conversations is that none of this is being rushed. Decisions take longer, there is more internal challenge, and structures are tested more thoroughly before anything is committed.

That is part of why these multi-market setups are emerging as they are the result of more deliberate thinking, not bigger ambition.

The main change I am noticing is not just where companies go, but how they put things together.

Rather than building everything in one place, activities are being split across locations in a more deliberate way.

In many cases, this still starts with trade, testing demand, building relationships, and then evolves into something more permanent across markets.

In practice, that often looks like:

• A commercial or coordination base in one country 
• Higher-value or specialised activity in another 
• Production or supply chain activity somewhere else 

It is not always mapped out perfectly at the start. But over time, it becomes a fairly clear way of organising things.

This is where the same combination keeps coming up in practice.

Not because the three markets are similar, but because they each solve a different part of the setup:

• The UK often acts as the commercial centre for client-facing, coordination, deal-making, and ongoing support back into other markets 
• Ireland is used for higher-value or more strategic activity, particularly around tech, IP and international structures 
• Italy plays a role on the production side, manufacturing, engineering, and being closer to customers and supply chains 

Individually, none of that is new. What is changing is how often they are used together as part of the same model.

This is not a theoretical model, it is how a growing number of companies are already structuring their European footprint.

There is a clear shift towards separating activities across borders. You see:

• Commercial teams in one place, with operations or delivery in another 
• IP held in one location, with production somewhere else 
• Manufacturing positioned closer to end markets to reduce delays and friction 
• Supply chains spread across regions rather than concentrated 

A few years ago, that might have felt complicated. Now it just feels practical, because no single market offers everything.

What is changing is not necessarily the level of activity, but how it flows: routes are shifting, and structures are adjusting around that.

The question I hear less and less is:
“Where should we invest?”

And more often:
“How do we set this up across a few locations so it works properly?”

That shift changes the focus.

It is not just about where things sit, but how they work together.

A UK commercial team working with Italian operations.
An Irish structure supporting activity across multiple markets.
Supply chains built across countries rather than within one.

That is becoming standard.

For a long time, expansion into Europe was framed around a single entry point.

That comes up less now.

What seems to be taking its place is more of a network: a small number of locations, each playing a role, connected in a way that reflects how the business actually runs.

The UK, Ireland and Italy sit within that. Not as competing options, but as parts of the same setup.

What this changes, more than anything, is how decisions are being made.

It is no longer about selecting a single location and building around it. The process is more about shaping a setup across a few markets, each with a defined role.

That brings a different kind of trade-off.

Decisions are less about best overall location and more about balance:

• where to place commercial activity versus where to produce 
• how to weigh proximity against cost 
• how much to concentrate versus how much to spread across markets 

That is why these multi-market structures keep coming through. They allow companies to solve for more than one constraint at the same time.

And it also changes how individual locations are viewed.

They are not being assessed in isolation, but as part of a wider configuration:  how they connect, what role they play, and how they support the overall system.

This is not just a shift in where capital goes.

It is a shift in how companies are putting things together.

Not just entering markets, but building across them.
Not just setting up entities, but linking functions.
Not just focusing on presence, but on how everything works as a whole.

This is not about doing less. It is about doing it in a more structured and deliberate way.

And when looked at that way, the UK, Ireland and Italy are not three separate choices.

They are part of the same route into Europe, each playing a different role within it. 

In the last piece, I talked about how companies are structuring across markets rather than choosing just one.

The next step down from that is this: Where does the investment actually land?

Because in reality, it is not all going into London, Dublin, Milan, or Paris, Berlin, New York for that matter.

More often now, it is landing somewhere else.

Capital cities still matter. They are where relationships are built, where visibility sits, where deals often start.

But they are not always where activity ends up.

What I am seeing more consistently is a split:

• capital cities for access and coordination
• regional locations for delivery, production, and growth

That shift is happening across multiple markets, not just in Europe.

You can see the same pattern globally.

In the US, activity is moving beyond New York and San Francisco into places like Austin, Raleigh, Nashville.

In Germany, it is not just Berlin: regions like Bavaria and Baden-Württemberg continue to attract industrial and tech investment.

In France, Lyon and Toulouse come up more often, particularly in manufacturing and aerospace.

And across Asia, countries like India and Vietnam are seeing investment spread across multiple cities rather than concentrating in one.

So this is not localised. It is a broader shift.

There is no single driver, but a few things are coming together.

Cost is an obvious one. Capital cities are expensive, and that matters more in a tighter environment.

But it goes beyond cost.

Talent is more distributed than it used to be.
You do not need to be in a capital to access skilled people anymore.

Infrastructure has improved.
Connectivity (physical and digital) has made regional locations far more viable.

And supply chains are being reworked.
Companies are trying to be closer to production, partners and end markets.

Put that together, and the logic becomes quite straightforward.

Another thing I have noticed is how detailed decisions have become.

It is not just: “Which country should we go into?”

It is:

• which region
• which city
• which cluster

That level of specificity was not always there before.

Now it is expected.

A big part of the shift is the strength of regional clusters.

Companies are not just choosing locations: they are choosing ecosystems.

Places where:

• the talent already exists
• the supply chain is already in place
• other companies in the same sector are operating

That reduces risk and makes it easier to scale.  You see it in:

• life sciences clusters
• advanced manufacturing regions
• tech hubs outside of traditional capitals

And once those clusters reach a certain scale, they start attracting more investment on their own.

This is where it links back to the markets I have been focusing on.

The same pattern is playing out there as well.

London, Dublin and Milan still matter, but they are not the full story.

A lot of activity sits beyond them:

• regional UK cities building sector-led positions
• Irish cities outside Dublin attracting specific types of investment
• Italian regions driving industrial and manufacturing strength

So when companies build across these markets, they are often building across regions within them as well.

This changes how investment is being approached.

It is less about comparing countries at a high level.

And more about understanding:

• where specific capabilities sit
• how regions connect to each other
• and how they fit into a wider structure

In other words, the level of competition has shifted.

From country, to region.

A few things stand out to me.

First, regions are not just a cost play. They are often chosen because they are the right place for a specific activity.

Second, clarity matters more than scale. Regions that know what they are good at tend to stand out more.

And third, connection matters. How a region links into other markets, nationally and internationally, is often what makes it work.

This is a fairly simple shift, but an important one.

Investment is not just moving across countries. It is moving within them.

And more often, it is landing in places that offer something quite specific, whether that is talent, capability or proximity.

So when we talk about investment flows today, the map is a lot more detailed than it used to be.

It is not just about the capitals anymore.

In the last piece, I looked at how investment is increasingly moving beyond capital cities and into regional locations.

The next layer to that, and probably the more structural shift underneath it, is supply chains.

Because once companies start to rethink where they operate, it naturally leads to questions around where things are produced, how they move, and how much exposure they are willing to take on.

For a long time, the model was relatively straightforward:

• Produce where it is cheapest
• Move goods across global networks
• Optimise for cost

That model has not disappeared, but it is clearly under pressure. Over the past few years, I have seen more companies question it in practice, not just in theory.

There is no single trigger behind this. It has been building over time.

A combination of events has brought the limitations of long, extended supply chains into sharper focus.
Geopolitical tensions have made reliance on certain regions more uncertain.
Tariffs and trade friction have re-emerged as a real consideration.
Energy and transport costs have been far less predictable than they once were.

At the same time, while global trade volumes have remained relatively stable, the consistency and reliability of long-distance supply chains has been harder to maintain.

Taken together, what was once seen as efficient now often feels exposed.

What I am seeing now is not a complete reversal, but an adjustment.

Companies are not stepping away from global trade, but they are becoming more deliberate about how far they stretch their supply chains and how dependent they are on single geographies.

You hear it described in different ways as nearshoring, friendshoring,  or regionalisation, but in practice it comes down to the same thing.

Shorter, more manageable supply chains. Less reliance on one part of the world. More control.

In practical terms, this tends to show up in relatively simple ways.

A company that previously relied on one long-distance supply chain might now:

• keep part of production closer to its core market
• split suppliers across regions rather than relying on one
• build some level of redundancy into how goods move

It is not always a full redesign. Often it is an adjustment.

But those adjustments add up.

Cost still matters. It always will, but it is no longer the only factor driving decisions.

What I am seeing more often is a more balanced trade-off. Companies are willing to accept slightly higher production costs if it gives them greater reliability, faster access to market, and less exposure to disruption.

That is a different calculation to what we saw ten or fifteen years ago.

This is where Europe starts to come back into focus.  Not necessarily as the lowest-cost option, but as a balanced one.

For companies serving European markets, being closer to customers, reducing transport times, and limiting exposure to external shocks has become more important. That is why you are seeing more activity moving closer, or at least moving part of the supply chain back within reach.

This shift is more pronounced in some sectors than others.

You see it more clearly in:

• advanced manufacturing
• automotive and mobility
• life sciences
• energy and industrial supply chains

These are sectors where disruption is costly, timelines matter, and supply chain visibility is critical.

Which is why they tend to move first.

This shift is not happening in one place. It is playing out across different parts of Europe at the same time.

What I am seeing more often is production being brought closer to end markets, supply chains being spread across multiple European locations rather than concentrated in one, and a mix of regions handling different parts of the process.

In that context, countries like the UK, Ireland and Italy tend to sit within the same wider setup, not as a fixed model, but as part of how companies balance coordination, capability and delivery across a number of locations.

The common thread is not the country itself. It is how everything connects.

This is also where the link to regional investment becomes clearer.

As supply chains shorten and become more regional, activity does not necessarily move into capital cities. It tends to land in places that are closer to production, infrastructure, and existing industrial or sector clusters.

You start to see manufacturing in established industrial regions, logistics hubs just outside major urban centres, and specialised production sitting within clusters that already have the skills and supply chains in place.

The shift towards regional investment and the redesign of supply chains are happening at the same time, and for very similar reasons.

What has changed most, in my view, is how risk is being factored into decisions.

It is no longer something that sits in the background.

Companies are actively asking:

• how exposed are we to disruption
• how quickly can we respond if something breaks
• how dependent are we on a single route or location

That is shaping how supply chains are designed.

I would not describe this as de-globalisation.

Global trade is still very much there. Companies are still operating internationally.

What is changing is the balance.

Instead of stretching everything across the globe, there is more emphasis on combining global reach with regional stability.

A few things stand out to me.

Supply chains are no longer just an operational consideration—they have become a strategic one.
Resilience is now being weighed alongside efficiency.
And structure, where things sit and how they connect, is becoming just as important as cost.

What we are seeing is not a step back from globalisation, but a reset in how it is applied.

Companies are still global in how they operate, but they are building with more structure, more balance, and more intent.

And in that context, Europe is becoming more relevant again.

Not because it is the cheapest option, but because it offers something that matters more right now: control, proximity and stability.

A lot of the discussion around global investment lately has been dominated by uncertainty.

• tariffs
• geopolitical pressure
• trade disputes
• elections
• supply chain disruption
• slower growth.

And yet, despite all of that, one thing still stands out quite clearly from the conversations I am having:

The transatlantic relationship is still very active.

There is still a huge amount of movement between the US and Europe, not just in terms of trade, but investment, partnerships, expansion and long-term positioning.

What feels different now is not whether companies are expanding internationally.

It is how they are thinking about it.

Ten or fifteen years ago, a lot of international expansion followed a fairly standard model:
pick a market,
set up,
grow from there.

Now it feels much more layered than that.

Most companies I speak to already operate internationally in some form, so the conversation is less about “where do we enter?” and more about: where should capability sit; where do we build operational depth;
where does this fit strategically over the long term?

That changes the nature of investment decisions quite a bit. It feels less reactive than it used to.

More structured. More connected. And definitely more long term.

A lot of the focus tends to go on US investment into Europe.

And understandably so. The scale of American investment across Europe is still significant, particularly in sectors like technology, life sciences, finance and advanced manufacturing.

But what I think sometimes gets missed is how active European firms still are in the US as well.

I see it constantly across the UK, Ireland and Italy.

UK firms continuing to expand commercially and operationally into the US.

Irish companies scaling internationally through technology, pharma and internationally traded services.

Italian businesses growing through manufacturing, engineering, design and industrial capability.

Despite everything happening politically and economically, the US still matters enormously to European businesses. That has not changed.

Another thing that feels very different compared to years ago is how companies now build internationally.

You no longer need the same physical footprint on day one.

Businesses can test markets earlier, manage teams internationally, build partnerships remotely and scale gradually rather than making one huge move upfront.

That flexibility changes the way companies think about risk.

Expansion today often happens in stages: commercial presence first; operations later; deeper investment after that.

You can feel how much more measured the process has become.

One thing I notice more and more is how early talent comes into the conversation.

Not just general labour access, but very specific expertise, including:

• AI
• engineering
• life sciences
• energy transition capability
• advanced manufacturing
• research ecosystems.

In a lot of cases, companies are choosing locations because the capability already exists there, not simply because of geography or cost.

That is reshaping how markets position themselves internationally.

Years ago, investment conversations often felt very country focused.

Now they feel much more tied to ecosystems and sectors.

You hear companies talk about biotech clusters, fintech ecosystems, semiconductor capability,
defence supply chains,  and clean energy infrastructure.

The question is increasingly:
“Where does this already work well?”

Not simply:
“Which market should we choose?”

That is creating a much more specialised investment environment on both sides of the Atlantic.

This is probably one of the biggest shifts underneath all of this.

Politics and industrial policy now sit much closer to business decision-making than they used to.

You can see that clearly in the US right now under President Trump with tariffs, domestic manufacturing,
strategic industries, reshoring, trade pressure on China, and all of it is feeding into how businesses think about international structures.

Even companies that are not directly impacted by policy changes are still adjusting around the wider environment those policies create.

What I notice now is that businesses think much more openly about political exposure, trade risk,
supply chain concentration, and how quickly conditions can change. That does not stop investment from happening but it absolutely changes how companies structure it.

There is sometimes a narrative that Europe is losing relevance globally.

From what I am seeing, I do not think that is really true.

What feels more accurate is that Europe is becoming more specialised.

Different markets are strengthening around different capabilities:

• finance
• research
• engineering
• manufacturing
• technology
• energy
• industrial expertise.

And that specialisation is part of what continues to attract investment from the US, while also helping European firms scale more effectively into the American market.

What I find interesting is how often the UK, Ireland and Italy now sit within the same broader international structures, but usually for very different reasons.

The UK still plays a major role around finance, legal infrastructure, business services and international coordination.

Ireland remains deeply connected into US corporate ecosystems, particularly across technology and pharmaceuticals.

Italy brings industrial depth, engineering capability and manufacturing strength.

Individually, those strengths are not new.

What feels different now is how companies combine them.

Not as isolated choices, but as part of wider transatlantic operating structures.

And that applies in both directions: US firms building across Europe, and European firms continuing to scale into the US.

I do not think the transatlantic relationship is weakening.

If anything, it feels more strategic than before.

Less about rapid expansion.
More about long-term positioning.
More about capability, resilience and operational fit.

And despite all the noise around fragmentation and uncertainty, the US and Europe still remain deeply connected economically.

That relationship is changing shape, but it is definitely not disappearing.