Embed understanding, transform culture, unlock opportunities.
GIFT Advisory services are designed to support clients in solving problems, but not by formulating strategies or providing recommendations as in traditional consulting. We help senior teams make sense of complex issues, gain consensus, and plan for action. Our work distils years of foresight and on-ground insights gathered from working with clients on field projects across industries and countries.
We work alongside the C-suite and management teams to help navigate rapidly changing environments, push the boundaries of possibility, and capture new approaches to growth, leveraging decades of experience redesigning organisations from within. Our teams provide custom research and support, which may include stakeholder mapping and engagement, curated surveys, focus groups, and facilitated one-to-one discussions. We curate thought leadership sessions and work with teams to think beyond ‘business as usual’ in planning new approaches to growth.
Our work at the frontline of socioeconomic development in Asia allows us to support the innovation of bold commercial solutions to persistent social challenges and systems-level mastery of sustainability. Working with GIFT you can be assured of access to principals, high-touch facilitation and a commitment to genuine problem solving and value creation.
Anticipating the impacts of geopolitical shifts is now amongst the highest priorities for executive teams and boards. Geopolitical tension is reshaping where growth happens, what economic impacts result from shifts in trade and tariffs, and how supply chains adapt. Leaders are being forced to expand their awareness and understanding of the new world order, far beyond the realm of business, even if they are not managing a truly global business. GIFT works with executives and senior teams to deliver customised briefings and facilitated workshops, fostering an understanding of macro-trends, what they mean for the organisation’s strategy, and to identify market opportunities and where current strategy needs adaptation. Leaders move beyond reacting to uncertainty and make clearer decisions about new business strategies, partnerships, market opportunities and long-term resilience.
Provided a major energy firm with an unfiltered Asian perspective on trade and energy shifts, directly informing their multi-billion-dollar investment strategy in Southeast Asia.
Engagement for a leading European chemical company to analyse challenges in key Asian markets and outline new business opportunities for senior leadership.
Companies face a new imperative to reinvent, driven by shifting geopolitics and new trade corridors, the influence and competitive pressures from advanced technology, climate-related regulatory and investors’ pressure, and new expectations from customers and society at large. Despite the external urgency, most organisations face familiar internal constraints: siloed teams, legacy mindsets, disconnection from local markets and a tendency to outsource analysis to consultants.
GIFT’s New Business Frontiers is designed to help clients identify, shape and advance new growth opportunities. The defining principle of the approach is leveraging internal expertise, allowing organisations to harness their greatest asset: their own people. High-potential, cross-functional leaders are equipped to explore emerging markets, technologies, partnerships and business models with fresh perspective and practical intent.
GIFT facilitators curate interventions that include immersive field engagement, strategic facilitation, and collaboration with local partners, policymakers, customers, and subject-matter experts, participants develop early-stage business concepts and pre-feasibility proposals grounded in real-world insight and aligned with the organisation’s strategic priorities.
Compared with traditional consulting, New Business Frontiers confers significant cost savings, as the client’s own talent is the primary resource. The timelines are compressed, as opportunities are developed and evaluated within days, not months. Key managers and staff gain in-country exposure through site visits and stakeholder meetings, while grounding the opportunity in local realities. A sense of ownership and relevant knowledge is embedded into project work which means a higher likelihood of execution success, as compared with consulting reports delivered from outsiders.
New Business Frontiers creates a pipeline of investable ideas, builds ownership among future leaders and increases the likelihood of senior leadership endorsement and organisation-wide support.
Produced a bold new business model for off-grid small wind turbines to produce renewable energy in the Philippines, establishing a partnership with a leading local conglomerate.
Innovated a scalable business framework for AI-driven health tools, forging channel sales partnerships across the ASEAN region.
Created new sustainability-linked business opportunities in key strategic growth markets: Mongolia, Cambodia, and Indonesia.
AI adoption is rapidly increasing, yet there is growing recognition and evidence that return on investment is not meeting initial expectations. In contrast to received wisdom, it is also clear that AI cannot be considered as a solution for every challenge, GIFT works with organisations from the private and public sectors, to examine where AI can genuinely strengthen the organisation, where it may create new risks, and what needs to change. The organisation must be equipped with appropriate governance frameworks, readiness, and a deeper appreciation for responsible AI use to support better decisions, stronger teams, and more sustainable business models.
Increasingly, private sector organisations, governments and institutions need clearer direction on complex social, economic or environmental sustainability questions. GIFT works with clients to help foster an understanding of the issues in context, engage stakeholders affected by the decisions, and develop recommendations that are specific, grounded and practical to implement. The work draws on GIFT’s experience across Asia in areas such as economic diversification, education, talent, sustainability and inclusive growth. Recommendations are co-generated with relevant stakeholders, integrating the practical realities of the policy environment with the specific context and understanding of its consequential impacts.
Developed one of the first global recycled plastic trading platforms in collaboration with regional governments, turning policy goals into a commercially viable ecosystem.
Advised on the development of inclusive fintech strategies to bank the unbanked in Myanmar, bridging the gap between regulatory policy and private sector execution.
Guided a regional bank through the development of a coherent AI stewardship position, ensuring strategic alignment across technology, HR, and compliance before large-scale deployment.
Tapped into extensive networks to forge partnerships with leading domestic banks in Myanmar and provided stakeholder mapping for banking and finance opportunities.
Companies and governments find it challenging to keep pace with the rapidly evolving context of sustainability, and to understand issues from a broader systems perspective. Fatigue has begun to set in, compounded by reporting exercises which have added cost and bureaucracy without obvious results. GIFT works with clients to help them understand sustainability as a systems issue, rather than purely a reporting or communications exercise. How are key issues reflected within the business model, supply chain, market dynamics, and the wider society in which the organisation operates?
We help clients prioritise key actions rather than seek to boil the ocean. GIFT examines externalities relevant to the organisation, maps key stakeholders, and identifies risks and opportunities, always with a focus on priorities. Multi-sector partnerships can be originated through immersive consultation, and a pipeline of validated sustainable products and services evaluated against market potential.
Enabled collaboration between a European agri-business giant and a Chinese farming cooperative, redesigning the supply chain to prioritise long-term ecological resilience and farmer livelihoods.
Developed strategies for appropriate healthcare technology deployment in India, China, and Vietnam, focusing on systemic accessibility rather than just equipment sales.
Produced a detailed feasibility study and due diligence for a new venture in solutions to plastic waste, managing inputs from a global team under tight timelines.
