BELFAST BRIEFING:A can-do attitude and rapid progress of trade to friendship is drawing in much-needed capital, writes FRANCESS McDONNELL

COULD THE key to solving Northern Ireland’s impending economic nightmare lie with a man named Harry.

The North’s new and very first investment ambassador Hanif Lalani certainly believes so.

Lalani, a former high-flying chief executive with telecoms giant BT and a city of London favourite, has “volunteered” to help sell Northern Ireland to potential new investors.

Lalani spent five years in the North, first as finance director of BT Northern Ireland and then as chief executive of the region. It gave him, he says, a very good understanding of how business operates in the North. He believes that, even in the current gloomy global investment climate, Northern Ireland has something special to offer.

Lalani had no trouble making friends during his time in the North. That’s where Harry comes in. Lalani, who went on to greater things, not least his appointment as chief executive of BT Global Services, recalls a phone call he got just a little while ago.

“Harry, who used to be one of my customers in Belfast, became a good friend of mine through the dotcom years. When we were putting broadband into Northern Ireland, he rang me on my mobile.

“He said ‘I’ve got a BT engineer here and I’ve just been telling him that I know you and he didn’t believe me. Will you have a word with him?’

“So, of course, I spoke to the engineer and we had a good laugh about it,” Lalani says.

That, according to the telecoms high-flier, is the essence of what makes Northern Ireland such a good investment location. “People are very straightforward, when you make a deal, it’s a deal. It’s easy to do business in Northern Ireland and people are genuinely willing to work with you.

“You start off as business acquaintances but then you find that people genuinely start to look out for you and you make friends,” Lalani adds.

He says the fact that Harry and he are still able to call each other at the drop of a hat even though they don’t directly do business together shows that, once you make a contact in the North, you make it for life.

Lalani intends to concentrate his campaign to bring new jobs and investment to the North primarily in London and India. His first official duty will be to travel to India next month with Invest NI chief executive Alastair Hamilton to take part in a major public relations exercise.

He says there are cultural similarities between Northern Ireland and India which will make it less of a hard sell and more of a “come see” proposition.

Lalani, who is currently in Goa, said the attitude he found in the North, where people “want to make things happen”, is exactly how Indian-headquartered companies approach business.

“I also know that when I go out to dinner tonight, there will probably be three generations sitting around the table talking business and that’s something that you see a lot of in Northern Ireland too.

“Family values are very important to Indian and Northern Irish companies – that family connection is very strong and that is a very strong selling point for Northern Ireland,” he says.

He believes that the good experiences established Indian investors have had on the ground in the North will encourage others to follow.

Since Lalani helped facilitate the first Indian investment in 2002, he says Northern Ireland has never looked back.

Mumbai-headquartered HCL BPO, one of India’s original IT start-ups and a global contact centre operator, acquired the former BT Apollo Road call centre in Belfast in a multimillion pound deal.

Since then, a growing cluster of Indian investors such as Polaris, Pix Transmission, Tech Mahindra and Firstsource have established major operations employing thousands of people.

Lalani believes the welcome Indian investors have received in the North has been one of the key factors in their success in the region and has helped to grow the cluster of investors.

“Indian investors have been made to feel part of the community very quickly. They have been very quickly and easily able to establish their operations and make Northern Ireland work for them as an investment location,” he said.

Lalani said one of his key aims is to get potential investors to come visit the North.

“Once people go to Northern Ireland and get on site and have a look around and a feel for the place then I believe that the conversion rate from opportunity to sale is going to be so much higher.”