A Japanese food processing company preparing to enter West Africa has identified a local distributor as its preferred partner. The distributor has strong retail networks in three countries, established relationships with local authorities, and exclusivity agreements with two competing Asian brands that are about to expire. The due diligence is mixed. The risk consultant has flagged governance concerns and opaque ownership structure. The commercial team says no comparable alternative exists and the expiring exclusivities create a six-month window: after which a Korean competitor will almost certainly move in. The legal department says the joint venture structure can be designed to ring-fence exposure. The strategy department has produced a scenario analysis with three options. The board has read everything. The board has decided nothing.

SDI provides a defensible basis for the decision-maker: a single recommendation that integrates what everyone has produced, accounts for the timeline pressure, and concludes — proceed now on these terms, renegotiate this specific point before signing, or walk away and accept the competitive consequence.

A firm is engaged in a project in a Caucasus country alongside a multilateral development bank. The project is technically sound and commercially viable. But geopolitical tensions involving the host country have made several MDB shareholders uncomfortable. Board approval, initially expected as routine, has been postponed twice. No formal objection has been raised. No one says the project is dead. But no one moves it forward either. The firm has already committed resources and the host government expects delivery. Without the MDB, the project loses not just co-financing but the institutional shield that made the exposure acceptable in the first place.

SDI, building on its direct experience of multilateral Boards’ dynamics, investigates what the MDB's silence actually means. The assessment is not a scenario matrix, it is a direct judgment on whether board approval remains realistic or has been quietly shelved, and a recommendation on whether to wait, restructure the financing, or withdraw before the commitment deepens further.

A mid-sized Japanese manufacturer with significant international operations faces mounting pressure from foreign institutional investors to strengthen its ESG commitments. An ESG rating agency has downgraded the firm. A European client has signalled that procurement criteria will tighten next year. Two consultancies have proposed comprehensive sustainability transformation programmes. The Board is hesitant, unconvinced the pressure is real, uncertain whether the cost is justified, and suspicious that the consultants are selling a problem they will then be paid to solve.

SDI, drawing on direct experience of how ESG standard are set and applied, tells the Board what is actually required and what is noise. Which investor pressure translates into real consequences and which is performative. Whether the European client's signal means a contract is at risk or a box needs ticking. And what minimum credible move protects the firm's position without committing to a programme that exceeds what the situation demands.

A Japanese company is negotiating the acquisition of a Paris-based trading and logistics company whose principal value is its operational network in francophone West Africa. Closing is expected in three months. But confirmation of the local contracts underpinning the acquisition thesis depends on government renewals in two countries, one of which has just experienced a change of regime. The French seller is pushing to close quickly. Headquarters in Tokyo wants confirmation that the African network will survive the political transition. The two calendars are incompatible.

SDI, combining financial and political judgment with direct experience of both the European and African institutional environments, works alongside leadership throughout the negotiation. The negotiation breaks it into dozens of smaller decisions. SDI is there for each, with a clear recommendation on whether to concede, hold, or walk away.