As a preliminary remark, N² wants to stress that, if it believes it can run a Government Relations Strategy or handle your Public Affairs needs in Brussels, we do not necessarily pretend that we can do it at the same level in all countries.

We will inform you of our limits and eventually refer you to other firms we believe work with the same high quality standards as we endeavour to achieve.

Re-inforcing our Clients’ impact on the policy- and regulatory decision-making mechanisms

We believe that, to achieve this, Companies should:

• Stop hitting decision-makers cold by adopting a pro-active approach which establishes on-going contacts even if there are no pressing issues or immediate concern.
• Ensure that their lobbying approach allows them to both (1) influence public officials on behalf of or against (proposed legislation, for example) and (2) influence (an official) to take a desired action.
• Position their Company as a resource to policy decision-makers, e.g. by providing them useful information, evidence, data, etc.
• Develop and maintain effective relationships with key influence bodies (e.g. industry and other interested parties) in order to create partnerships and synergies when influencing policy.

The key questions in developing a Public Affairs Strategy

1. What have we got? (internal resources; current existing contacts; strengths)
2. What do we need to develop? (challenges; gaps)
3. What do we want? (goals)
4. Who can help us? (audiences)
5. How do we begin? (first steps)
6. What do they already know about us? Do we need to educate locally? On a pan European basis? What messages do we need to convey? (education; strong Company messages and industry messages)
7. Who do they need to hear it from? (messengers)
8. How do we get them to hear it? (delivery)
9. How will we know it’s working, or not working? (evaluation)

N² can assist you during each phase of the process or you can outsource your Government Relations needs entirely to us.