The Benefits of our Platform

For a country to prosper, it must engage globally to promote relations with other nations, participate in agreements, build a brand, care for its citizens abroad, facilitate trade, and much more. As globalization and environmental challenges force closer international cooperation and technological advancements make it easier for people to travel and for companies to do business around the world, countries face increasing challenges to fulfill their duties competitively and effectively.

The speed of information flow has become more critical than ever, especially during pandemics and emergencies. Competition in areas such as tourism promotion and foreign direct investment is steadily increasing, and the game is moving more and more into the digital space.

The scenario that has surfaced over time is that limited government budgets and resulting underinvestment in technology infrastructure increase the difficulty for countries to meet the increasing demand of services and growing expectations of citizens, tourists, and investors.

The lack of essential digital capabilities may force a country to forgo certain activities, spend more money to scale old systems and processes, and accept larger risks. Such impediments can stifle an organized approach to promote a country’s resources and to react to opportunities. In the worst instances, such shortcomings can even lead to a state of digital chaos with grave long-term economic impact.

Countries that encounter such challenges may be losing millions of dollars every year in wasted opportunities and added costs. The most developed nations continue to dominate the FDI game, drive tourism, reinforce their brands, and are increasing the wealth gap.

The answer to this inequality is the adoption of digital technology in a democratized way: obtain an online platform to better access, create, and control information for all of your foreign representatives and manage your pool of resources and web entities for a price that is a fraction of your return, guaranteed.

That is the essence of the Foreign Service Network.

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How The Platform Works

Our tools and services are readily available via an online platform (platform-as-a-service) that is scalable and ready to use. No downloads or installations are necessary. Countries become clients by enrolling in a paid subscription, which initiates the creation of a country account and access to the analytics tool, website builder, collaboration suite, and content management system.

Members of a country account can then access their environment and manage and maintain all content online via an internet browser on a computer, mobile, or tablet. Each country account can create the desired number of websites for its foreign end points and register the desired number of individuals to use the provided services.

Each country account receives dedicated client service and technical support. Communication with our staff is handled via a customer service portal and emergency contacts are provided for specific use cases.

Our secure platform provides bank-level SSL encryption for all critical areas. Hosting is serviced via the cloud in a secure location and your website structure obtains a sub- domain on FSN’s exclusive URLs embassy.network, consulate.network, and honoraryconsulate.network. You may opt to have an on-premise solution to keep the hardware physically located on your properties and to use your own top-level domain for the website structure (additional costs may apply).

Updates and new features to the subscribed functions of our platform are continuously developed and provided as part of the service.

We are an independent privately-held organization, free from any foreign control. Our headquarters are in Switzerland and we are advised by an international advisory board of foreign relations experts and dignitaries.

Tools
Scalability
Security
Support
Updates

Analytics Tool

With our analytics tool, you can promote data-driven decision-making to recognize risks and opportunities and to optimize your resources. Our business intelligence and machine learning capabilities allow you to gain valuable insights from available data and use it to plan or validate personnel utilization, operational activities, priorities, engagements, and more.

As the volume of activities grows, so does the volume of information and complexity. After a certain threshold, observational decision-making tends to limit an organization’s understanding of triggers, causes, and influences, and increases the risk of making false or outdated conclusions. While humans will remain an integral part of the decision-making process, the use of descriptive and prescriptive analytics ensures that these decisions are made with the best possible information at hand.

When processes are digitized and relevant data elements are captured and complemented with external data sets, they can provide a comprehensive view and better understanding of past and current performance, as well as serve as input for forecasting methods. Opportunities and issues can be better identified and money can be better allocated to meet priorities that may include:

  • Consular service optimization

    Understand the cyclical cycles of various inquiries, learn where most errors or delays occur, and route processing to more cost-effective hubs that can be adjusted for expected work loads.

  • Trade activity prioritization

    Get insight on which regions in the world offer the most applicable and favorable opportunities for your domestic firms wishing to expand and for your home markets to engage in order to attract foreign direct investment.

  • Content search and analysis

    Provide computing power to scan thousands of daily news articles and prioritize and pre-package the relevant ones for your attachés, so they can more effectively assess and report on the content.

Screenshot of a generated website

Website Builder

With our website builder, you can achieve a unified look and standardization across all of the websites for your foreign service posts. The websites are connected to the central content management system and come with a full feature set and menu roster that can be adjusted to your preferences. The websites remain under the control of the Foreign Ministry and members can be assigned to the various websites as needed. This assures permanence of the online presence and easy transition of personnel.

Optimized content ownership allows information to be managed in 3 tiers and to spread it globally in real-time without interference. Foreign Ministries can create, edit, and delete syndicated pages, news and events that instantly show on all websites across the world. Embassies can do the same for websites in their jurisdiction. Consulates General and Honorary Consulates can do the same on just their respective websites.

When foreign service endpoints have permanent and managed websites, they can be promoted on the local and regional level. The relevant agencies and communities will use them as a source of information. This builds extended reach to a public audience and may bring advantages that include:

  • Emergency response

    Reach your constituency quickly and effectively by posting global alerts in real-time, communicate last-minute developments or changes during disasters or crises, coordinate repatriation efforts, or collect responses.

  • Enhanced publicity

    Post important news, such as election procedures or results, share significant accomplishments, such as economic successes or political achievements, and respond to international media articles to offer your perspective.

  • Tourism promotion

    Showcase your country assets and attractions with ease and zero cost to the growing number of cumulative site visitors.

Screenshot of a generated website

Collaboration Suite

With our collaboration suite, you receive a digital environment in which you can virtually correspond, share news, and work on initiatives to advance your country’s interests. The environment is only accessible with a username and password and is protected with bank-level SSL encryption.

The suite offers a centralized dashboard to display information that needs to be quickly accessible to all your members at any time. This eliminates the need for anyone to save or print any disseminated information locally that may get lost.

An info wall gives any member the ability to add an announcement, which then appears on an endless timeline, similar to what you see in social networking sites, such as Facebook. The announcement can be addressed to a variety of groups, who will then see the message in their timeline. All posted messages receive a time and identification stamp. Additions to the info wall are accompanied by email notifications to add the function of a distribution group. Announcements are then available online and in one’s email inbox, which eliminates the need to send emails manually.

Other features such as file sharing, lists, and Q&A give your members the ability to work on common projects that may require international input or cooperation. Uploaded files receive designated ownership types that come with different access levels.

When such a secure collaboration space is made available, it can be used to engage your members, enhance communication, and advance critical work efforts that may contribute to:

  • Improved economic development efforts

    Help your domestic companies find export and expansion opportunities and drive efforts to attract foreign direct investment.

  • Identification of threats and opportunities

    Use your network to alert the community about potential incidents that can hurt your reputation or perhaps benefit your interests.

  • Strengthening of your member community

    Allow your members to create virtual relationships, which increases morale and motivation.

Screenshot of the collaboration suite

Content Management System

With our content management system, you gain proper control over activities and profiles in your country account. Several modules are available to change settings, preferences, and assignments.

Member management allows you to approve member registrations and suspend, re-activate, and delete member profiles.

Entity management allows you to auto-create a website for a foreign service post, deactivate and reactivate its online status, and assign members to the website as needed.

System management allows you to control the layout and color scheme of your website structure.

Multi-language support allows you to post syndicated pages, news, and events in up to 5 languages and the system automatically displays the correct language on the local website.

Email forwarding services provide a dedicated email address and forward correspondence to a designated recipient or group of recipients. You can change the recipient list at any time without service interruption.

When a content management system is used, information can be handled better, risk can be controlled, and operations can become more efficient. This creates advantages that include:

  • Control over image and brand development

    Ensure that your country is represented professionally in the digital world and instantly eliminate any unapproved, damaging, or contradicting content.

  • Effective public and internal communication

    Be able to change, add, or delete content at any time and instantly syndicate it worldwide. Give your members the power to exchange information and contribute to your causes.

  • Better utilization of honorary consuls

    Provide a controlled online environment that empowers your honorary consuls and lets you connect directly with their communities.

Screenshot of the CMS

Pricing

To obtain a country account on the FSN Platform, you need to purchase a subscription.

There is no contract. You may cancel at any time.

The subscription fee is determined by the scope of a country’s digital needs. We take into consideration the number of entities, foreign service personnel, and desired features. With this information, we calculate your unique cost. You can decrease or increase your scope at any time.

What is included

  • Worldwide usage of the platform features
  • Allotted number of entities with websites
  • Allotted number of member accounts
  • Allotted email addresses
  • Allotted file storage
  • Inclusion in public directories
  • Access to the global FSN member directory
  • Technical support and customer service
  • Updates and enhancements for the subscribed features

What is not included

On-premise installations and usage of your own top-level domain require additional service and can be quoted individually. Storage volume is expandable for an additional fee.

What you will need

You will require a person to act as a global content administrator. This individual would monitor activity, manage member and site status, and answer content-specific inquiries from your community per your country’s own guidelines and rules. We provide the technology and our technical support and customer service are always available to answer any platform-related questions.

Contact us for more information