CORRIDOR 01
Into Iraq
You sell something that works. You have references, a price that holds, and a partner in Baghdad or Erbil who is enthusiastic. On paper the case is made.
That is the point at which most entries into this market start going wrong, and it is rarely for the reason the company expects.
Iraq is not an unknown market. It is an unevenly documented one. There is more demand than the reporting suggests in some fields, and considerably less than the headlines suggest in others — and the two are not where most entrants expect. Naming which is which for your product is what the check does.
The four places it usually breaks
We are not going to resolve these here. Naming them is the honest part; resolving them is work, and it depends entirely on what you sell.
Permission is not the same as eligibility
Being allowed to sell into the country and being allowed to deliver in a given constellation are two separate questions, and companies routinely answer only the first. There is a route through the investment framework that most European advisors overlook — including Investment Law No. 13 of 2006, which is cited far more often than it is understood.
The buying route is not the one on the website
How work of your kind is actually awarded — and by whom — is often not the channel your sales organization is built for. This is a structural mismatch, not a relationship problem, and no amount of relationship fixes it.
Localization is usually underestimated by a factor
Language, data residency, physical presence, support hours, who is allowed to hold the contract. In our experience this is the block that produces the most honest no.
The field may already be settled
Some categories are open. Some have an incumbent effect strong enough that a new entrant is buying an expensive lesson. Telling those apart from the outside is close to impossible.
PART OF THIS IS WHO WE KNOW
Part of this family is Iraqi. We know the people where decisions of this kind are made. We will not tell you who they are and we will not promise you a meeting — but we will tell you whether a decision of this kind is even taken the way you assume.
What we do in this direction
We tell you which of the four applies to you, and how hard it is. Then, if the answer is worth pursuing, we write the corridor down — direction, target market, field — and work inside it.
That written definition is what a corridor is, and it is the reason we never take a mandate to work “on Iraq” in general. When we travel, we travel with you.
Why we say Iraq and not “the Middle East”
Because a judgement is made about one market at a time, and a judgement about a region is not a judgement at all.
That a position which holds in Iraq often carries further into the region is a consequence of how the market is built. It is not something we sell in advance, and you should be wary of anyone who does.
STRONG FIELDS IN THIS DIRECTION
Digital transformation and AI FinTech Business services and controlling
FIND OUT WHICH ONE APPLIES TO YOU
Thirty minutes, plainly spoken
If your case is one we can judge, we will offer you the written check in that conversation — one page, five working days from the signed NDA, no charge. Including, if that is the answer, that this corridor will not hold for you.