Busine$$ Development

For larger and well-established companies, especially in technology-related industries, the term "business development" often refers to setting up and managing strategic relationships and alliances with other, third-party companies. In these instances the companies may leverage each other's expertise, technologies or other intellectual property to expand their capacities for identifying, researching, analyzing and bringing to market new businesses and new products. Business-development focuses on implementation of the strategic business plan through equity financing, acquisition/divestiture of technologies, products, and companies, plus the establishment of strategic partnerships where appropriate.

Business development is to be thought of as a marketing tactic. The objectives include branding, expansion in markets, new user acquisition, and awareness. However, the main function of Business Development is to utilize partners in selling to the right customers. Creating opportunities for value to be ongoing in the long-term is very important. To be successful in Business Development the partnership must be built on strong relationships.

I've been in roles where I've been strictly selling, others where there is a combination of sales and BD, and also in roles that I would consider true and pure BD.

In all, however, I've had some link to what would be considered BD within that particular business.

So the answer to the header title is no, I think; BD is different for everyone and every business, dependent on a number of factors - budget, size of workforce, attitude to BD, etc.

What is 'true and pure' BD?

The sales process is one that involves a lot of people - product development, designers, pricing, marketing, technical, management - 'front-line' salesmen and 'top-end' management need to combine forces to deliver a product that their customers want.

So where does BD fit into this process? What's it all about then?

I think the foremost word that comes up in the BD world is 'relationships'.

Good business development will help identify, maintain and encourage relationship building within a firm, building rapport with both suppliers and customers.

It helps strengthen the bonds between these links, supporting the marketing copy and material that establishes your product in the relevant marketplace.

It helps provide information as to what the client needs to the 'front line' sales team, assisting them in closing the deal at the end of the process.

It helps inform management as to how the market is moving, providing insights into new developments of technology, social media and other digital avenues that the firm can take advantage of, to build and maintain loyalty.

It helps small companies access bigger markets and large companies engage newcomers.

So my definition of 'true and pure' BD is 'helping a business to develop its relationships'.

Plain and simple.

It's networking on a daily basis; attending cutting-edge events to learn about the industry you're working in; finding (er... stalking?) people on LinkedIn to see what events they're attending and making sure you meet them there, in person, so that you can have that all important introductory chat; it's offering your loyal customers something more than a newsletter - why not run a seminar and invite them along to it? They might be happy to be invited.

The personal touch is always a winner.

We hear more and more now about relationships marketing, social currency, engagement, etc.

BD is the platform that most of this is built on.

Who is it for?

As I've mentioned before, I've worked in roles that have been classed as BD but have really been sales. I've worked in hybrid roles where you might do a bit of both. And I've worked in the 'true and pure' BD roles to.

What this has shown me is that BD has a place in every business. You can't 'develop' your business without a good BD strategy.

So whether you're encouraging your front-line staff to sign up to a few newsletters, or get yourself down to a few networking events, or join a LinkedIn group and start up a discussion, BD is something that can't be overlooked.

It's all very well to have a great product and a nicely designed website, with some great leaflets and a slick business card but, without the right approach to BD, no one is going to see it in the way you want to.

Develop the relationships - build a community around your business and your product just needs to do what it says on the tin. The rest will fall into place and you'll have a strong, loyal customer base who are happy to sing your praises.

For that reason alone, if nothing else, BD is essential for pretty much any business going.

Overview

In the limited scholarly work available on the subject, business development is conceptualized as or related to discrete projects, specific modes of growth, and organizational units, activities, and practices. Sorensen [3] integrates these different perspectives with insights from chairmen and managing directors, senior business developers, and venture capitalists from successful high-tech firms worldwide, which is adopted in the Palgrave Encyclopedia of Strategic Management:

″Business development is defined as the tasks and processes concerning analytical preparation of potential growth opportunities, and the support and monitoring of the implementation of growth opportunities, but does not include decisions on strategy and implementation of growth opportunities.″ [4]

Background

In practice, the term business development and its actor, the business developer, have evolved into many usages and applications. Today, the applications of business development and the business developer’s tasks across industries and countries, cover everything from IT-programmers, specialized engineers, advanced marketing or key account management activities, and sales and relations development for current and prospective customers. For this reason, it has been difficult to discern the unique features of the business development function and whether these activities are a source of profits..

Recent systematic research on the subject has outlined the contours of an emerging business development function with a unique role in the innovation management process. The business development function seems to be more matured in high-tech, and especially the pharma and biotech, industries.[5][6][7]

Professionals

The business developer is concerned with the analytical preparation of potential growth opportunities for the senior management or board of directors as well as the subsequent support and monitoring of its implementation. Both in the development phase and the implementation phase, the business developer collaborates and integrates the knowledge and feedback from the organization’s specialist functions, for example, research and development, production, marketing, and sales to assure that the organization is capable of implementing the growth opportunity successfully.[3] The business developers' tools to address the business development tasks are the business model answering "how do we make money" and its analytical backup and roadmap for implementation, the business plan.

Business development professionals frequently have had earlier experience in sales, financial services, investment banking or management consulting; although some find their route to this area by climbing the corporate ladder in functions such as operations management. Skill sets and experience for business-development specialists usually consist of a mixture of the following (depending on the business requirements):

·        Sales

·        Finance

·        Marketing

·        Mergers and acquisitions

·        Legal

·        Strategic management

·        Proposal management or capture management

The "pipeline" refers to flow of potential clients which a company has started developing. Business-development staff assign to each potential client in the pipeline a percent chance of success, with projected sales-volumes attached. Planners can use the weighted average of all the potential clients in the pipeline to project staffing to manage the new activity when finalized. Enterprises usually support pipelines with some kind of customer relationship management tool or database, either web-based solution or an in-housesystem. Sometimes business development specialists manage and analyze the data to produce sales management information. Such management of information could include:

·        reasons for wins/losses

·        progress of opportunities in relation to the sales process

·        top performing sales people/sales channels

·        sales of services/products