New Business Development

Our job in business development may involve any or all of the following:

The first aspect of the business development professional's job is typically to identify new business opportunities.

This means several things, in terms of what you'll do. First, you'll need to stay abreast of what's happening in your industry and what your competitors are up to in terms of products and service offerings, pricing, marketing strategies, and so on. Second, you'll need to make sure you understand what your company is up to on an ongoing basis-to understand your company's strategy, how your company compares to its competitors, and how it's perceived in the marketplace. Third, you'll need to understand the market for your company's offerings-who comprises it, and how it may be changing.

Next, as a business development professional, we'll need to think creatively about everything you know about your company. This is the part of the job in which you identify possible ways to improve your company's sales, which can mean identifying anything from new market segments (or individual potential clients), to new sales channels to sell through, to other, related products or services in the marketplace with which your company's products or services can be combined into synergistic, "co-branded" offerings.

The next part of the job is prioritizing the new business opportunities we have identified. To do this, we'll need to compare the potential returns of each new opportunity to the costs your company would incur to exploit it. Which means spreadsheets-lots of spreadsheets.

Working in business development is an excellent way to become adept at business strategy while gaining hands-on experience in negotiating deals and managing partner relationships. Business development jobs are also highly cross-functional, requiring close collaboration with various internal and partner-company teams such as sales, engineering, and marketing to ensure that a deal is consummated. With its focus on strategy, biz dev steers the direction of a company-the deals forged today determine what the rest of the company will be working on tomorrow.

Some business development plans aren't called that at all. Instead, they're called "strategic planning" or sometimes "corporate development." Strategic planning jobs are found mostly at large, established companies seeking to expand and diversify their business. Just like management consultants, strategic planners spend a lot of time thinking about top-level strategy issues such as what new business activities their company should pursue, how it should position itself and market those activities, and which technologies it should invest in.

At some companies, strategic planning may be carried out by the corporate finance department. In such cases, biz dev jobs may resemble investment banking functions such as mergers and acquisitions. For instance, if a company wants to acquire a new business unit, strategic planning may analyze the market to find a suitable business to acquire, determine an appropriate asking price for the company, and follow through with the negotiation process.

Strategic planning may also involve institutional investment-that is, parceling out the company's money to fund outside startups. In this way, strategic planning can be a bit like working in the venture capital industry. For instance, when high-tech companies invest in high-tech startups, strategic planners may perform due diligence on potential partners, determine how much to invest in a particular venture, and negotiate a stake in a company.

Step 1: Planning new business process development

Step 2: Initiate new business by using the appropriate business development consultants where necessary

Step 3: Make these plans work by using business development training