Business Development Strategies that Work

As a manager, one of the foremost concerns to an organization is developing and

exploiting business opportunities that are presented to you and your company. In
order to grow, you need good knowledge and best management practices and strate
gies. It comes to down to whether as a business development manager, you are rev
olutionary or evolutionary. Any strategy that you undertake, no matter how small
or insignificant it may seem will revolutionize your company or will evolve it.
Successful business development takes a multi-disciplinary approach in that it
involves financial, advertising and legal skills. It is not enough to reduce act
ivities to a simple template that can be applied to all situations faced by real
-world enterprises. Being creative in this regard goes a long way in ensuring th
at any new and unforeseen challenges contribute to sustainable growth of a compa
ny rather than its demise.
There are several areas where business development strategies can help your orga
nization to grow and succeed. Development strategies based on a strategic market
ing plan for example will address a changing customer base and market dynamics,
help one to understand horizontal and vertical target market opportunities and h
ow to develop the right products, services and solutions to meet the target mark
et needs. This plan should not just be an accident. Most successful business own
ers will tell you that a carefully planned business strategy was involved. A pla
n can take either a bottom up approach or a top down approach. A bottom up approach
is where the employees make suggestions and the best are passed up the managemen
t while the top down approach is where top managers create the business developm
ent strategies and implement them down the chain of command. Another approach is
the use of collaborative process where managers and employees work together.
In order for a business development strategy to work, you will need to evaluate
its weaknesses, strengths, risks and growth potential. If possible, a strategy c
onsultant may be included. Several factors will need to be taken into considerat
ion, depending on the complexities that come with implementation. These include
assigning responsibilities, sufficient resources and establishing a chain of com
mand. A timeline will also need to be developed to evaluate if the desired goals
are being achieved. Obviously, no one type of business development strategy is
going to work for every business. Find out what works for you and your organizat
ion and the benefits of sticking to it.