What exactly is business development? Generally speaking, business development is the development of long term value for a company from external relationships, markets, and consumers. In other words, business development is a way of defining what value a company creates in the market each day. Broadly speaking, business development is any action by a public or non-private organization that serves the important purpose of increasing a company’s net worth or creating a better customer/seller relationship.
There are many components to the business development process. These include internal management issues related to budget, staffing, technology, marketing technology, research and development, human resources, and customer service. Additionally, there are specific areas of business opportunities such as patents; strategic alliances; franchisees; investment; and acquisitions.
The current business development process focuses on two major strategies: internal business development and external business expansion. Internal business development takes place within the company in the context of specific functions and projects. This includes product development, business planning, restructuring, and reorganization. In business development, external business development takes place outside the company, typically through consultancies, agencies, or special interest groups.
There are a number of key advantages of developing an internal business development team and external business expansion team. The primary advantage is that the two teams have different focus. The internal business development team focuses on solving business problems and providing a solution to customers. External business development team focuses on building a new market for the company, driving business growth, implementing strategies, and implementing new technologies. While the two teams may work closely on some aspects of each process, they rarely collaborate on all the steps necessary to reach their goals.
Some key areas where both business development teams and business expansion teams should share resources are: problem solving and new product development. The problem solving team develops solutions from within the organization. The new product development team creates new products from the “blueprints” provided by the problem solver team. The two teams must work together to provide solutions to business problems. They also need to share information about current and potential problems.
In addition to sharing information about current and future problems, the two teams must also collaborate on information technology projects. Business development teams provide IT expertise and provide direction and guidance to IT departments. They perform security assessments and help the IT staff to build the necessary infrastructure for a new technology project. The business development team provides technical training, helps IT implement the new technologies, provides assistance with migration and implementation, and monitors the progress of the project. Information technology is another area where these teams often work together.
Another important area where the two teams can work together is in developing a strategy for business development. A business development strategy is a description of how the company plans to enter a new market. For example, if the company is entering the medical device market, then a medical development strategy will be much different than a strategy for entering the consumer product market. Both business development and vendor management teams will need to develop product management plans. The product management plan will require periodic reviews and revisions to ensure that the company is still positioned to meet the demands of the new market.
Both business development and vendor management teams will also need to coordinate their activities. The business development team will probably work in conjunction with the customer support team. The vendors will have functional business development teams in place to manage all of the technical requirements and deliver the products to customers. They will also have functional product development teams in place to manage all of the manufacturing processes. When the product development process begins, both teams work in conjunction with each other to define the product development strategy. Then they implement the strategies over the course of several months to months.