In the general public or in non-technological circles, the expression “business development” is often used as a substitute for the expression “business development”, which is considered too unglamorous.
To use the expression in the same sense in the technological world would lead to a serious misunderstanding. In fact, in technology, business development is an activity which is not confused with either sales or marketing, even if it is sometimes attached to one or other of these departments or divisions. It is therefore neither about extending the usual business nor about selling existing products, services or solutions to new customers.
Le business development dans le high-tech B2B/B2G
In high-tech B2B/B2G, business development is an activity that all companies recognise as important and necessary, even if they do not necessarily create a “business development department”.
This activity is fundamental for future growth because it is intended to prepare the future. It could almost be described as a kind of “business design office” that complements the “product design office” activities.
Objectives
The objectives assigned to business development flow directly from the market/customer/product growth objectives and priorities assigned to strategic marketing as dictated by the overall business strategy of the company (or possibly of one of its activities).
These objectives are complementary to the “business as usual” growth objectives.
Definition
If we look for a quick definition in technology, the role of business development is to create and develop new growth vectors for customer markets beyond existing offers. It is about renewing these offerings upstream of sales, the fundamental point being that it is a direct customer-facing approach.
Business developers in technology are men and women who are in direct contact with customers in an exploratory approach to developing offers. In this sense, they are not classic salesmen or sales engineers responsible for marketing existing and proven products, services and offers.
In a project business, business development also helps to regenerate the project pipeline by changing its nature. It can also be said that the role of business development is to remove uncertainties until sales can take place.
Types of actions
However, depending on the company, business development can in practice refer to different types of action. There are therefore several categories of business development. Let’s take a quick look at what the term can mean for different companies.
It is basically about testing and developing new offers in direct dialogue with customers:
- Proposing a new technology, a new value proposition and/or a new business model to new customers.
- Test a new product, new services, new offer with a pilot customer (development customer) in the framework of a pilot project (development project).
It may also involve exploring a new country or geographical area:
- Explore the ecosystem of a new country, accelerate growth by testing new offerings best suited to the country and the target customers.
It may also be a question of protecting an emerging activity by putting it for a time outside the usual rules and procedures:
- Developing an emerging business in a “nursery”.
Finally, in some companies, it may involve preparing agreements or acquisitions:
- Identifying targets for acquisitions or partnership agreements, preparing and negotiating such acquisitions or agreements.
It can be seen that, apart from the particular case of acquisitions and partnerships, business development essentially consists of testing new growth vectors directly with customers by developing new offers and finding the best way of achieving geographical growth.
Finally, it should be noted that many mature activities with high turnover and margins have started as exploratory business development actions.
