Career Roadmap

Business Development

Overview

Business development involves figuring out how to build or develop a business.  You can find business development jobs in all industries – from start-ups to huge pharmaceutical companies.  What the work entails depends on how established a company is and what its business model is.  The objective is to expand the market reach or revenue of a company in ways that make the most of that company’s resources and capabilities. 

Business development involves varying degrees of sales and strategy.  In some companies, people may focus on getting new corporate sales accounts while in others they may lead new product development.  At larger companies such as Time Warner, Cisco, or Microsoft, one of the responsibilities may be to decide which smaller companies they should acquire next to ensure that it retains its market strength in the future. 

Working in business development is an excellent way to become adept at business strategy while gaining hand-on experience in negotiating deals and managing partner relationships.  These 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.

The best way to get into business development is by first gaining experience in finance, consulting, or corporate sales.  Networking with friends or alumni will give you an advantage getting your foot in the door.  At the interview, be ready to demonstrate your knowledge of the company’s business and show that you’re familiar with its competitive landscape.  Play up any experience you have in closing deals or managing relationships.  Recruiters will be seeking a keen eye for detail, solid communication skills, and analytical ability.

Career Tracks

The three overlapping layers within business development are sales, partnerships, and strategic planning.  Most business planning jobs blend all three, although one area may be emphasized.

Sales

At some companies business development may be better described as business-to-business sales.  Cold calling or prospecting for potential clients, members, or partners is often a task that falls to entry-level employees.  As in traditional sales jobs, there’s often an account-management aspect to business development.

Partnerships

Companies of all sizes in all industries build their businesses around partnerships and it’s business development’s responsibility to initiate and manage such relationships.  Often the biggest challenge is negotiating the terms of partnership deals – sometimes this process can drag on for months.

Strategic Planning

Strategic planning and corporate development 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 should they pursue, how it should position itself and market those activities, and which technologies should it invest in.  Strategic planning may be carried out by the corporate finance department – similar to a M&A role in investment banking.  If an acquisition takes place, the strategic planning group may help integrate the two companies.  Strategic planning may also involve institutional investment – that is, parceling out the company’s money to fund outside start-ups.  This is similar to the venture capital industry where 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.

Business Outlook

Business development opportunities should grow in the long term especially in biotech and pharmaceuticals.  This growth is driven by a variety of factors.  For instance, business are doing more on the Web, meaning there are more and more opportunities for alliances, partnerships and other business activities. 

However, recently, job seekers looking for business development positions have found an extremely tight market because these positions are not core to most companies’ continuing operations.  During periods of cutting costs, most companies prefer to lay off rather than hire business development folks.  Those with an aptitude for landing and structuring deals have the best shot at landing plum business development jobs.

Source:  WetFeet Press

Online Resources

www.justsell.com

www.mckinseyquarterly.com (Alliances & Strategy sections)

www.nasp.com (National Association of Sales Professionals)

www.ibdf.org (Technology Business Development Forum)

Business Development Career Preparation Timeline