What is Business Development?

If your duties include identifying strategic opportunities for your company, fostering partnerships, and driving growth to make sure the business has long-term sustainability and success, you are involved in Business Development. Put simply, business development refers to the tasks and processes that help keep a business growing over the long term.

It is a common term in the business world. At its core, it is all about long-term growth and adding value to your company. People involved in business development are forever seeking new ways to help their companies improve and expand. In most cases, this means entering new markets, expanding their customer base, making strategic partnerships, and boosting sales.

Wikipedia has the following definition of the term:

“Business development entails tasks and processes to develop and implement growth opportunities within and between organizations. It is a subset of the fields of business, commerce, and organizational theory. It is the creation of long-term value for an organization from customers, markets, and relationships.”

Business development areas

  • Sales

Business development managers look at ways of attracting more customers or selling more to their existing ones. They also seek out new markets or areas where they can sell their products or services.

This involves targeting different groups of consumers or going to new geographical areas.

  • Partnerships

By working with other companies, a business can offer more or better products or services. A business that sells laptops may enter a partnership with a courier company and offer faster deliveries or expand its reach to a wider geographical area.

If, by entering a partnership you can break into new markets or improve your offerings in your current market, your business is more likely to expand.

  • New products or services

Creating or acquiring new products for sale is also a type of business development.
Creating a new product is a big and sometimes risky step. However, it may be necessary to meet the changing needs of consumers or keep up with the competition.

It is not about making quick money, but rather building a sustainable and successful company.

Image depicting what is involved in Business Development.
Image created by Market Business News.

Business development matters

Business development is important because it helps a company stay relevant and competitive. It is about creating a strategy that looks to the future and and focuses on sustainable growth.

If you are good at understanding the market, building relationships, and can think creatively and strategically about how to improve and grow your company, you should consider a career in business development.

Conclusion

Business development is a crucial part of any commercial enterprise. It is about finding ways to expand, boost sales, create new partnerships, break into new territory, and sell new products or services. It includes strategies to attract new customers and maximize sales to the existing client base.

Video – What is Sustainable Growth?

This video presentation, from our sister channel on YouTube – Marketing Business Network, explains what ‘Sustainable Growth’ is using simple and easy-to-understand language and examples.