From Random to Strategic Business Development 12 Ways To Achieve Your Business Development Goals
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Recall Your business development space is a basket full
of possibilities available and sometimes peculiar to your business through which you can engineer your business development agenda and consequently achieve long term value for your organization. You can also see it as those capacities that you have developed overtime which can potentially shift your company to a higher point on the business development ladder Please refer to the presentations: “Fresh Insights Into Business Development Part 1” and “Understanding Capacity For Business Development”. Both are important towards understanding this presentation
#1 Formulate your business development goals based on the possibilities in your business development space. Examples: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6.
Increase your market share by 10 percent Increase production capacity by 12 percent to accommodate potential demand Acquire a company to strengthen market position or niche Enter a strategic JV partnership agreement to reduce exposure Diversify production to include an essential complementary product or service in you industry etc.
Note that at this point business development goals are random because assumptions are untested, and until they are tested they remain an integral part of the possibilities available for business development
#2
Examine the current possibilities and opportunities at your disposal in your business development space, with the aim of looking at the possibilities necessary to achieve the set goals. This level is very important, the major aim of this presentation is to shows you how to work on these possibilities to drive your business development goals to fruition .
#3 The statement; “if you cannot measure it, you cant develop it� is not true in all cases because immeasurability is not necessarily synonymous with retarded growth. However, determining the relevant data for achieving your business development goals is very important because it enables you paint a mental picture of success, and decipher the directions of outcomes before they are achieved. Relevant data enhances the speed and directions of growth. Example, what are the relevant data necessary to enhance market diversification taking into consideration the peculiarities of the new market?
#4 Develop your assumptions and ensure that they are comprehensive enough, do not consider any assumptions as naïve. Naivety and business assumptions formulation are siblings; in fact it is important to be naïve when developing assumptions. Naivety in this sense ensures that you don’t have implicit assumptions in the assumptions i.e. a double layer of assumptions. Also it enhance the “deepness” of your data analyses Naivety ensures that no stone is left unturned “The best way to think out of the box is to be naïve”
#5
Collect, Collate and Analyze your data using suitable methods. Here you attempt to measure outcomes before they are achieved. The result of this exercise leads to series of forecasts predicting possible future outcomes
#6 Test and benchmark your assumptions This is crucial because data alone cannot capture business realities. We recommend: 1. Testing and benchmarking your assumptions against your SWOT (Strength, Weakness, Opportunities and Threats) 2. Mock-ups and simulations: a very good business development simulation in reality is the Celebrity Apprentice show on TV. Remember to be successful you have to be na誰ve enough to accept that all business development goals are wrong and might fail. Therefore, the need to test all assumptions backing them up 1. 2. 3.
Who told you that the market will accept the product? How do you know that you will meet the budget and timeline? If and when you meet the time line will market expectations still remain the same?
#7
Reformulate your business development goals The ones you formulated in slide 3 are random, backed by untested assumptions. After testing your assumptions, you are better equipped to understand what is achievable or not The goals formulated here are strategic with a roadmap
#8
Develop roadmap with timelines in phases from the tested assumptions. Here you answer the questions: How? When? For whom? With whom? Which Resources?
#9
Develop a Monitoring and Evaluation mechanism to ensure that plans and outcomes continue to be on track, or whether there is a need for a change in strategies and methodologies based on current market realities. Your business development M&E system needs to be benchmarked against the data to be measured. Ensure that the method statement to achieve effective M&E is clearly stated.
# 10
Conduct internal capacity audit This process enables you to verify other tasks that can be achieved with organizational resources and skills before looking outward.
If properly done, timelines and budgets will be reduced, and more speed will be achieved towards achieving business development goals
# 11
Profile and evaluate your business ecosystem for suitable partners and strategic alliances to avoid bearing the burden alone and make your business development journey faster.
# 12
Submit a comprehensive report of the whole process to top management, basically for future reference, to avoid past mistakes in future business development planning
AKINSIDA Anthony Stephen Business Development Analyst Dominion Research Solutions dominionresearchsolutions@gmail.com akinsidaanthony@gmail.com LinkedIn: Anthony Stephen Akinsida g+ : Anthony Akinsida http://www.slideshare.net/AnthonyStephenAkinsi http://issuu.com/dominionsolutions/docs