If you are a manager at the same time an owner of
a business or an organization then, one of the challenges you are faced with is
the challenge of developing and taking advantage of business opportunities that
are provided to you and your company. Moreover, as a manager you always have to
strive for growth and development. To achieve that aim, you have to have an
effective business development strategy? Now, how are you going to do that?
What does it requires creating an effective business development strategy? Read
on and learn from the following tips.
1. Brace yourself up with sufficient knowledge as
well as excellent management practices and strategies. As a manager who aims
for growth of his or her business or organization, you have to have sufficient
knowledge and excellent management practices and strategies. Well, these will
all boils down to whether you will be revolutionary or evolutionary in coming
up with ideas and strategies for development. The idea or strategy you will
come up with will be the basis for your company to either revolutionize or
evolve.
2. It takes a mulch-disciplinary approach. An
effective business development strategy entails a mulch-disciplinary approach
which includes financial, advertising and legal skills from you as the development
manager. This means that you need to come up with creative ways that are
flexible to be applied with just about any circumstances that may hit your
business. of course, these ways should contribute to the prosperity of your
business and not its failure.
3. Create a strategic marketing plan. There are
various aspects in your business wherein business development strategies can
help your business to grow and prosper. Strategic marketing plan, as such, will
deal with the changing customer base and market dynamics. It will also aid in
understanding horizontal and vertical target market opportunities and help you
learn how to pick out and develop products, services or solutions to address
the needs of your target market.
4. Decide on what kind of approach in planning.
Take note that a plan shouldn't be on its own to work nor will you solely
manage it to work. A plan can take the form of either a 'bottom up' approach or
a 'top down' approach. A plan in a bottom up approach involves employees to
come up with ideas and suggestions. After which, the best one are passed on to
the management. On the other hand, a plan in a top down approach involves
higher position personnel such as the managers to establish the business
development strategies and then, imposed them down to their subordinates.
Additionally, there is the use of collaborative process where managers and
employees work together as one in performing this task.
5. Evaluation. Now, after the business
development strategy has been decided on, it will be your task as a manager to
make sure that this strategy will work out. To do so, you will need to conduct
evaluation of its weak points, strengths, the risk involve and its growth
potentials. You may want to hire a strategy consultant for this matter as there
are indeed, various factors that must be taken into serious consideration.
However, it will be dependent on the complexities that come with its
implementation. Some of these factors involve assigning of responsibilities,
hiring sufficient human resources and establishing a chain of command. It will
also involve a specific timeline to determine whether or not the preferred
goals are being accomplished or not.
Evidently, there is no single type of business
development strategy that will be enough for any business. So as a manager, you
have to brace yourself up with more and more knowledge to know what works for
you and your business and determine the corresponding advantages of sticking to
it.
Discussing the Business Developer Resume
The Business Developer is a very crucial role in
a company's growth and thus is a pivotal position within it. It is a managerial
position usually assigned to existing senior managers or dedicated business
developers with a proven record. Perhaps there is no position in a company as
challenging and therefore it is amply rewarding from the point of view of both
job satisfaction and money.
Key Responsibilities
The key responsibility of a business developer is
to attract new customers and penetrate existing markets. For the purpose, he
assesses marketing opportunities and targets markets, gathers intelligence on
customers and competitors, generates leads for possible sales, advises on
drafts, implements proper sales policies and follows up sales activity with a
review and appropriate modifications. He also drafts formal proposals and
prepares presentations regarding the identified sales opportunity and develops
a proper business model design. The business model involves evaluation of a
business and then realization of its full potential using tools like marketing,
information management and customer service.
They may follow one of two models: sales-oriented
(client facing) and operational function to support sales. In the
sales-oriented or client facing role, the concentrates on developing strategic
channel relationships or on general sales. It is an operational function to
support the sales of a company is often made the responsibility of a separate
functionary known as the capture manager, while they continue with finding
other sales oriented leads.
Level of Education Required
They are professionals with qualification and
experience in financial services, investment banking or sales. Many enter the
area by climbing the corporate ladder in fields like operations management.
Thus to be one must have a formal degree in business management with
specialization in finance, investment banking or sales, along with considerable
experience. They must be skilled or experienced in marketing, company law,
strategy, finance, proposal management or capture management. The exact set of
skills will depend on the business environment being dealt with.
Career Path
Since they are existing professionals with
considerable skills and experience, one can't acquire this position at the
beginning of a career. So, future business developers must enter the corporate
sector as junior level managers and go on to acquire skills and experience in
areas like finance, investment banking or sales. At the same time they must
continue to develop their skills in the area of business development. Once they
feel confident enough to take up the challenge, they must enter the field at
the right opportunity. The opportunity may be in their existing company itself
or in some other company that is looking for business developers.
A business developer's career is immensely
satisfying and financially rewarding although stressful and demanding
physically and intellectually. With continuing growth of the economy business
developers are sure to be in increasing demand in the coming years.
Organizational Development Manager
Organizational development manager is usually the
one who manages design and implementation policies and procedures of the
organization. He initiates appropriate changes within organizational
transaction activities. Manager supports the establishment and improvement of
human capital for critical success of organization. Generally he manages the
group of specialists who are considered experts in organizational decision
making and in planning goals.
An OD manager can also serve as advisor to
utilize organizational methodologies and tools. He works closely with design
and implementation goals of organization leadership. An effective manager will
utilizes the people, structure, strategy and process in the best way to build
the organization. He is not a solo leader. Instead, he maximizes the use of
teams to achieve organizational goals.
Part of the responsibilities of organizational development manager are: • Day to day management of strategy and functional planning.
• He initiates policies, procedures, programs and budgeting.
• Manages department staff and ensures accountability.
• Designs functional programs to improve organization effectively.
• Responsible for adaptability, employee development, employee satisfaction and retention
• Manages legal and financial risks of the organization.
• Acts as consultant to the executive management, president and CEO.
• Responsible for the creation of programs to solve highest level complexity.
• He works with HR leaders to design, develop and implement corporate learning programs.
• Train the HR team members and business managers on design and implementation solution
• He identifies and develops various training programs to prepare successor candidates.
• He trains business managers on job rotation, formal training and development coaching programs.
• Works closely with business managers and senior leaders to develop leadership skills.
• Manage projects, employees and business leaders.
• He gives practical exposure of different organizational activities to all people associated with the business.
• Performs job analysis, evaluation, business mapping culture and team based interventions.
A development-oriented manager sets strategies
for organization and ensures the business initiatives as requested. He also
manages and supports internal staff development. If you consider manager
activity is 100% then 40% of it goes to program design, development and
technical assistance. 30% goes to program delivery and management, 15%
supervision, 10% to budget and 5% to other related activities. Decision making
and problem solving are the two important characteristics of any manager. He is
responsible for short term and long term planning of the organization.
