No matter how well your business is doing, there will always be scope for expansion. The biggest mistake entrepreneurs make is assuming that they have reached the peak of their business success and there is nothing more they can do in order to expand their venture.
Though it is good to acknowledge your high position in the market, such thoughts often lead to the downfall of your business. There are chances of you being so sure about your saturation point that you would stop working hard enough to even sustain the business you currently run.
Need for Business Development
You might be the best entrepreneur in the market and still fail to maintain your status and position. A stagnant business is bound to fall, which is exactly why there is a strong need for business development. It consists of all the activities centred towards the growth of business.
For this, it is important to know your shortcomings. This would help you in making a plan that deals with overcoming these weaknesses. However, there are certain enterprises who can’t think ill of themselves as they have been doing exceptionally well in the market. It is always difficult to point out any shortcomings in their venture.
If you are also one such entrepreneur, take a note of your strengths and strengthen them. Charting out an effective SWOT analysis of your enterprise can form a solid base for your business development. You will have the areas you’re most powerful in, places where you are not able to perform up to the mark, fields where you have a scope to improve and the threats you are likely to face in future.
This would serve as the perfect groundwork for you as a businessman wanting to go ahead with the process of business development.
Getting A Business Development Manager
You may think that if you are a successful entrepreneur and are doing fairly well in the market, you don’t need anyone else’s help to make your business better. This is not always true.
You need an external perspective to your business that can be objective about your firm’s working. For this, you need a business development manager. A business development can be a part of the firm as well as an outsider.
Having someone internal to the firm function as a business development manager would help the organization as they would be well-versed with the way your enterprise functions. They would be able to come up with ideas and solutions which could be immense help.
However, such business development managers are also likely to get biased towards the company. Intentionally or unintentionally, they would not be able to look at the complete and honest picture of your firm. This problem can be solved by hiring an external manager.
Though an external business development manager would not be familiar with the culture and ethics of your company, they can give you an unbiased and objective overview of how things are going for your enterprise.
Would An Entrepreneur Be A Good Business Development Manager?
It is crucial to have an able business development manager in order to keep a constant tap of your functions and trying to improve the working. You may either have an internal manager or one hired externally, always make sure that the entrepreneur doesn’t get to be one.
Just like any internal employee of a business organisation, the entrepreneur would not be able to see the complete and honest scenario. In fact, they are the ones who would be attached the most to their ventures.
Importance of Market Research
Business development can never take place without market research. As a development manager, you need to have complete knowledge of the marketing where your company is functioning.
Market research is all the more important if the development manager is not from within the organization. This would compensate for their lack of knowledge about the corporation.
Research would help an entrepreneur to take several important decisions. Knowing the tastes and preferences of people would help you in making product innovations. Knowing the credit trend and nature of financial lenders can help you choose between a commercial bank and other alternative finance platforms for raising business funds. The price of media platforms would help you in segregating your advertising expenses.
Making Development Plans
Efficient planning is the key to business development. You need to bridge the gap between the place where you are and the place where you aspire to reach, and a business plan would help you bride this gap.
It is never easy for a business development manager to make a development plan. Also, a single plan is never enough for a business. You need to come up with different plans for different functional areas – be it marketing, finance, client servicing or production.
It is also advisable to have different plans for the same sector. This would serve as a cushioning if the first proposed plan fails as you would then have decent backup to go ahead with.
Therefore, it is never wise to think that there is no scope for your business to expand further. Hire a business development manager and you’ll see that your business empire can go beyond all limits you previously set.