Last month, while reading Donald Trump and Robert Kiyosaki's book, "Why We Want You to be Rich", I came across this quote that I found really pertinent and inspiring:

We all have defining moments. It is in these defining moments that we find our true characters. We become heroes or cowards; truth tellers or liars; we go forward or we go backward.
- Robert Kiyosaki

What struck me about this quote is that I believe I am once again faced with a defining moment. And as usual a lot of questions and issues arise:

• Who will I be a hero for?
• What battles will I fight and with whom?
  
• What would be of greater benefit for everyone in the long-run?
  
• While there is no question about telling the truth, the challenge has been always been in telling it tactfully and soliciting the favorable action.
  
• Again, there is no question about moving forward. How you do it is the real clincher.

I take solace in the fact that I will emerge wiser after this.

Abangan! :)

We have a wealth of management theorists as well as management practitioners. Some have reached rockstar status such as Peter Drucker (for management theory) and Jack Welch (for management practice). How come there we don't encounter too many Management Experimentalists? Isn't experiment required to validate theories and put it into practice?

As an aside, I have Googled the term "Management Experimentalist" and there are no relevant results. So I am shamelessly laying claim to it. :)

While all answers were good, Frank Feather was on target with his answer:

Surely, experimentalism takes place all the time, but is rarely called that.

For example, we talk of trial-and-error, try-it-and-see, small-scale and mid-scale pilot programs, doing a dry run, doing a test run, and such.

These are all experiments, often to try to get the bugs out of a process, but nevertheless experiments.

And entrepreneurs, of course, are experimentalists by the very nature of their risk-taking, often in breakthrough areas. And business start-ups are experiments, the vast majority of which fail.

As well, most product launches, by even the largest and best-of-breed companies, are (while they won't admit it, except perhaps in the case of a few "test market" products) all experiments, some 70% of which fail.

I think perhaps the largest experiment I have ever been involved with is the massive economic modernization and market reform program in China.

This is large-scale experimentation in every sense of the word. But it is a carefully coordinated project that requires great orchestration, very pragmatic approaches, perhaps a lot of iterations and tweaking/fine-tuning, and the pragmatic courage to quickly stop an experiment that is not working.

However, even where the experiment is not working as anticipated or desired, they do not abandon the desired goal and sweep it under the carpet. Rather, they even more determinedly assess the lessons of the less-than-desirable experiment, and then launch a revised approach as quickly as possible.

And once that is working (all the bugs worked out, and it is proving effective, on a pilot project basis), the new approach is then rolled (with any localized modifications as needed) on a phased-in but fairly rapid national basis.

So perhaps the modern-day experimentalist par excellence is the Chinese government which, for all its failings in various other respects, has achieved an astonishing set of accomplishments over the past 30 years.

And I venture to say that all those accomplishments are based on micro experiments that have been scaled up to macro level on a grand scale, the likes of which the world has never seen.

I therefore suggest that, since China was a closed Marxist totalitarian and techno-economically backward society, it is even more remarkable that bold experimentalism smashed that mold, and has presented us with a most interesting study in "management experimentalist theory and practice, with Chinese characteristics". ;-)

Cheers! Frank

Do you agree with my definition of Business Development (BD)?

This is a question I asked at LinkedIn last week. And I've had very good responses from top BD people around the globe! Their answers ranged from the theoretically thought provoking to the practically blunt. It was extremely difficult to choose the best answer as all of the respondents brought something insightful, elucidating and practical to the table.

Here are some key insights I distilled from the answers:

• A lot of respondents agreed that the Ansoff Matrix is a classic. A classic is good for understanding and elucidating concepts (like what is done in school) but may not always be practical.
• BD is an evolving role. While the "What's" and "How's" will evolve, but the "Why's" will remain pretty much the same in whatever context. In my mind, the question, why does BD exist is this: BD exists and will exists as long as companies are concerned with their future sustainable growth - which is pretty much forever in my opinion.
• BD is all about identifying, cultivating and managing business mutualisms! (as opposed to biological mutualisms... I encountered the term "business mutualism" before but could not remember where or when)
• BD is a by-product of the "dejobbing" phenomenon (Dessler)(slide 35)
• BD more strategically inclined - FUTURE oriented - sustainability oriented. As opposed so Sales people who, bluntly put, are more oriented towards getting a "quick buck". Kevin Haskins mentioned that, "Business Development is salesmen that can't close", maybe Kevin was trying to be funny, but I think his answer highlights the future-orientedness of BD. So, BD people may not be able to close now, BUT they enable salesmen in the future to close. Salesmen closing now may very well owe their sales to a BD professionals who did their work in the past. Right Kevin? :)
  
• In fairness to "purely" Sales people, they bring in the revenues now so that BD people have something to finance their expenditures.
• Given the inherent strategic inclination of BD, is the term "Strategic Business Development" redundant? As in "Food Chef" redundant?
  
• Given this BD's KRAs and hence remuneration structure should be also aligned to being future or strategically oriented. This was pointed out by Anjali Sinha.
  

One answer that really got me thinking was Dave Wolpert's. Here's are key excerpts from his answer:

The Ansoff Matrix was not intended to define a particular job function, but rather to broadly characterize strategic options for growth. As such, I don’t know if it makes sense to define BD in terms of this matrix. Yes, business developers may be involved to varying degrees in some or all of the squares of the matrix, but “being involved in” doesn’t help clarify a business developer’s primary role...
...I think business developers tend to be more strategically-inclined than traditional salespeople because the nature of the selling process when third parties are involved becomes more intricate. Also, as one person noted, business developers tend to always be on the lookout for new markets to tap that salespeople may miss simply because they’re more focused on meeting their short-term sales quotas.

Click here to see Dave's full answer.

I have some clarifications with Dave:

• Isn't the BD's role centered around the company's "growth"? Therefore a BD professional, being, as you mentioned, "more strategically-inclined" would need to be aligned with the company's strategic options for growth, at least at a broad sense. Doesn't that make sense?
• I believe that that primary and specific role of a business developer would depend solely on the specific organization he is working for. A general definition such as mine, just serves as a framework (by defining possible "involvements") wherein organizations would base the primary and specific job description of the business developer.
  
• While I agree that the Ansoff Matrix was not intended to define a particular job function, using it to define a job function (a purpose it was not intended for) is, at least to me, innovative. A lot of things that are pervasive and indispensable now, were originally intended for other uses.
  

Dave, I think we are creating a good opportunity by starting an online debate on this. Please comment on this post to reply.

Dave by the way is the author of "Sales and Marketing Careers in the Tech Sector"


Tim Gilbert offers perhaps the most practical and concise take on my question:

Folks, I sense there's a lot of electrons being expended here on the theory side. Pragmatically speaking, the most important definition of BD is what your boss' boss says it is.
BD is often a situational job function within the company, and if you're contemplating a career in BD, ensure there is: (a) a clear job description of no fewer than two full pages having very concise, if not painfully tactical objectives and requirements; (b) senior-level assurances that these responsibilities are or will be clearly communicated to other executives and middle managers; and, (c) that governance of resources and internal authority are clear--rolled out to the corners and squared away. If not, don't take the job.
I have seen very fine professionals have their careers eaten alive by BD roles that were something else in disguise--either sales, having no authority other than personal charm to get things to happen, or general management or product management capacities demanding a personal quote (two jobs in one).
If you're contemplating a new path in "Business Development," ask about those three points above and angle to have them are written down and published to the stakeholders with whom you will be working. Just my two cents.

But the best answer in my opinion, based on a balanced mix of insightfulness, practicality and clarity of thought comes from none other than Matthew Lockwood:

Mike,


The distinction between business development and sales is a fuzzy one, as I believe the core function of a “Business Development” executive is to sell the company’s new and existing products and services to new markets/new clients, and therefore create valuable new revenue streams, which is in line with both the Matrix across all areas and Bryan's comments.

However, the business development role requires the executive to possess a more strategic view of the market, target clients and product/services and being able to engage early within the sales life-cycle with senior level prospects i.e CXX , with a specific and relevant value proposition.

In my experience the sales lifecycle correlates with the Rodgers’ technology lifecycle adoption curve, with the business development executive focussed on the early adopters in the main.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:DiffusionOfInnovation.png

This provides a clue to the difference between "sales" & "business development", which lies in their inherent ability and skillset.

In my experience, the majority of salespeople lack the confidence and ability to approach the right level of contact with the right message at the right time, i.e. business development sells the vision and then the product, sales sell the product.

On the classification of Business Development as a "Sales and Marketing" function, I am broadly in agreement with Linkedin's position, as it sits in-between both camps in my mind.

Hope this helps.

Matthew

We have a wealth of management theorists as well as management practitioners. Some have reached rockstar status such as Peter Drucker (for management theory) and Jack Welch (for management practice). How come there we don't encounter too many Management Experimentalists? Isn't experiment required to validate theories and put it into practice?

As an aside, I have googled the term "Management Experimentalist" and there are no relevant results. So I am shamelessly laying claim to it. :)

I've posted this question on LinkedIn. Will post the answers here when they come.

Business Development has a lot of complicated and often overwhelming definitions. Just look it up on Wikipedia and you would see what I mean:

Business development includes a number of techniques designed to create and grow an economic enterprise. Such techniques include, but are not limited to, concept and brand development, assessments of marketing opportunities and target markets, intelligence gathering on customers and competitors, generating leads for possible sales, followup sales activity, formal proposal writing and business model design. Business development involves evaluating a business and then realizing its full potential, using such tools as marketing, sales, information management and customer service. For a sound company able to withstand competitors, business development never stops but is an ongoing process...

The phrase "include, but are not limited to" is often a sign of trouble. I would not dare recite this definition in class unless I want to bore everyone to death!

With the help of Igor Ansoff, let me propose what I believe to be a more concise (single-sentence) definition:

Business Development is working the Ansoff Matrix.


The Wikipedia definition above can be compressed to the four activities included in the seemingly ancient but still very relevant Ansoff Matrix (Igor Ansoff, 1957):

• Market Penetration (existing markets, existing products)
• Product Development (existing markets, new products)
• Market Development (new markets, existing products)
• Diversification (new markets, new products)

These activities have strategic (big picture/long-run) and tactical components (nitty-gritty/short-run).

For technology-based businesses such as IT and biotech firms, business development activities are often more focused on Product and Market Development

In contrast, businesses in mature markets such real estate are usually more focused on Market Penetration and Diversification.

Lucid or Myopic?

Here's the LinkedIn question on this.