A while ago I had a discussion with some senior executives who told me that they worked with strategy in all their board meeting and in all their group management meetings. To say that your organizations work with strategy in all board meeting is just another way of saying that the organization don’t have a strategy and are just drifted away by the whim method.
Strategic business development is done to helps senior executives to keep their sights on the organizational goals while ensuring readiness for future challenges. This is essential whatever level you are working at – be it senior executives of a business unit, function, division, country or region. A strategy is not enough, however – leaders must also build teams and manage internal and external relationships in order to execute the strategy and build a sustainable organization.
If you’re a leader moving into a significant senior executive position or encountering a specific business challenge, creating and executing a business development strategy can be a daunting task – especially in today’s complex business environment. Help is at hand, however, through business development you develop your analytical skills and leadership effectiveness. By building skills to boost business performance today and prepare your organization to sustain performance in the future, mentorship, more education can help you develop an appropriate business development strategy – and ensure you’re capable of delivering it.
Defining a comprehensive business development strategy for your organization – and being a visionary leader – requires a wide, interconnected view of your business and the world in which it operates. You have to be able to see and understand the context of your business and the environment you operate in. I have worked with strategic business development more or less for 15 years and always working with how we can find new business opportunities. An examples is a company had for two decades been operated in the same business sector since its establishment. I saw quickly that the same competence base that the employees had, could easily be used within another business sector. Through analysing business development, we developed a new business concept and got new business deals for over 100 million NOK in one year. We increased the company turnover with 50% in one year. Strategic business development should challenge you to assess your business’ reality within the wider business environment – so you know exactly where your business really sits and where it should go.
Once you know the reality, you need to develop a business development strategy that stretches your company’s potential – addressing your current business challenges while also ensuring your company stays ahead in a constantly changing business environment as we did in the mentioned business case. The next challenge is to execute it. You need strong leadership skills in order to assemble strong, committed teams; manage internal and external stakeholders; and shape your organization.