Value-Focused Business Development (white paper) 

At the core of innovation and growth, Business Development (BD) and Business Relationship Management (BRM) are the driving forces shaping success across all facets of an organization. Our dynamic BD and BRM framework doesn’t just guide; it orchestrates strategic M&A decisions, creates impactful business relationships, and propels ventures into new frontiers.  Whether establishing new business, expanding into uncharted regions, diversifying portfolios, or enhancing existing businesses, we redefine the future of value creation and growth.

Breaking Silos, Building Value, Aligning Operations for Seamless Business Success

Many companies organize their work into separate silos—different sections, each focusing on its own performance goals and improvement methods. The hitch? The objectives related to cost and performance often don’t quite match up with broader business and sales goals. Even when a technical aspect is a crucial part of a company’s plan, or shared units act as cost centers, there’s often a gap between understanding the value and making operations excellent for a better customer experience.

While some products and services fit into the overall business scheme, others lack full integration across all units, making it tricky to create complete solutions that benefit the business as a whole. This affects the sales pipeline and profitability. The focus tends to be on individual performance, keeping processes encapsulated. Challenges pop up when trying to bundle and standardize the corporate strategy, especially in Business Relationship Management (BRM) or in mapping, channeling, and executing processes based on Lean or Agile principles.

How we tackle these challenges?

• Uniting Business Forces
  We step in as an external force, recognizing and highlighting common challenges faced by many organizations. We offer possible solutions to address these issues, promoting a well-organized process for collaboration between different departments. Our approach encourages teams to work on projects that need expertise from various areas, breaking down silos and promoting a shared understanding of business benefits and goals.
• Tech-Powered Excellence
  We embrace new technology and digital platforms to engage customers, collect real-time feedback, and implement chatbots and AI-driven systems for personalized interactions. Using data analytics, we identify trends and customer preferences, tailoring value propositions based on customer insights. We implement value stream aspects in systems for managing interactions and tracking customer journeys and preferences. Predictive analytics help identify growth opportunities and anticipate customer demands.
• Agile Teamwork Boost
  We champion agility and cooperation between teams through digital platforms. Implementing value stream and CX in project management tools, we automate routine business tasks for greater efficiency. Workflow automation optimizes processes and improves customer experience through personalized interactions and tailored solutions.
• Future-Ready Business Development and Relationship Management
  We anticipate customer needs and provide proactive support using real-time data for agile decision-making. Enhancing relationship management through data-driven insights helps address potential challenges. We foster innovation through digital collaboration tools, gathering ideas and feedback for product and service development. These efforts aim at scaling business development and relationship management strategies efficiently, using technology for targeted expansion.

Sustainable Success, Clear Reporting, Real-time Risk Management, and Collaborative Innovation for Continuous Improvement

Our responsible business and relationship development, grounded in sustainability values, are crucial for building long-term relationships and maximizing continuous improvement. We align business goals with sustainability principles, integrating them into the company’s mission and vision. A comprehensive sustainability strategy addresses environmental, social, and governance issues, involving key participants like customers, employees, investors, communities, and suppliers. In our commitment to improvement, we regularly report on operational and business performance, combining it with sustainability criteria. Recognized reporting frameworks like GRI or SASB provide transparent information about our sustainability initiatives. Technology helps identify and mitigate risks in real-time, fostering a culture of continuous improvement through digital feedback loops. To encourage collaboration and break down silos, we ensure strategic alignment between operations and business development. Through technology, we transparently communicate goals across the organization.

Our business development and relationship management aims increasing the profitability of products and services through comprehensive solutions with benefits and improving the customer experience by designing and implementing a holistic customer-centric and value-focused approach in all areas of a successful business.

The business relationship management we practice strengthens relationships across departments and aligns operations with business strategies.

Applying flexible and responsive approaches, such as agile and lean principles, helps us adapt BRM quickly in BD, encouraging a culture of working together, innovating, and always getting better, we empower individuals to understand their part in making the company successful and valuable to customers. We kick off collaborative creation and innovation, urging departments to design solutions and come up with new ideas alongside us, revealing opportunities that better serve customers and boost overall business success.

Examples of how we support BD and BRM

• Shared Goals, Shared Success
  We make sure everyone in the company is working toward common goals by aligning key performance indicators (KPIs) with business metrics across all processes. This creates a sense of belonging and ensures each department contributes to the organization’s overall purpose and success.
• Harmonizing Value and CX
  We improve and connect business value and customer experience (CX) processes across departments to make them work efficiently and flexibly. This includes consistently mapping external strategies, processes, methods, and tasks to find areas for collaboration and improvement within the organization and with customers, partners, and suppliers. Our Holistic Value Stream Mapping analyzes the entire value chain, from creating a product to delivering it to the customer, identifying where improvements can be made to align processes with business goals and customer benefits.
• Adapting and Getting Lean
  We use agile and lean principles to stay flexible and responsive to changes in the market. These methods highlight collaboration, iterative development, and customer feedback, contributing to a more integrated and customer-focused approach in sales.
• Building Bridges, Encouraging Teamwork
  We strengthen how we manage business relationships (BRM) to better connect different departments and coordinate processes and business strategies with customers, suppliers, or partners. We encourage open and transparent communication within these functions through regular meetings, updates, and cross-functional forums to ensure everyone is on the same page and working toward common business goals.
• Cultivating Whole-Team Excellence
  We offer training and development opportunities that focus on understanding the entire business. This helps individuals see the bigger picture and understand how their roles fit into the overall strategy. In doing so, we foster a culture of working together, innovating, and always getting better, encouraging teams and individuals to think beyond their roles and understand how their work contributes to the overall success of the company and creates value for customers. This cultural change is often a very personal journey, requiring ongoing commitment from management, clear communication, and a willingness to adapt to new ways of working.

Example of Business Development vs. Business Relationship Management!