Prepare now, or miss opportunities later

Whether it is the integration of a recent acquisition orthe new economic and political climate, change isin the wind, and business development (BD) professionalshave to deal with it.With the coming elections and a newadministration in early 2009, there will bea realignment of budgetsfavoring nondefensespending regardless ofwho wins in November.Companies are trackingthese changes becausethey will feed newopportunities.With an acquisition,the pressure is on to make good on all ofthe promised synergies.With both of these two scenarios, therecan be culture clashes to address. Both circumstancesinvolve new leaders, objectives,reports, teams, structures, activities, compensationconcepts and other wrinkles thataffect BD.But there is a methodology to ensuringrevenue results in the BD game. Evaluate all components ofBD in the corporation to uncover the challengesand find the problems. Address the BD challenges andfix the problems at an operational and tacticallevel.This seems simple enough, but there'smore to it. The BD assessment and deliverymethodology is further broken down intoseveral areas.With mergers and acquisitions or repositioning,a lot of time and effort isinvested in the overall business planningprocess. But in the end, it's all about producingrevenue. It's at the strategic and tacticalBD planning level that this is mappedout, forcing the breakdown of silos, mergingthe collective vision and crafting thecorporate BD culture.Evaluate and determine the BD capabilitiesof executives, managers, team leadersand other key personnel. It's appropriate toanalyze, review and revise BD positions andjob descriptions. Take a hard look at thecurrent strategic BD leaders and supportteams, and decide on the best operationalgroup. This analysis may also require augmentingthe team and recruiting new talent.With the stakes this high, it's not businessas usual.With M&A or repositioning, BD planningwithout attackingprocess realignmentto support theplan is a recipe fordisaster. During ananalysis, it's notunusual to find BDprocesses that areunused, unmonitored, unmeasured and, insome cases, nonexistent. Too often, haphazardactivity is mistaken for process.When merging organizations or developinga new team to go after emergingopportunities, you can also have tensionsinvolving whose process to use. It makessense to start from scratch and invest thetime to design the right, robust process.It's also important to identify educationneeds and develop a corporate BDcurriculum.The best planning, personnel and processefforts are not going to make the numbersby themselves. After a BD process is clearlydesigned and developed, the process mustbe skillfully integrated and implemented tofully maximize revenue results, ofteninvolving cross-functional areas within anorganization. Designing and developing aBD curriculum and delivering it to all BDstakeholders will maximize the investmentand produce revenue results faster and withmore predictability.Here are the first five of the 30 ways tolead your strategic BD leader that werepromised last month. Make it a New Year'sresolution to provide: The question remains: Are you ready?Bill Scheessele (bill.scheessele@mbdi.com) ischairman and chief executive officer at MBDi, aninternational business development and professionalservices firm.