BY VEDANT PATHAKWhat does business development do in a manufacturing company?
Short answer: Business development finds new accounts, markets and partners, then builds the relationship and technical trust that turns them into long-term customers. Sales closes orders; BD creates the opportunities.
In a manufacturing company, sales usually handles today's enquiries. Business development decides where next year's orders will come from.
What BD actually does
- Market mapping: which industries, regions and applications fit the product
- Account targeting: which plants, and who influences the decision there
- Opening doors: first meetings, site visits and technical conversations
- Partnerships: dealers, EPC contractors and consultants
- Feedback: telling the factory what the market is asking for
Why engineering knowledge changes the result
Industrial buyers are spending on equipment that has to run for years, and a failure stops their plant. They trust someone who can walk the site, ask the right questions and explain why something failed.
Solve one real problem during the first site visit and you stop being a vendor.
The numbers worth tracking
- New qualified accounts per quarter
- Conversion at each stage: lead, qualified, visit, proposal, order
- Time from first contact to order
- Share of revenue from accounts won in the last two years
Where companies go wrong
The most common mistake is measuring BD only on this month's orders. Industrial sales cycles are long, so that pushes people back to chasing easy quotations and away from building new accounts.