How to Develop a Strategic Plan for Business Development [Free Template]

Meg Prater (she/her)

Published: May 01, 2023

Business development is usually confused with sales , often overlooked, and only sometimes given the strategic focus it deserves. Having a business development strategy, however, is crucial to long-term success. It ensures that everyone in your company is working toward a common goal.

business development professionals looking over strategic plan

But how do you develop a business development plan? Pull up a chair and stay awhile, I’m diving into that and more below.

business development strategy slideshare

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Business development.

Business development is the practice of identifying, attracting, and acquiring new business to further your company’s revenue and growth goals. How you achieve these goals is sometimes referred to as a business development strategy — and it applies to and benefits everyone at your company.

Business Development framework

It’s not unusual to mistake business development with sales, but there’s an important distinction between the two. Business development refers to many activities and functions inside and outside the traditional sales team structure. In some companies, business development is part of the larger sales operations team. In others, it’s part of the marketing team or sits on its own team altogether.

Because business development can look so different among industries and businesses, the strategy behind this function is expansive. Below, we outline each step in the strategy and how to apply it to your business development plan.

Business Development Strategy

  • Understand your competitive landscape.
  • Choose effective KPIs.
  • Develop long-term customer relationships.
  • Implement customer feedback.
  • Keep your website content and user interface fresh.
  • Speed up your response time.
  • Leverage a sales plan to identify areas of growth.
  • Implement a social listening strategy.
  • Sponsor industry organizations, conferences, and events.

1. Understand your competitive landscape.

Before you can develop a strategic plan to drive business growth, you must have a solid understanding of the competitive landscape in your industry. When you know who your ideal customer is and what problem they are looking to solve with your product or service, research who else is providing a viable solution in your industry.

Identify other companies operating in your space. What features do their products have? How competitive is their pricing? Do their systems integrate with other third-party solutions? Get crystal-clear on what the competition is offering so you know how to differentiate your product to your customers.

Featured Resource: 10 Competitive Analysis Templates

10 Competitive Analysis Templates

2. Choose effective KPIs.

How will you know if your business development efforts are successful? Ensure you can measure your goals with relevant, meaningful key performance indicators (KPIs) that reflect the health of your business. The result of these metrics should give you a strong indication of how effective your business development efforts are.

Featured Resource: Sales Metrics Calculator Dashboard

Sales Metrics Calculator Dashboard

3. Develop long-term customer relationships.

Do you engage with your customers even after the deal has been closed? If not, it’s time to develop a plan to keep your buyers engaged. Building long-term relationships with your customers pays off. A grand majority of a company's business comes from repeat customers, and returning customers are cheaper to convert. Indeed, it’s famously known that it costs five times more to convert new customers than it does to sell to returning customers.

Not only are repeat customers easier to sell to, they can also provide valuable feedback and insights to help you improve your business. Additionally, customer testimonials can be used for valuable content that can attract your next buyer.

4. Implement customer feedback.

If and when you have customers who are willing to provide feedback on your sales process and offerings, make sure you hear them out and implement it. Your customers offer a unique, valuable perspective because they chose your product over the competition — their insights can help shape your strategy to keep your business ahead of the curve.

5. Keep your website content and user interface fresh.

When was the last time your company had a website refresh? Can you ensure that all links are working, that your site is easy to navigate, and that it is laid out and intuitive for those who want to buy from you?

Keeping your website up-to-date and easy to use can make or break the sale for customers who know they are ready to buy. Don’t make it too difficult for potential customers to get in touch with you or purchase your product directly (if that suits your business model).

6. Speed up your response time.

How fast your sales team responds to your leads can make or break your ability to close the deal. If you notice your sales process has some lag time that prevents you from responding to prospects as soon as possible, these could be areas to prioritize improvement.

7. Leverage a sales plan to identify areas of growth.

No business development strategy is complete without a sales plan . If you’ve already established a plan, make sure to unify it with your business development efforts. Your plan should outline your target audience, identify potential obstacles, provide a “game plan” for sales reps, outline responsibilities for team members, and define market conditions.

While a sales plan primarily affects your sales team, it can inform the activities of your business development reps. A sales plan can help them understand where the business needs growth — whether it’s in a new vertical, a new audience, or a new need that’s recently come to light in the industry.

Not sure how to create a sales plan? Download the following template to get started.

Featured Resource: Sales Plan Template

Sales Plan Template

8. Implement a social listening strategy.

While social listening is mainly used in a marketing and customer service context, it’s also an essential practice for business development. There are more than 4 billion social media users worldwide. Naturally, social media is one of the best places to hear directly from consumers and businesses — without needing to reach out to them first.

In business development, you can use social listening to track what the general public is saying about your brand, industry, product offerings, product category, and more. It can help you identify key weaknesses in the industry, making it a prime opportunity to be the first to address those pitfalls.

Use a social listening tool to pick up on trends before they gain traction.

9. Sponsor industry organizations, conferences, and events.

A key facet of business development is reaching potential customers where they are. One of the easiest ways to do that is by sponsoring industry organizations, conferences, and events. This strategy will guarantee that your business development reps get valuable face-to-face time with your business’ target audience. The additional visibility can also help establish your business as a leader in the field.

Now that you understand what business development entails, it's time to create a plan to set your strategy in motion.

How to Develop a Strategic Plan

How to Develop a Strategic Plan

When we refer to a business development strategic plan, we’re referring to a roadmap that guides the whole company and requires everyone’s assistance to execute successfully and move your customer through the flywheel . With a plan, you’ll close more deals and quantify success.

Let’s go over the steps you should take to create a strategic plan.

1. Download our strategic plan template .

First, download our free growth strategy template to create a rock-solid strategic plan. With this template, you can map a growth plan for increasing sales, revenue, and customer acquisition rates. You can also create action plans for adding new locations, creating new product lines, and expanding into new regions.

Featured Resource: Strategic Plan Template

Strategic Plan Template

2. Craft your elevator pitch.

What is your company’s mission and how do you explain it to potential clients in 30 seconds or less? Keeping your elevator pitch at the forefront of all strategic planning will remind everyone what you’re working toward and why.

Some people believe the best pitch isn’t a pitch at all , but a story. Others have their favorite types of pitches , from a one-word pitch to a Twitter pitch that forces you to boil down your elevator pitch to just 280 characters.

Find the elevator pitch that works best for your reps, company, and offer, and document it in your business development strategy.

3. Include an executive summary.

You’ll share your strategic plan with executives and maybe even board members, so it’s important they have a high-level overview to skim. Pick the most salient points from your strategic plan and list or summarize them here.

You might already have an executive summary for your company if you’ve written a business proposal or value proposition . Use this as a jumping off point but create one that’s unique to your business development goals and priorities.

Once your executives have read your summary, they should have a pretty good idea of your direction for growing the business — without having to read the rest of your strategy.

3. Set SMART goals.

What are your goals for this strategy? If you don’t know, it will be difficult for your company and team to align behind your plan. So, set SMART goals . Remember, SMART stands for:

Featured Resource: SMART Goal Setting Template

Download the template now.

If one of your goals is for 5% of monthly revenue to come from upsells or cross-sells, make this goal specific by identifying what types of clients you’ll target.

Identify how you’ll measure success. Is success when reps conduct upsell outreach to 30 clients every month, or is it when they successfully upsell a customer and close the deal? To make your goal attainable, ensure everyone on your team understands who is responsible for this goal: in this case, sales or business development reps.

This goal is relevant because it will help your company grow, and likely contributes to larger company-wide goals. To make it time-based, set a timeline for success and action. In this case, your sales team must achieve that 5% upsell/cross-sell number by the end of the quarter.

4. Conduct SWOT analysis.

SWOT is a strategic planning technique used to identify a company’s strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats.

Before conducting a SWOT, identify what your goal is. For example, “We’d like to use SWOT to learn how best to conduct outreach to prospective buyers.”

Once you’ve identified what you’re working toward, conduct market research by talking with your staff, business partners, and customers.

Next, identify your business’ strengths. Perhaps you have low employee turnover, a central location that makes it easy to visit with prospects in person, or an in-demand feature your competitors haven’t been able to mimic.

Featured Resource: Market Research Kit with SWOT Analysis Template

Market Research Kit with SWOT Analysis Template

Your business’ weaknesses are next. Has your product recently glitched? Have you been unable to successfully build out a customer service team that can meet the demands of your customers?

Then, switch to opportunities. For example, have you made a new business partnership that will transition you into a previously untapped market segment?

What are the threats? Is your physical space getting crowded? What about your market space? Is increasing competition an issue?

Use SWOT results to identify a better way forward for your company.

5. Determine how you’ll measure success.

You’ve identified strengths and weaknesses and set SMART goals , but how will you measure it all ? It’s important for your team to know just how they will be measured, goaled, and rewarded. Common key performance indicators (KPIs) for business development include:

  • Company growth
  • Lead conversion rate
  • Leads generated per month
  • Client satisfaction
  • Pipeline value

6. Set a budget.

What will your budget be for achieving your goals? Review financial documents, historical budgets, and operational estimates to set a budget that’s realistic.

Once you have a “draft” budget, check it against other businesses in your industry and region to make sure you’re not overlooking or misjudging any numbers. Don’t forget to factor in payroll, facilities costs, insurance, and other operational line items that tend to add up.

7. Identify your target customer.

Who will your business development team pursue? Your target market is the group of customers your product/service was built for. For example, if you sell a suite of products for facilities teams at enterprise-level companies, your target market might be facilities or janitorial coordinators at companies with 1000+ employees. To identify your target market:

  • Analyze your product or service
  • Check out the competition
  • Choose criteria to segment by
  • Perform research

Your target customer is the person most likely to buy your product. Do your homework and make sure your business development plan addresses the right people. Only then will you be able to grow your business.

8. Choose an outreach strategy.

What tactics will you use to attract new business for your sales team to close? You might focus on a single tactic or a blend of a few. Once you know who your target market is and where they “hang out,” then you can choose an appropriate outreach strategy.

Will your business development plan rely heavily on thought leadership such as speaking at or attending conferences? Will you host a local meetup for others in your industry? Or will your reps network heavily on LinkedIn and social media?

If referrals will be pivotal to your business’ growth, consider at which stage of the buying process your BDRs will ask for referrals. Will you ask for a referral even if a prospect decides they like your product/service but aren’t a good fit? Or will you wait until a customer has been using your solution for a few months? Define these parameters in your strategy.

Upselling and Cross-Selling

Upselling and cross-selling are a cost-effective way of growing your business. But it’s important that this tactic is used with guardrails. Only upsell clients on features that will benefit them as well as your bottom line. Don’t bloat client accounts with features or services they really don’t need — that’s when turnover and churn start to happen.

Sponsorship and Advertising

Will your BDR work with or be on the marketing team to develop paid advertising campaigns? If so, how will your BDRs support these campaigns? And which channels will your strategy include? If you sell a product, you might want to feature heavily on Instagram or Facebook. If you’re selling a SaaS platform, LinkedIn or Twitter might be more appropriate.

What’s your outreach strategy? Will your BDRs be held to a quota to make 25 calls a week and send 15 emails? Will your outreach strategy be inbound , outbound , or a healthy combination of both? Identify the outreach guardrails that best match your company values for doing business.

Strategic Plan Example

Let’s put all of these moving parts in action with a strategic plan example featuring good ol’ Dunder Mifflin Paper Company.

Strategic Plan Example

Elevator Pitch Example for Strategic Plan

Dunder Mifflin is a local paper company dedicated to providing excellent customer support and the paper your business needs to excel today and grow tomorrow.

Here are some additional resources for inspiration:

  • Elevator Pitch Examples to Inspire Your Own
  • Components of an Elevator Pitch

Executive Summary Example for Strategic Plan

At Dunder Mifflin, our strengths are our customer service, speed of delivery, and our local appeal. Our weakness is that our sales cycle is too long.

To shorten the sales cycle 5% by the end of Q4, we need to ask for more referrals (which already enjoy a 15% faster sales cycle), sponsor local professional events, and outreach to big box store customers who suffer from poor customer support and are more likely to exit their contract. These tactics should allow us to meet our goal in the agreed-upon timeline.

  • How to Write an Incredibly Well-Written Executive Summary [+ Example]
  • Executive Summary Template

SMART Goals Example for Strategic Plan

Dunder Mifflin’s goal is to decrease our sales cycle 5% by the end of Q4. We will do this by more proactively scheduling follow-up meetings, sourcing more qualified, ready-to-buy leads, and asking for 25% more referrals (which have a 15% shorter sales cycle already). We will measure success by looking at the sales pipeline and calculating the average length of time it takes a prospect to become closed won or closed lost.

  • 5 Dos and Don'ts When Making a SMART Goal [Examples]
  • How to Write a SMART Goal
  • SMART Marketing Goals Template

SWOT Analysis Example for Strategic Plan

Strengths: Our strengths are our reputation in the greater Scranton area, our customer service team (led by Kelly Kapoor), and our warehouse team, who ship same-day reams to our customers — something the big box stores cannot offer.

Weaknesses: Our greatest weakness is that our sales team has been unable to successfully counter prospects who choose big box stores for their paper supply. This results in a longer-than-average sales cycle, which costs money and time.

Opportunities: Our greatest business opportunity is to conduct better-targeted outreach to prospects who are ready to buy, ask for more referrals from existing customers, and follow up with closed lost business that’s likely coming up on the end of an annual contract with a big box store.

Threats: Our biggest threat is large box stores offering lower prices to our prospects and customers and a sales cycle that is too long, resulting in low revenue and slow growth.

  • How to Conduct Competitive Analysis
  • How to Run a SWOT Analysis for Your Business [+ Template]
  • SWOT Analysis Template and Market Research Kit

Measurement of Success Example for Strategic Plan

We will measure success by looking at the sales pipeline and calculating the average length of time it takes a prospect to become closed won or closed lost.

Budget Example for Strategic Plan

You've laid out the SMART goals and the way you'll measure for success. The budget section's goal is to estimate how much investment it will take to achieve those goals. This will likely end up being a big-picture overview, broken down into a budget by a program or a summary of key investments. Consider laying it out in a table format like so:

Budget Example for Strategic Plan

  • Budgeting Templates
  • How to Write an Incredible Startup Marketing Budget

Target Customer Example for Strategic Plan

Our target customer is office managers at small- to medium-sized companies in the greater Scranton, PA area. They are buying paper for the entire office, primarily for use in office printers, custom letterhead, fax machines. They are busy managing the office and value good customer service and a fast solution for their paper needs.

  • How to Create Detailed Buyer Personas for Your Business
  • Make My Persona Tool

Outreach Strategy Example for Strategic Plan

Networking, sponsorships, and referrals will be our primary mode of outreach. We will focus on networking at regional paper conferences, HR conferences, and local office manager meetups. We will sponsor local professional events. And we will increase the volume of referrals we request from existing customers.

Create a Strategic Plan for Business Development

Without a strategic plan, you can invest resources, time, and funds into business development initiatives that won't grow your business. A strategic plan is crucial as it aligns your business development and sales teams. With a solid business development strategic plan, everyone will be working toward the greater good of your company.

Editor's note: This post was originally published in January 2020 and has been updated for comprehensiveness.

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What Is Business Development?

  • Understanding the Basics
  • Areas of Development
  • The Process
  • Creating a Plan
  • Skills Needed

The Bottom Line

  • Small Business
  • How to Start a Business

Business Development: Definition, Strategies, Steps & Skills

Why more and more companies worldwide are embracing this planning process

business development strategy slideshare

In the simplest terms, business development is a process aimed at growing a company and making it more successful. That can include seeking new business opportunities, building and sustaining connections with existing clients, entering strategic partnerships, and devising other plans to boost profits and market share.

Key Takeaways

  • The overarching goal of business development is to make a company more successful.
  • It can involve many objectives, such as sales growth, business expansion, the formation of strategic partnerships, and increased profitability.
  • The business development process can impact every department within a company, including sales, marketing, manufacturing, human resources, accounting, finance, product development, and vendor management.
  • Business development leaders and team members need a wide range of both soft and hard skills.

How Business Development Works Within an Organization

Business development, sometimes abbreviated as BD, strives to increase an organization's capabilities and reach in pursuit of its financial and other goals. In that way, it can impact—and also call upon the specialized skills of—a variety of departments throughout the organization.

As the financial services giant American Express puts it, "When it comes to organizational growth, business development acts as the thread that ties together all of a company's functions or departments, helping a business expand and improve its sales, revenues, product offerings, talent, customer service, and brand awareness."

For example:

Sales and Marketing

Sales personnel frequently focus on a particular market or a particular (set of) client(s), often for a targeted revenue number. A business development team might assess the Brazilian market, for example, and conclude that sales of $1.5 billion can be achieved there in three years. With that as their goal, the sales department targets the customer base in the new market with their sales strategies.

Business development often takes a longer-range perspective in setting goals than many sales departments have in the past. As the Society for Marketing Professional Services puts it, "A traditional view of sales is akin to hunting, but business development is more like farming: it's a longer-term investment of time and energy and not always a quick payoff."

Marketing , which oversees the promotion and advertising of the company's products and services, plays a complementary role to sales in achieving its targets.

A business development leader and their team can help set appropriate budgets based on the opportunities involved. Higher sales and marketing budgets allow for aggressive strategies like cold calling , personal visits, roadshows, and free sample distribution. Lower budgets tend to rely on more passive strategies, such as online, print, and social media ads, as well as billboard advertising.

Legal and Finance

To enter a new market, a business development team must decide whether it will be worth going solo by clearing all the required legal formalities or whether it might be more sensible to form a strategic alliance or partnership with firms already operating in that market. Assisted by legal and finance teams, the business development group weighs the pros and cons of the available options and selects the one that best serves the business.

Finance may also become involved in cost-cutting initiatives. Business development is not just about increasing market reach and sales, but improving the bottom line . An internal assessment revealing high spending on travel , for instance, may lead to travel policy changes, such as hosting video conference calls instead of on-site meetings or opting for less expensive transportation modes. The outsourcing of non-core work, such as billing, technology operations, or customer service, may also be part of the development plan.

Project Management/Business Planning

Does an international business expansion require a new facility in the new market, or will all the products be manufactured in the base country and then imported into the targeted market? Will the latter option require an additional facility in the base country? Such decisions are finalized by the business development team based on their cost- and time-related assessments. Then, the project management /implementation team can swing into action to work toward the desired goal.

Product Management and Manufacturing

Regulatory standards and market requirements can vary across regions and countries. A medicine of a certain composition may be allowed in India but not in the United Kingdom, for example. Does the new market require a customized—or altogether new—version of the product?

These requirements drive the work of product management and manufacturing departments, as determined by the business strategy. Cost considerations, legal approvals, and regulatory adherence are all assessed as a part of the development plan.

Vendor Management

Will the new business need external vendors ? For example, will the shipping of a product require a dedicated courier service? Will the company partner with an established retail chain for retail sales? What are the costs associated with these engagements? The business development team works through these questions with the appropriate internal departments.

10 Potential Areas for Business Development

As noted earlier, business development can require employees throughout an organization to work in tandem to facilitate information, strategically plan future actions, and make smart decisions. Here is a summary list of potential areas that business development may get involved in, depending on the organization.

  • Market research and analysis: This information helps identify new market opportunities and develop effective strategies.
  • Sales and lead generation: This involves prospecting, qualifying leads, and coordinating with the sales team to convert leads into customers.
  • Strategic partnerships and alliances: This includes forming strategic alliances, joint ventures, or collaborations that create mutually beneficial opportunities.
  • Product development and innovation: This involves conducting market research, gathering customer feedback, and collaborating with internal teams to drive innovation.
  • Customer relationship management: This involves customer retention initiatives, loyalty programs, and gathering customer feedback to enhance customer satisfaction and drive repeat business.
  • Strategic planning and business modeling: This includes identifying growth opportunities, setting targets, and implementing strategies to achieve sustainable growth.
  • Mergers and acquisitions: This involves evaluating potential synergies, conducting due diligence , and negotiating and executing deals.
  • Brand management and marketing: This includes creating effective marketing campaigns, managing online and offline channels, and leveraging digital marketing techniques.
  • Financial analysis and funding: This includes exploring funding options, securing investments, or identifying grant opportunities.
  • Innovation and emerging technologies: This involves assessing the potential impact of disruptive technologies and integrating them into the organization's growth strategies.

The Business Development Process in Six Steps

While the specific steps in the business development process will depend on the particular company, its needs and capabilities, its leadership, and its available capital, these are some of the more common ones:

Step 1: Market Research/Analysis

Begin by conducting comprehensive market research to gain insights into market trends, customer needs, and the competitive landscape. Analyze data and gather additional information to identify potential growth opportunities and understand the market dynamics.

Step 2: Establish Clear Goals and Objectives

Leveraging that research, define specific objectives and goals for business development efforts. These goals could include revenue targets, market expansion goals, customer acquisition targets, and product/service development objectives. Setting clear goals provides a focus for the business development process.

Step 3: Generate and Qualify Leads

Use various sources, such as industry databases, networking , referrals, or online platforms to generate a pool of potential leads. Identify individuals or companies that fit the target market criteria and have the potential to become customers. Then, evaluate and qualify leads based on predetermined criteria to determine their suitability and potential value.

Step 4: Build Relationships and Present Solutions

Initiate contact with qualified leads and establish relationships through effective communication and engagement. Utilize networking events, industry conferences, personalized emails, or social media interactions to build trust and credibility. As your relationship forms, develop and present tailored solutions that align with the client's needs. Demonstrate the value proposition of the organization's offerings and highlight key benefits and competitive advantages.

Step 5: Negotiate and Expand

Prepare and deliver proposals that outline the scope of work, pricing, deliverables, and timelines. Upon agreement, coordinate with legal and other relevant internal teams to ensure a smooth contract execution process.

Step 6: Continuously Evaluate

Continuously monitor and evaluate the effectiveness of business development efforts. Analyze performance metrics , gather feedback from clients and internal stakeholders, and identify areas for improvement. Regularly refine strategies and processes to adapt to market changes and optimize outcomes.

While it's common for startup companies to seek outside assistance in developing the business, as a company matures, it should aim to build its business development expertise internally.

How to Create a Business Development Plan

To effectively create and implement a business development plan, the team needs to set clear objectives and goals—ones that are specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound (SMART). You can align these objectives with the overall business goals of the company.

Companies often analyze the current state of the organization by evaluating its strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats through a SWOT analysis . That can make it easier to identify target markets and customer segments and define their unique value proposition.

A substantial component of a business development plan is the external-facing stages. It should lay out sales and marketing strategies to generate leads and convert them into customers. In addition, it may explore new potential strategic partnerships and alliances to expand your reach, access new markets, or enhance your offerings.

Teams should conduct a financial analysis and do resource planning to determine the resources required for implementing the plan. Once you implement, you should track progress against the key performance indicators (KPIs) you've chosen.

Skills Needed for Business Development Jobs

Business development is a fast-growing field across industries worldwide. It is also one that calls upon a wide range of hard and soft skill sets.

Leaders and other team members benefit from well-honed sales and negotiating skills in order to interact with clients, comprehend their needs, and sway their decisions. They have to be able to establish rapport, cope with challenges, and conclude transactions. They need to be able to communicate clearly, verbally and in writing, to both customers and internal stakeholders.

Business development specialists should have a thorough awareness of the market in which they operate. They should keep up with market dynamics, competition activity, and other industry developments. They should be able to see potential opportunities, make wise judgments, and adjust tactics as necessary. Because many of their decisions will be data-driven, they need good analytical skills.

Internally, business development practitioners need to be able to clarify priorities, establish reasonable deadlines, manage resources wisely, and monitor progress to guarantee timely completion.

Finally, people who work in business development should conduct themselves with the utmost morality and honesty. They must uphold confidentiality, act legally and ethically, and build trust with customers and other stakeholders.

Why Is Business Development Important?

In addition to its benefits to individual companies, business development is important for generating jobs, developing key industries, and keeping the economy moving forward.

What Are the Most Important Skills for Business Development Executives?

Development executives need to have leadership skills, vision, drive, and a willingness to work with a variety of people to get to a common goal.

How Can I Be Successful in Business Development?

Having a vision and putting together a good team are among the factors that help predict success in business development. A successful developer also knows how to write a good business plan, which becomes the blueprint to build from.

What, in Brief, Should a Business Development Plan Include?

A business development plan, or business plan , should describe the organization's objectives and how it intends to achieve them, including financial goals, expected costs, and targeted milestones.

Business development provides a way for companies to rise above their day-to-day challenges and set a course for a successful future. More and more companies, across many different types of industries, are coming to recognize its value and importance.

American Express. " Business Development and Its Importance ."

Society for Marketing Professional Services. " What Is Business Development? "

World Economic Forum. " The Future of Jobs Report 2020 ," Page 30.

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How to Develop a Business Strategy: 6 Steps

colleagues developing a business strategy using sticky notes on glass window

  • 25 Oct 2022

Business strategy can seem daunting, and for good reason: It can make or break an organization. Yet, developing a strong strategy doesn’t need to be overwhelming.

In the online course Business Strategy , Harvard Business School Professor Felix Oberholzer-Gee posits that strategy is simple. His secret? Focus on your organization’s value creation.

“Strategy often sounds like a lofty concept that only the most senior executives can develop,” Oberholzer-Gee says. “But actually, anyone can think and act strategically. It doesn’t need to be difficult; all you need is a proven framework.”

Here’s a breakdown of why business strategy is important, the basics of value-based strategy, and six steps for developing your own.

Why Do You Need a Business Strategy?

Business strategy is the development, alignment, and integration of an organization’s strategic initiatives to give it a competitive edge in the market. Devising a business strategy can ensure you have a clear plan for reaching organizational goals and continue to survive and thrive.

According to a study by Bridges Business Consultancy , 48 percent of organizations fail to meet half of their strategic targets and 85 percent fail to meet two-thirds, highlighting why dedication to the business strategy process is crucial.

One type of business strategy is called value-based strategy, which simplifies the process by leveraging the value stick framework to focus on the advantage your business creates.

Access your free e-book today.

What Is Value-Based Strategy?

Value-based strategy , also called value-based pricing, is a pricing method in which an organization relies on the perceived value of its goods and services to determine its pricing structure and resource allocation.

The value stick framework can be used to visualize how various factors impact each other and determine which initiatives to pursue to increase value for all parties.

The value stick framework

The value stick has four factors:

  • Willingness to pay (WTP) : The highest price a customer is willing to pay for your product or service
  • Price : The amount customers have to pay for goods or services
  • Cost : The amount a company spends on producing goods or services
  • Willingness to sell (WTS) : The lowest amount suppliers are willing to accept for the materials required to produce goods or services

To determine how to best create value, you can toggle each factor on the value stick to see how the others are affected. For instance, lowering price increases customer delight.

"As strategists, we really ask three questions,” Oberholzer-Gee says in Business Strategy. “How can my business best create value for customers? How can my business create value for employees? And how can my business create value by collaborating with suppliers? Think of a company's strategy as an answer to these three questions."

Related: 4 Business Strategy Skills Every Business Leader Needs

6 Steps to Develop a Value-Based Business Strategy

1. define your purpose.

When approaching business strategy, defining your organization’s purpose can be a useful starting point.

This is vital in creating customer and employee value, especially if your organization’s purpose is linked to a cause such as environmental protection or alleviating specific social issues.

A recent survey conducted by clean energy company Swytch found that nearly 75 percent of millennials would take a decrease in salary if it meant working for an environmentally responsible company. Nearly 40 percent selected one job over another because of an organization’s sustainability practices.

Additionally, research in the Harvard Business Review shows that consumers’ motivation to buy from sustainable brands is on the rise. Sales of products marked as sustainable grew more than five times faster than those that weren’t.

By starting with purpose, your organization can create more value down the line.

2. Assess Market Opportunity

Next, understand your market’s competitive landscape. Which companies own shares of the market? What differentiates your competitors’ products from yours? Are there any unmet needs your organization could take advantage of?

Conducting this research before planning a strategy is critical in identifying how your organization provides unique customer value and opportunities to create even more.

3. Create Value for Customers

With an understanding of the market and your company’s purpose, you can determine how your organization provides unique or greater value and strategize ways to improve.

On the value stick, the value captured by customers is called “customer delight.” It can be increased by raising their willingness to pay and decreasing the product’s price. If lowering the price isn’t an option, brainstorm how you could make the product more valuable to customers, thus increasing their willingness to pay.

Some ways to create customer value include:

  • Lowering the product’s price
  • Increasing the product’s physical quality and longevity
  • Providing quick, high-quality customer service and a smooth shopping experience
  • Leveraging network effects , if applicable, to create a community of users
  • Incorporating an environmental or social cause into processes, packaging, and branding

4. Create Value for Suppliers

In addition to creating value for customers, you also need to provide value for suppliers. Suppliers can include any company that provides raw materials, labor, and transportation to help your organization produce goods or deliver services.

Supplier surplus, also called supplier delight, is created when the cost of materials increases or their willingness to sell decreases. The relationship between a firm and its suppliers can be contentious, given that both want to increase their margins. Yet, there are ways to create value for both parties.

Some ways to create value for suppliers include:

  • Agreeing to pay more for higher quality materials : While this increases the supplier surplus, it may also increase customer delight by raising willingness to pay, or increase the firm’s margin by allowing you to raise prices.
  • Working with the supplier to increase efficiency : This strategy can increase supplier surplus by lowering the overall cost of the supplier’s labor and their willingness to sell.

Business Strategy | Simplify Strategy to Make the Greatest Business Impact | Learn More

5. Create Value for Employees

Creating value for employees is a critical part of an effective business strategy and can be assessed using the value stick. Think of your employees as the “supplier” of labor and the supplier margin as employee satisfaction.

Employee satisfaction can be increased by raising wages or lowering the minimum salary they’re willing to receive by delivering value in other ways. Satisfied employees may provide a better customer experience, resulting in increased customer delight.

The value you provide employees ensures they’re motivated to do their best work, develop their skills, and stay with your company long-term.

Some examples of ways to create value for your employees include:

  • Offering competitive salaries and bonuses
  • Offering benefits like ample paid vacation and sick days, generous parental leave, and wellness budgets
  • Providing flexibility of work location, whether your team is fully remote or hybrid
  • Aiding in professional development
  • Creating a workplace rich with a diversity of experiences, identities, and ideas
  • Fostering a supportive organizational culture

One example from Business Strategy is that of a call center for a diagnostics company. The employees were being paid minimum wage and expressed that the analytical nature of their phone calls with customers warranted higher pay. They also expressed pain points about cumbersome tasks and work conditions.

When a pay increase was implemented for all employees, along with operational changes to make processes smoother, employee productivity increased to the point that it balanced out the higher cost of salaries.

Because the employees’ satisfaction increased, they also began providing better experiences on the phone with customers. This increased the customers’ willingness to pay, directly impacting customer delight.

6. Map Strategy to Actionable Tasks and KPIs

Amidst creating value for each of the three groups, don’t forget the fourth party that needs value: your company. By creating value for employees, suppliers, and customers, you’re creating value for your firm, too.

To ensure you’re tracking to goals, determine your key performance indicators, what metrics constitute success, and how you’ll report results over time. Then, break each of the above value-creation goals into action items. For instance, what steps can you take to increase your employees’ compensation? Who will be responsible for each task?

Having actionable assignments and clear metrics for success will allow for a smooth transition from strategy formulation to execution.

Which HBS Online Strategy Course is Right for You? | Download Your Free Flowchart

Building Your Strategic Skill Set

By leveraging the value stick, you can create a business strategy that provides value to employees, customers, suppliers, and your firm.

To develop your strategies further and dig deeper into how to navigate value creation, consider taking an online course like Business Strategy . Professor Oberholzer-Gee walks through real-world examples of business challenges, prompts you to consider how you’d create value, and then reveals what those business leaders did and how you can apply the lessons to your organization.

Want to learn more about how to craft a successful strategy for your organization? Explore Business Strategy , one of our online strategy courses , to learn how to create organizational value. Not sure which course is the right fit? Download our free flowchart .

business development strategy slideshare

About the Author

  • A Game-Changing Business Development Strategy to Achieve Consistent Growth

Joe Pope

Your business development strategy can be key to the success or failure of your firm. In this post, we’ll explore how to create a strategy and associated plan that can propel an individual, a practice or an entire firm to new levels of growth and profitability.

Business Development Defined

Business development (BD) is the process that is used to identify, nurture and acquire new clients and business opportunities to drive growth and profitability. A business development strategy is a document that describes the strategy you will use to accomplish that goal.

The scope of business development can be wide ranging and vary a lot from organization to organization. Consider the model of how professional services organizations get new business shown in Figure 1.

business development funnel

Figure 1: The three stages of the business development funnel

The first two stages of the model, Attracting Prospects and Build Engagement, are traditional marketing functions. The final stage, Turning Opportunities into Clients, is a traditional sales function. In the traditional role, business development would be looking for new channels of distribution or marketing partners.

But roles are changing and naming conventions evolve. In today’s world many firms refer to the entire marketing and sales process as business development. I know, it can be confusing. So let’s sort it out a bit.

Business Development vs. Marketing

Marketing is the process of determining which products and services you will offer to which target audiences, at what price. It also addresses how you will position and promote your firm and it’s offerings in the competitive marketplace. The result of all this activity should be an increasing awareness of your firm among your target audience — and a stronger flow of qualified leads and opportunities.

Download the Business Development Guide

Historically, business development has been a subset of the marketing function that was focused on acquiring new marketing or distribution relationships and channels. While this role still exists in many companies, the business development title has become interchangeable with many marketing and sales functions.  

Business Development vs. Sales

Sales is the task of converting leads or opportunities into new clients. Business development is a broader term that encompasses many activities beyond the sales function. And while there is some overlap, most traditional BD roles are only lightly involved in closing new clients.  

Business development is often confused with sales. This is not too surprising because many people who are clearly in sales have taken to using the title of Business Developer . Presumably this is done because the organization believes that the BD designation avoids some possible stigma associated with sales.

Nowhere is this practice more prevalent than in professional services. Accountants, lawyers and strategy consultants do not want to be seen as “pushy sales people.” This titular bias is firmly rooted despite the fact that developing new business is an important role of most senior members of professional services firms.

Since so many clients want to meet and get to know the professionals they will be working with, the Seller-doer role is well established in many firms. The preference for Seller-doers also tends to discourage firms from fielding a full-time sales force.

As an alternative approach to leveraging fee-earners’ time, some firms have one or more Business Developers on staff. In the professional services context, these folks are often involved in lead generation and qualification, as well as supporting the Seller-doers in their efforts to close new clients. In other organizational contexts, this role might be thought of as a sales support role.

The result of this confusing picture is that many professional services firms call sales “business development” and make it part of every senior professional’s role. They may also include some marketing functions, such as lead generation and lead nurturing, into the professional’s BD responsibilities.

It is this expanded role, where business development encompasses the full range of lead generation, nurturing and sales tasks, which we will concentrate on in this post.

See also: Heller Consulting Case Story

Business Development Examples

To be clear on what this role entails, let’s consider this business development example:

Bethany is the Director of Business Development at a fictional mid-sized architecture firm. She is not an architect herself. Nor is she involved with any aspect of delivering the projects that the firm has signed. Instead, her role is exclusively focused on signing new business for her firm—with either new clients or existing ones. 

For new clients, Bethany spends much of her time responding to RFPs, communicating directly with inbound leads generated by the marketing/sales enablement team, and nurturing potential clients that she met at a recent industry conference. Bethany also collaborates with the marketing team in the development of new materials she needs to sell to new accounts.

When it comes to existing accounts, Bethany also has a role. She meets monthly with delivery teams to understand whether current client projects are on scope or if change orders are needed. Moreover, she maintains a relationship with key stakeholders of her firm’s clients. If another opportunity for more work opens, she knows that her relationship with the client is an important component to that potential deal.

In this example, Bethany is the primary driver of business development but that does not mean she is doing this alone. Imagine she has a colleague Greg who is a lead architect at the firm. While Greg’s first focus is delivering for his clients, business development—and even marketing—should still be a part of his professional life. Perhaps Greg attends an industry conference with Bethany, he as a speaker and expert and her as the primary networker. The business development dynamic should not end with Bethany and should permeate the whole organization.

In this business development example, you can see that the range of roles and responsibilities is wide. This is why it is essential for business development to not be ad hoc, but done strategically. Let’s talk about that now.

Strategic Business Development

Not all business development is of equal impact. In fact a lot of the activities of many professionals are very opportunistic and tactical in nature.This is especially true with many seller-doers. 

Caught between the pressures of client work and an urgent need for new business they cast about for something quick and easy that will produce short term results. Of course this is no real strategy at all.

Strategic business development is the alignment of business development processes and procedures with your firm’s strategic business goals. The role of strategic business development is to acquire ideal clients for your highest priority services using brand promises that you can deliver upon.

 Deciding which targets to pursue and strategies to employ to develop new business is actually a high stakes decision. A good strategy, well implemented, can drive high levels of growth and profitability. A faulty strategy can stymie growth and frustrate valuable talent.

Yet many firms falter at this critical step. They rely on habit, anecdotes and fads — or worse still, “this is how we have always done it.” In a later section we’ll cover how to develop your strategic business development plan. But first we’ll cover some of the strategies that may go into that plan.

Top Business Development Strategies

Let’s look at some of the most common business development strategies and how they stack up with today’s buyers .

Networking is probably the most universally used business development strategy. It’s built on the theory that professional services buying decisions are rooted in relationships, and the best way to develop new relationships is through face-to-face networking.

It certainly is true that many relationships do develop in that way. And if you are networking with your target audience, you can develop new business. But there are limitations. Today’s buyers are very time pressured, and networking is time consuming. It can be very expensive, if you consider travel and time away from the office.

Newer digital networking techniques can help on the cost and time front. But even social media requires an investment of time and attention.

The close relative of networking, referrals are often seen as the mechanism that turns networking and client satisfaction into new business. You establish a relationship, and that person refers new business to you. Satisfied clients do the same.

Clearly, referrals do happen, and many firms get most or all of their business from them. But referrals are passive. They rely on your clients and contacts to identify good prospects for your services and make a referral at the right time.

The problem is referral sources often do not know the full range of how you can help a client. So many referrals are poorly matched to your capabilities. Other well-matched referrals go unmade because your referral source fails to recognize a great prospect when they see one. Finally, many prospects that might be good clients rule out your firm before even talking with you. One recent study puts the number at over 50%.

Importantly, there are new digital strategies that can accelerate referrals. Making your specific expertise more visible is the key. This allows people to make better referrals and increases your referral base beyond clients and a few business contacts.

Learn More: Referral Marketing Course

Sponsorships and Advertising

Can you develop new business directly by sponsoring events and advertising? It would solve a lot of problems if it works. No more trying to get time from fully utilized billable professionals.

Unfortunately, the results on this front are not very encouraging. Studies have shown that traditional advertising is actually associated with slower growth. Only when advertising is combined with other techniques, such as speaking at an event, do these techniques bear fruit.

The most promising advertising strategy seems to be well-targeted digital advertising. This allows firms to get their messages and offers in front of the right people at a lower cost.

Outbound Telephone and Mail

Professional services firms have been using phone calls and mail to directly target potential clients for decades. Target the right firms and roles with a relevant message and you would expect to find new opportunities that can be developed into clients.

There are a couple of key challenges with these strategies. First they are relatively expensive, so they need to be just right to be effective. Second, if you don’t catch the prospect at the right time, your offer may have no appeal relevance — and consequently, no impact on business development.

The key is to have a very appealing offer delivered to a very qualified and responsive list. It’s not easy to get this combination right.

Thought Leadership and Content Marketing

Here, the strategy is to make your expertise visible to potential buyers and referral sources. This is accomplished through writing, speaking or publishing content that demonstrates your expertise and how it can be applied to solve client problems.

Books, articles and speaking engagements have long been staples of professional services business development strategy. Many high visibility experts have built their practices and firms upon this strategy. It often takes a good part of a career to execute this approach.

But changing times and technology have reshaped this strategy. With the onset of digital communication it is now easier and much faster to establish your expertise with a target market. Search engines have leveled the playing field so that relatively unknown individuals and firms can become known even outside their physical region. Webinars have democratized public speaking, and blogs and websites give every firm a 24/7 presence. Add in video and social media and the budding expert can access a vastly expanded marketplace.

But these developments also open firms to much greater competition as well. You may find yourself competing with specialists whom you were never aware of. The impact is to raise the stakes on your business development strategy.

Combined Strategies

It is common to combine different business development strategies. For example, networking and referrals are frequently used together. And on one level, a combined strategy makes perfect sense. The strength of one strategy can shore up the weakness of another.

But there is a hidden danger. For a strategy to perform at its peak, it must be fully implemented. There is a danger that by attempting to execute too many different strategies you will never completely implement any of them.

Good intentions, no matter how ambitious, are of little real business development value. Under-investment, lack of follow through and inconsistent effort are the bane of effective business development.

It is far more effective to fully implement a simple strategy than to dabble in a complex one. Fewer elements, competently implemented, produce better results.

Next, we turn our attention to the tactics used to implement a high-level strategy. But first there is a bit of confusion to clear up.

Business Development Strategy Vs. Tactics

The line between strategy and tactics is not always clear. For example, you can think of networking as an overall business development strategy or as a tactic to enhance the impact of a thought leadership strategy. Confusing to be sure.

From our perspective, the distinction is around focus and intent. If networking is your business development strategy all your focus should be on making the networking more effective and efficient. You will select tactics that are aimed at making networking more powerful or easier. You may try out another marketing technique and drop it if it does not help you implement your networking strategy.

On the other hand, if networking is simply one of many tactics, your decision to use it will depend on whether it supports your larger strategy. Tactics and techniques can be tested and easily changed. Strategy, on the other hand, is a considered choice and does not change from day to day or week to week.

10 Most Effective Business Development Tactics

Which business development tactics are most effective? To find out, we recently conducted a study that looked at over 1000 professional services firms. The research identified those firms that were growing at greater than a 20% compound annual growth rate over a three-year period.

These High Growth firms were compared to firms in the same industry that did not grow over the same time period. We then examined which business development tactics were employed by each group and which provided the most impact.

The result is a list of the ten most impactful tactics employed by the High Growth firms:

  • Outbound sales calls from internal teams
  • Providing assessments and/or consultations
  • Speaking at targeted conferences or events
  • Live product/service demonstrations
  • Presenting in educational webinars
  • Pursuing industry award opportunities
  • Business development materials
  • Email marketing campaigns
  • Conducting and publishing original research
  • Networking at targeted conferences or events

There are a couple of key observations about these growth tactics. First, these techniques can be employed in service of different business development strategies. For example number three on the list, speaking at targeted conferences or events, can easily support a networking or a thought leadership strategy.

The other observation is that the top tactics include a mix of both digital and traditional techniques. As we will see when we develop your plan, having a healthy mix of digital and traditional techniques tends to increase the impact of your strategy.

Business Development Skills

Now that we have identified the key business development strategies and tactics, it is time to consider the business development skills your team will need. Business development skills require a broad range of technical skills but there are some that make a difference.

When the Hinge Research Institute studied marketing and business development skills in our annual High Growth Study , we found that the firms who grow faster have a skill advantage within their marketing and business development teams.

business development strategy slideshare

Let’s dive into the top three skills from this list. 

The number one business development skill high growth firms enjoy are strong project management skills. And for experienced business development specialists, this makes good sense. Staying organized, accurately tracking business development activity, and managing accounts are essential for building and maintaining strong business relationships. Activities like the proposal development see business development team resources manage and produce a strong proposal quickly, including the right stakeholders, and without sacrificing quality.

The next most important skill is simplifying complex concepts. In business development conversations, it is vital that team members are strong communicators of your firm’s service offerings and capabilities. Those who are able to take a comlex scope of work and communicate it in a way that a potential buyer can understand. Speaking in industry jargon or overly complicated charts is a fast way to see a business lead become unresponsive. Therefore, it is no surprise to see that the fastest growing professional services firms have an advantage in communicating complex information in a way that buyers understand.

The third most important business development skill is face-to-face networking. Despite the hiatus of many in-person events, high growth firms still reported that strong networking skills are a top skill enjoyed by their firms. Strong face-to-face networking skills are as much of an art as it is a science. While some can be more charismatic than others, everyone can prepare their teams with the resources and plan they need to succeed in a networking environment.

Review the other business development and marketing skills in the figure above and determine which skills your team should aim to develop. Strategy development for planning your business development plan, research for understanding the competitive landscape and industry trends, and social media prowess all play an important role in business development, too. Developing these skills should be a key priority of your business development team.

How to Create Your Strategic Business Development Plan

A Business Development Plan is a document that outlines how you implement your business development strategy. It can be a plan for an individual, a practice or the firm as a whole. Its scope covers both the marketing and sales functions, as they are so intertwined in most professional services firms.

Here are the key steps to develop and document your plan.

Define your target audience

Who are you trying to attract as new clients? Focus on your “best-fit” clients, not all possible prospects. It is most effective to focus on a narrow target audience. But don’t go so narrow that you can’t achieve your business goals.

Research their issues, buying behavior and your competitors

The more you know about your target audience the better equipped you will be to attract their attention and communicate how you can help them. What are their key business issues? Is your expertise relevant to those issues? Where do they look for advice and inspiration? What is the competitive environment like? How do you stack up?

Identify your competitive advantage

What makes you different? Why is that better for your target client? Are you the most cost-effective alternative, or the industry’s leading expert? This “positioning” as it is often called, needs to be true, provable and relevant to the prospect at the time they are choosing which firm to work with. Be sure to document this positioning, as you will use it over and over again as you develop your messages and marketing tools.

Choose your overall business development strategy

Pick the broad strategy or strategies to reach, engage and convert your prospects. You can start with the list of top strategies provided above. Which strategy fits with the needs and preferences of your target audiences? Which ones best convey your competitive advantage? For example, if you are competing because you have superior industry expertise, a thought leadership/content marketing strategy will likely serve you well.

Click to play video

Choose your business development tactics

A great place to start is the list of the most effective tactics we provided above. Make sure that each technique you select fits your target audience and strategy. Remember, it’s not about your personal preferences or familiarity with a tactic. It’s about what works with the audience.

Also, you will need to balance your choices in two important ways: First, you will need tactics that address each stage of the business development pipeline shown in Figure 1. Some techniques work great for gaining visibility but do not address longer-term nurturing. You need to cover the full funnel.

Second, you need a good balance between digital and traditional techniques (Figure 2). Your research should inform this choice. Be careful about assumptions. Just because you don’t use social media doesn’t mean that a portion of your prospects don’t use it to check you out.

Online and Traditional Marketing

Figure 2. Online and offline marketing techniques

When, how often, which conferences, what topics? Now is the time to settle on the details that turn a broad strategy into a specific plan. Many plans include a content or marketing calendar that lays out the specifics, week by week. If that is too much detail for you, at least document what you will be doing and how often. You will need these details to monitor the implementation of your plan.

Specify how you will monitor implementation and impact

Often overlooked, these important considerations often spell the difference between success and failure. Unimplemented strategies don’t work. Keep track of what you do, and when. This will both motivate action and provide a great starting place as you troubleshoot your strategy. Also monitor and record the impacts you see. The most obvious affect will be how much new business you closed. But you should also monitor new leads or new contacts, at the bare minimum. Finally, don’t neglect important process outcomes such as referrals, new names added to your list and downloads of content that expose prospects and referral sources to your expertise.

If you follow these steps you will end up with a documented business development strategy and a concrete plan to implement and optimize it.

business development strategy slideshare

Free Resource

The Business Development Guide

Lee

How Hinge Can Help

Hinge, a global leader in professional services branding and marketing, helps firms grow faster and become more profitable. Our research-based strategies are designed to be  implemented.  In fact, our groundbreaking  Visible Firm ®  program  combines strategy, implementation, training and more.

Additional Resources

  • For hands-on help developing a high-performance business development plan, register for our  Visible Firm ®  course  through Hinge University.
  • Keep pace with the marketplace, generate leads and build your reputation all at once:  Marketing Planning Guide.
  • Find out how to turn your firm into a high-visibility, high-growth business. Download our free executive guide,  The Visible Firm® , in which we layout a detailed roadmap of this research-based program.
  • For more insights, check out our blog post, How to Develop a Winning Go-to-Market Strategy for Your Firm  

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Business Development Strategy For Any Organization Powerpoint Presentation Slides

Choosing to grow: The leader’s blueprint

Growth is something every CEO and business leader aspires to deliver, but for many, it remains elusive. About a quarter of companies don’t grow at all, and between 2010 and 2019, only one in eight achieved more than 10 percent revenue growth annually. 1 Statistics in this section are based on McKinsey’s analysis of data from Corporate Performance Analytics by McKinsey and regulatory filings, S&P Global, for the period 2010–19. Sustained, profitable growth is possible, however, and it comes down to “choice.”

About the authors

This article is a collaborative effort by Michael Birshan , Biljana Cvetanovski , Rebecca Doherty , Tjark Freundt , Andre Gaeta, Greg Kelly , Erik Roth , Ishaan Seth , and Jill Zucker , representing views from McKinsey’s Growth, Marketing & Sales and Strategy & Corporate Finance practices.

Do you, as a leader, make an explicit choice to grow? Or do you pay lip service to your growth ambitions and let your resolve falter if profit isn’t immediate?

When sustainable, inclusive, and profitable growth becomes a conscious, resolute choice, it shapes decision making across every area of the business. Growth becomes the oxygen of an organization, feeding the culture, elevating ambitions, and inspiring a sense of purpose. Growth leaders generate 80 percent more shareholder value than their peers over a ten-year period. Beyond creating shareholder value, growth attracts talent, fosters innovation, and creates jobs.

With only one in ten S&P 500 companies reporting growth above GDP for more than 30 years, sustained, profitable growth may seem difficult. But the choice to grow is paramount—and it is available to every leader, regardless of industry or economic climate. Indeed, many high-growth companies, including Hewlett-Packard, Burger King, Hyatt Hotels, Microsoft, and Airbnb, to name a few, were founded during economic downturns.

Incumbents have also achieved impressive growth during downturns. US-based retailer Target managed to deliver growth during each of the last two recessions. In 2000, Target doubled down on growth investments, adding new locations, products, and partnerships that resulted in double-digit growth for sales and profits. In 2008, Target analyzed customer trends and expanded its food offerings to include more fresh meat and produce; the food category has since added billions to annual revenue. In 2020, Target achieved record growth during the COVID-19 pandemic by investing consistently in online services and accelerating its ability to use stores as distribution centers and enable online-order pickups from their parking lots. 2 Ranjay Gulati, Nitin Nohria, and Franz Wohlgezogen, “Roaring Out of Recession,” Harvard Business Review , March 2010.

The leaders who choose growth and outperform their peers not only think, act, and speak differently; they align around a shared mindset, strategy, and capabilities. In turn, they actively track leading and lagging growth indicators to tie their aspirations to clear and measurable key performance indicators (KPIs). They explore and invest in opportunities both within and outside their core business. Their commitment to growth leads them to invest in an appropriate mix of enablers at the right time and scale, and they stay resolutely faithful to their growth vision in the face of unexpected challenges in their business and operating context, even turning disruption to their advantage.

Drawing on McKinsey’s extensive research into growth and leadership as well as our experience in partnering with leaders in every sector on sustainable, profitable growth , this article explores what happens when business leaders make and follow through on a purposeful choice to grow. 3 For more, see Mehrdad Baghai, Stephen Coley, and David White, The Alchemy of Growth , Basic Books, September 1999; Mehrdad Baghai, Patrick Viguerie, and Sven Smit, The granularity of growth: How to identify the sources of growth and drive enduring company performance , John Wiley & Sons, 2007. The leader’s blueprint for growth shows how subtle changes in thoughts and actions arising from choice can make the difference between sustained standout growth and remaining with the pack.

When a business leader chooses growth, that choice begins to shape behavior, mindset, risk appetite, and investment decisions, creating a growth orientation across the organization. In fact, growth leaders across the C-suite are 70 percent more likely than peers to have growth as their top priority. 4 Biljana Cvetanovski, Eric Hazan, Jesko Perrey, and Dennis Spillecke, “ Are you a growth leader? The seven beliefs and behaviors that growth leaders share ,” McKinsey, September 26, 2019.

Growth-oriented leaders also shape their thinking and actions toward growth over both short- and long-term horizons. They react decisively to shorter-term disruptions that can be turned into opportunities—what we term “ timely jolts ”—and build organizational resilience and agility to respond to change and leverage disruption. These leaders follow a timeless blueprint for growth that flows from mindset into growth pathways and execution (Exhibit 1).

Set an aspirational mindset and culture

C-suite growth leaders share a common series of mindsets and behaviors from their communications to their willingness to learn through failure. Those who display at least three of the five key growth mindsets are 2.4 times more likely to profitably outgrow their peers (Exhibit 2).

The first part of the timeless holistic growth blueprint is to support aspirations with clear targets, milestones, and motivators—creating a North Star that feeds the broader strategic and cultural narrative of the business. Leaders are able to commit their company to action and maintain this focus in the face of timely jolts, inspiring an organization-wide culture that continually seeks out and pursues growth opportunities.

On the other hand, the leader who aspires to growth but underinvests in initiatives or removes funding from growth is one whose actions do not match their aspirations. C-suite leaders who choose growth are much less likely to yield when challenges arise, finding opportunity in headwinds and reasons to innovate where others retreat to conventional defensive playbooks.

A further differentiator of growth leaders is their ability to build organizational buy-in, including from the board and investors. They tend to directly involve the board in their growth planning and they proactively communicate with investors 5 For more, see “ Where companies with a long-term view outperform their peers ,” McKinsey Global Institute, February 8, 2017. using significant and credible targets to show how the growth plan will generate value. Growth leaders allocate the resources required to achieve goals and are more willing to change their operating model to enable growth, if that is what is needed.

Activate the growth pathways

When leaders choose growth and develop the right leadership mindsets and behaviors to support that choice, their natural position is to look for opportunity wherever it exists. Those companies that set growth strategies to address all available pathways to growth are 97 percent more likely to achieve profitable above-peer growth.

The second part of the timeless holistic growth blueprint is activating three pathways: expanding the core business, innovating into new markets and adjacencies, and purposefully pursuing opportunities for breakthrough growth through new-business building or mergers and acquisitions (M&A).

The most successful companies are able to balance and sequence these growth choices in response to their changing operating environments, advances in technology, and emerging customer needs and preferences.

Rippled effect on liquid surface caused by the touch of a iridescent sphere

Mindset to action: Imperatives for Growth

Expand the core business.

Growth begins with the core, and growth leaders understand the importance of optimizing their current core business. With more than 80 percent of total revenue growth, on average, derived from the core, achieving excellence in current operations is crucial. 6 Statistics in this section are based on McKinsey’s analysis of data from Corporate Performance Analytics by McKinsey, regulatory filings, and S&P Global, for the period 2005–19; we have analyzed the 3,000 largest public companies as of 2018 reporting revenues by segment. Total revenue growth split is derived from the summation of the respective company segment revenues in this sample. Some sectors—healthcare, for example—achieve as much as 90 percent of growth from the core business, while others, such as financial services, generate around 74 percent from the core and 23 percent or more from adjacent opportunities (Exhibit 3).

These variations are partly explained by the idiosyncrasies of different industries. For example, healthcare businesses make long-term R&D and capital investments for innovation, but their patents enable them to generate most of their growth within the core. Financial-services companies, on the other hand, tend to be more able to move into adjacent services, with many companies actively making big bets across industry sub-sectors (eg, investment banks entering wealth management, and vice versa).

Regardless of industry, growth leaders turbocharge their core through a mix of strategic shifts to higher growth pockets (for example, shifting product mix to higher growth value or premium segments and higher growth channels such as e-commerce), innovation of the core products and services, and improved executional excellence in their commercial capabilities.

Having a growth mindset is especially important for the core business. Growth outperformers almost always grow their core—either through their main products, sectors, or local market. In fact, it is unlikely that they can raise their growth trajectory without winning in their local market. 7 Defined as the largest region in the portfolio by revenue.  In fact, fewer than one in five of the companies in our sample that had below-average growth rates in their local region managed to outperform their peers in growth.

Whatever the exact mix of strategies and focus areas, growth leaders are maximizing their core through all available means. And they are twice as likely to report having identified pockets of growth within their existing business.

Innovate into adjacencies

Having a strong core is essential. Outperformers build beyond it to achieve their growth aspirations. Businesses that expand into adjacent industries or segments are 20 percent more likely to achieve greater growth than their peers.

The obvious places to look for growth are new geographies and adjacent industries where growth leaders can adapt their existing offerings to serve new customer segments. For example, CVS Health transformed into a consumer-centric, integrated health solutions company by expanding its business from pharmacy and retail to healthcare services, which accounted for 67 percent of the company’s revenue growth from 2005–19.

Growth leaders recognize the need to unlock the next wave of growth through expansion beyond the core. However, choosing the best adjacencies is critical. Growth leaders are increasingly harnessing advanced analytics to identify promising or previously overlooked opportunities that leverage core competencies and provide a good chance to establish a strong leadership position. McKinsey research shows that businesses that expand to adjacencies with high similarity to their core and exploit their unique competitive advantages are more likely to profitably outperform their peers on growth.

Outperformers use the full growth blueprint to excel in adjacencies, with a particular focus on strategies that build on core competencies. They use and refresh growth maps to consistently surface opportunities, to understand which are most achievable, and set growth strategies to capture them. They choose among the different avenues to grow adjacently, such as M&A or business building, and they evolve their operating models to support these growth choices.

Growth leaders are also increasingly building ecosystems around their core capabilities and assets and deploying new offerings into adjacent products or markets. Tencent, for instance, has become an Asian tech giant worth around $500 billion through its online platforms that include messaging, gaming, payments, e-commerce and advertising—in addition to evolving its social messaging app WeChat into an extensive “super app.” Tencent’s full ecosystem offering spans fintech , entertainment and media, cab hailing, location sharing, and more, fueling a revenue compound annual growth rate of 28 percent over the decade 2011 to 2021.

Ignite breakout businesses

According to McKinsey research on more than 1,000 business leaders, on average, executives believe 50 percent of their revenues will come from new products, services, or businesses within the next five years. Not surprisingly, many are looking beyond natural adjacencies to exploit entirely new business opportunities. Between 2018 and 2020, “new-business building” doubled its appearances among the top three items on executive agendas.

Expanding into new markets through business building can unlock new opportunities without cannibalizing existing products and services. Done right, the rewards can be well worth the risk, as illustrated by a number of growth leaders across different industries.

Amazon famously expanded beyond its e-commerce business into public cloud services through Amazon Web Services (AWS). By leveraging its core competencies of brand and commercial strength, it built AWS into a business that generated $62 billion revenue.

Science and technology innovator Danaher Corporation combatted the single-digit growth in its core industrial businesses by looking toward high-growth markets in life sciences and niche diagnostics. After testing the waters with small acquisitions and investing heavily in its platforms business, Danaher spun off its old industrial core, Fortive, repositioned life sciences and diagnostics as its new core business—and beat the S&P 500 by 3.8 times between 2002 and 2016. While core growth is critical, investments in breakout opportunities could enable a long-term shift to a new core within a higher-growth market.

Marcus by Goldman Sachs launched its first digital consumer business in 2016, allowing customers to bank from their phones. In the ensuing six years, it has attracted millions of customers, accumulated deposits of over $92 billion, and made more than $7 billion in loans via a combination of organic growth, acquisitions, and partnerships with Apple and Amazon.

Growth leaders can improve their odds of achieving growth in breakout opportunities by committing to innovation , identifying and understanding the needs and wants of valued customers, and developing the right value propositions to appeal to them. Given the accelerating pace of innovation, growth leaders also look to agile methodologies , strategic alliances, and M&A, with a willingness to rapidly test and learn, fail and iterate, and invest in scaling opportunities.

Of course, pursuing breakout growth can require longer-term investment and commitment before seeing returns. That’s why growth leaders need the mettle to stay the course and make significant investments—or the sense to know when to call it quits.

Execute with excellence

This is the critical and third portion of the timeless holistic growth blueprint, where strategy meets action, and orchestrated execution is the final step in achieving growth. Execution works hand-in-hand with strategy to empower leaders to make the right choices at the right time to drive both short-term and long-term growth.

Leaders who choose growth support their ambitions by prioritizing a critical set of execution enablers: operating model and resource allocation, ecosystems, M&A, joint ventures and alliances, and functional capabilities.

Built-for-growth operating models and resource allocation

Leaders who fully commit to growth choose these initiatives for purposeful and assertive investment and are 60 percent more likely to regularly reallocate resources from lower-return to higher-return spaces. These leaders fund more dynamically, relying less on historical budgets that can be psychologically “anchoring,” and they actively explore how to fuel growth without eroding their existing core businesses. 8 Tim Koller, Dan Lovallo, and Olivier Sibony, “ Bias busters: Being objective about budgets ,” McKinsey Quarterly , September 28, 2018; Michael Birsham, Marja Engel, and Olivier Sibony, “ Avoiding the quicksand: Ten techniques for more agile corporate resource allocation ,” McKinsey Quarterly , October 1, 2013.

Alongside this willingness to dynamically reallocate resources , growth leaders are more likely to have multiple, tailored operating models to support their unique growth initiatives and opportunities. While the core business may have a distinct, more traditional operating model, breakout opportunities may adopt a more agile, learning-driven operating approach , for example, having small, cross-functional teams with the autonomy to focus on rapidly building and testing products, features, or services with customers. They segment their product-development processes and combine standard product-development stage gates for incremental innovations while using venture-capital-inspired stage gates and funding mechanisms for bolder growth projects. This agility helps them respond robustly to timely jolts and opportunities.

In managing performance, growth leaders adopt a growth vocabulary, leveraging the adage, “You get what you measure.” They actively track leading and lagging growth-oriented metrics, such as recurring revenue, revenue per customer, and customer-acquisition cost, tying them to organizational goals and incentives.

Strengthen ecosystems, M&A, and joint ventures

Specialization in a sea of sameness is a differentiator. That’s why growth leaders often look outside of their businesses to find quick access to complementary skills and capabilities to buy or scale innovation and growth. Those who do this are 30 to 50 percent more likely to continually scan for these types of alliances, joint ventures, and M&A opportunities.

In recent years, digital M&A has become increasingly popular and effective, accounting for double the share of all M&A value from 2011–21. Businesses are becoming increasingly strategic about how they evaluate and leverage these digital transactions, from acquiring new talent and capabilities to accessing new markets and products. 9 Michael Bogobowicz, Anika Pflanzer, Leandro Santon, and Brett Wilson, “ How to find and maximize digital value in any M&A deal ,” McKinsey, November 9, 2020; CapitaIQ, McKinsey analysis. Many companies with programmatic M&A strategies (that is, steadily growing through two or more acquisitions of less than 30 percent of their own market cap per year) have added digital-investment themes to their M&A blueprints. Over almost 20 years of research, it has become clear that programmatic M&A is the only M&A strategy that delivers outsized total shareholder return (TSR) . M&A investment themes, especially those on digital M&A, should be highly specific and clearly articulate how they will add value for the acquirer.

Forming ecosystems with partners is another way to build capabilities and expand offerings more quickly, while simultaneously enhancing customer experience and enlarging reach and innovation opportunities across the ecosystem. This creates value along two dimensions—it allows participants to consolidate a range of customers, often across sectors, and to play a pivotal role in optimizing touchpoints in both B2C and B2B.

Functional capabilities

Execution is impossible without the right functional strengths and growth leaders identify which new functional capabilities are needed—or need to change—to support growth initiatives, both in the short term and over longer-term innovation horizons.

From building out AI and advanced analytics platforms to deepening their customer experience capabilities—and even enhancing or modernizing existing capabilities like pricing and marketing—growth leaders ensure the organization’s capabilities are positioned to fuel growth. While the exact blend varies by industry and company, a common cross-sectoral focus point is harnessing digital and analytics to revamp distribution, marketing returns, customer value management (CVM), 10 Customer value management is a systematic approach to working with loyal customers. It is based on personalized offerings targeted to meet particular customer needs, created using advanced analytics, and aimed at increasing lifetime customer value through raising purchasing frequency and average basket size. and dynamic pricing. 11 Rachel Diebner, David Malfara, Kevin Neher, Mike Thompson, and Maxence Vancauwenberghe, “ Prediction: The future of CX ,” McKinsey Quarterly , February 24, 2021; Ralph Breuer, Kedar Naik, Bogdan Toma, and Martina Yanni, “ Executive quick take: A guide to implementing marketing-and-sales transformations that unlock sustainable growth ,” McKinsey, September 23, 2019; Matt Deimund, Michael Drory, Daniel Law, and Maria Valdivieso, “ The five things sales-growth winners do to invest in their people ,” McKinsey, October 9, 2018; Minti Ray, Stefano Redaelli, Sidney Santos, Jared Sclove, and Andrew Wong, “ Accelerating revenue growth through tech-enabled commercial excellence ,” McKinsey, December 4, 2019.

In distribution, e-commerce is a powerful lever for collecting valuable digital customer data along the purchasing journey and ensuring effective and measurable media spend. Nike, for example, was able to increase its nike.com e-commerce platform’s contribution to sales from 7.5 percent to 24 percent, thereby fuelling a compound annual growth rate of 6.7 percent from 2017–21, a time frame that includes the height of the pandemic. 12 Statista, ecommerceDB, and S&P Capital IQ.

For customer value management, investing in greater personalization through advanced analytics and digital capabilities can improve both the customer experience and client lifetime value. American Express, for instance, leverages advanced analytics to provide customized recommendations to customers based on their location, opening additional transaction opportunities both for their partners and for their own credit cards.

Greater analytical sophistication enables companies to differentiate pricing across dimensions such as region, channel, and customer lifecycle. 13 Claus Heintzeler, Mathias Kullman, Karin Lauer, and Maximilian Totzauer, “ Pricing and promotions: The analytics opportunity ,” McKinsey, June 28, 2021. A leading Asian e-commerce company was able to increase gross margins by ten percentage points and gross merchandise value by three percentage points by developing a dynamic pricing capability. 14 Gadi BenMark, Sebastian Klapdor, Mathias Kullmann, and Ramji Sundararajan, “ How retailers can drive profitable growth through dynamic pricing ,” McKinsey, March 27, 2017.

Commercial capabilities are bolstered by investments in digital—in fact, growth leaders are 60 percent more likely to have successfully used AI and advanced analytics to predict customer behaviors and become a “sensing and predicting” organization. Growth leaders also tend to invest in expanding and deepening their customer experience capabilities to streamline and personalize customer journeys.

Beyond the commercial excellence, growth leaders map R&D and product development portfolios, balanced across incremental innovations and bolder long-term breakout initiatives with clear mapping to the capabilities needed to execute. Tangentially, it is imperative to ensure that growth leaders are investing in their people, creating a pipeline of talent that will help strengthen and broaden the tools needed to achieve their growth aspirations.

Choosing to grow: the subtle difference between success and failure

The growth blueprint defines the timeless elements on which leaders need to focus diligently once they’ve made a deliberate and purposeful choice to grow.

This blueprint prepares an organization to grow in the face of timely jolts. The blueprint encourages leaders to answer a series of clear questions:

  • Am I setting the right aspiration, mindset, and culture to encourage growth? Are my ambitions high enough, and how can I ensure my organization has the full potential to achieve it?
  • Am I actively choosing growth opportunities across my core and adjacencies?
  • Am I establishing the right enablers to execute against my growth aspirations and strategies?
  • Do I have the right operating model and resource allocation to achieve my growth ambitions?
  • And am I investing in the right functional capabilities?

The choices leaders make in response to these questions differentiate those who achieve growth from those who aspire to it but don’t get results.

Take two leaders of similar-sized businesses operating in the same market. Both see an opportunity for growth and pursue it, but their outcomes are very different. Why?

The one who made a choice to grow aligned their board and leadership team on the company’s direction and dedicated the necessary resources to growth. They adapted the operating model for the long term and understood the risk profile of the new businesses they were trying to build. They invested meaningfully in building the right functional capabilities, sometimes at the expense of a few quarters of earnings, to achieve their long-term growth aspirations.

The other leader, who didn’t explicitly “choose growth,” also did a lot of things right. They hired the right talent and took the time to understand the new businesses they wanted to build. They believed they were allocating enough resources to growth, but ultimately their focus was divided by an emphasis on quarterly earnings and short-term profitability. Though they aspired to growth, they didn’t have the long-term strategy or commitment to achieve it. They tried to protect the management team so they could meet their short-term goals but didn’t secure buy-in from the board for long-term growth initiatives.

Making the conscious choice to grow creates powerful momentum that orients the entire business toward that goal, from the C-suite to frontline employees. The growth blueprint defines the timeless elements on which leaders need to focus diligently once they have made a deliberate and purposeful choice to grow. It also prepares an organization to unlock growth opportunities in timely jolts. The clarity of purpose and vision that comes from choice is what helps leaders and their teams believe in the seemingly impossible and make it happen.

Michael Birshan is a senior partner in McKinsey’s London office, where Biljana Cvetanovski is a partner; Rebecca Doherty is a partner in the San Francisco office; Tjark Freundt is a senior partner in the Hamburg office; Andre Gaeta is an associate partner in the Sao Paulo office; Greg Kelly is a senior partner in the Atlanta office; Erik Roth is a senior partner in the Stamford office; Ishaan Seth and Jill Zucker are senior partners in the New York office.

The authors wish to thank Jaidit Brar, Luis Cerquiera, Vincent Cremers, Brian Gregg, Eric Hazan, Martin Hirt, Anna Koivuniemi, Pablo Leon, Duncan Miller, and Dennis Spillecke for their contributions to this article.

We are also grateful to the many McKinsey colleagues who contributed their industry expertise and perspectives to this research: Marco Aukofer, Matt Banholzer, Kurt Bazarewski, Dani Ebersole, Stephen Guerin, Tim Koller, Karin Löffler, Katherine Lovemore, Patrick McCurdy, Sakina Mehenni, Camille Meeùs, Bridget Morton, Michael Park, Tido Röder, Jeff Rudnicki, Manny Sasson, Balint Stellek, Marija Vukojevic, Qian Wan, and Michelle Wycoff.

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Many companies overestimate customers’ appetite for sustainable products, flooding the market with offerings that don’t sell. The reality is, social and environmental benefits have less impact on purchasing decisions than basic product attributes do. Consumers buy products to get specific jobs done, and only after they find something that will do that will they look for a product that provides some social or environmental advantage.

Of course, that’s only if they value sustainability. Not everyone does, and marketers need to recognize that. Some customers (greens) place a premium on it, some (blues) value it only moderately, and some (grays) don’t care about it and view it skeptically. The three segments cannot all be approached in the same way. How sustainable product benefits interact with traditional benefits is also critical: They can have no impact on a product’s performance (independence), diminish it (dissonance), or enhance it (resonance). Marketers need to follow different playbooks for independent, dissonant, and resonant products, tailoring their approaches to green, blue, and gray customers with each.

Three paths to success

Idea in Brief

The problem.

Many companies overestimate consumers’ appetite for sustainable products, flooding the market with offerings that don’t sell well.

The Opportunity

By understanding how sustainability features interact with a product’s core benefits, companies can devise effective marketing strategies for different consumer segments.

The Solution

Assess whether your sustainable offering’s performance is equivalent, inferior, or superior to that of conventional alternatives. Tailor marketing messages to customers according to how they value sustainability versus traditional attributes.

When companies market the sustainability features of their offerings, they often overlook a fundamental truth: Social and environmental benefits have less impact on customers’ decisions than basic product attributes do. With any purchase, consumers are first trying to get a specific job done. Only after they find something that will help them do that job—and only if sustainability is important to them—will they look for a product that in addition confers a social or environmental advantage. No one decides to buy a chocolate bar to, say, improve the working conditions of farmers on the Ivory Coast. People buy chocolate, first and foremost, because they want to indulge in a small pleasure. No one decides to buy an electric car to prevent climate change. People buy cars because they need transportation; reducing their carbon footprint is an ancillary benefit.

  • FD Frédéric Dalsace is a professor of strategy and marketing at IMD.
  • GC Goutam Challagalla is a professor of strategy and marketing at IMD.

Partner Center

City Innovation

Sergey Semyonovich Sobyanin

12,640,000 (2019)

Alexei Fursin

Improve service delivery

Simplify administrative procedures for firms and residents

Engage residents and other stakeholders

Focus on measurement

Human resource support

Spotlight on innovation in Moscow

The Integrated Medical Information and Analytical System (IMIAS) improves the quality of healthcare delivery in Moscow by centralizing the electronic medical records of Muscovites. IMIAS not only facilitates easy access to healthcare services online such as locating the nearest medical institutions, scheduling an appointment, or accessing medical e-records, but also reduces the administrative burden on medical personnel. By continuously updating non-sensitive data from patients in real time, the system provides the authorities with key performance metrics like the number of patients, waiting times, length of visits and estimated cost savings, which can be used to improve Moscow’s healthcare system.

Vision and approach to innovation capacity

Along with 50% of cities surveyed, Moscow does not have an explicit innovation strategy . Similar to more than half of cities surveyed, Moscow approaches innovation capacity both from a holistic/macro level, as well as in specific policy areas.

Policy areas that Moscow is focused on

Development of innovation infrastructure and innovative businesses : The Moscow Innovation Cluster is a platform for introducing innovations and developing cooperation between large corporations, industry, SMEs, educational and scientific organizations, development institutions and the city. The cluster IT platform unites the entire innovation ecosystem of Moscow and provides new and unique opportunities for interaction between its actors. The platform provides companies with tools to build cooperation chains and create projects that can gain direct access to all government support measures; tools to promote their products and services; tools to interact with authorities, development institutions and state corporations; opportunities for concluding deals by means of a smart contract system.

Human capital : The Profliner system allows to build individual educational and professional trajectories from school to professional implementation. Among the main features of the system are: identifying talents, providing access to modern tools for career guidance; development of individual recommendations in accordance with the list of relevant and promising professions in Moscow, the possibility of selecting additional education, conducting specialized events and internships; providing direct communication with the employer, as well as providing opportunities for students to prove themselves and participate in exclusive events from leading employers.

Moscow utilizes 10 different innovation skills or roles

Moscow has several organizations dedicated to innovation, including the Entrepreneurship and Innovation Development Department, IT Department, Moscow Agency of Innovation and Moscow Innovation Cluster.

Terms Moscow most associates with innovation

Moscow's most common innovation activities.

Taking risks or testing new ideas

Data-driven analytics/public data management

Engaging residents in new ways

Developing new solutions based on digital technologies

Organizational change within the municipality

Human-centered design

Rethinking your city’s approach to financing partnerships

How is innovation funded here?

Like 81% of cities surveyed, Moscow has dedicated funding to support innovation capacity.

Top sources of funding

Activities being funded.

Similar to 61% of participating cities in the 2020 survey, Moscow's funding for innovation capacity is also directed towards training staff and building capacity*.

*"Training staff and building capacity" is not an option in the 2018 survey, while "Launching or sustaining a project" is not an option in the 2020 survey.

How is innovation measured?

Moscow has developed partnerships to promote innovation capacity with other public agencies, private firms and city residents/resident associations.

To improve data use, the city has also developed data partnerships with the private sector, academia and think tanks, to collect and analyze data, as well as with other cities.

Data availability by policy area

Sufficient data.

Transport/Mobility

Economic Development

Policing and law enforcement

Government finance

Waste and sewage

Social welfare/social services

Social inclusion and equity

Labour market and skills

Built environment

Digital governance

Public works

Environment and climate change

No Response

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8 Projects that Exemplify Moscow's Urban Movement

business development strategy slideshare

  • Written by Marie Chatel
  • Published on July 27, 2016

When it comes to urbanism these days, people’s attention is increasingly turning to Moscow . The city clearly intends to become one of the world’s leading megacities in the near future and is employing all necessary means to achieve its goal, with the city government showing itself to be very willing to invest in important urban developments (though not without some criticism ).

A key player in this plan has been the Moscow Urban Forum . Although the forum’s stated goal is to find adequate designs for future megacities, a major positive side-effect is that it enables the city to organize the best competitions, select the best designers, and build the best urban spaces to promote the city of Moscow. The Forum also publishes research and academic documents to inform Moscow’s future endeavors; for example, Archaeology of the Periphery , a publication inspired by the 2013 forum and released in 2014, notably influenced the urban development on the outskirts of Moscow, but also highlighted the importance of combining urban development with the existing landscape.

business development strategy slideshare

Concluding earlier this month, the 2016 edition of the Moscow Urban Forum focused on smart cities and the impact of technology on the ways we interact with people and use public infrastructure and civic spaces. The 2016 Forum invited city officials, urbanists, and architectural practitioners – including Yuri Grigoryan from Project MEGANOM ; Pei Zhu from Studio Pei Zhu ; Hani Rashid from Asymptote ; Reinier de Graaf from OMA ; Yosuke Hayano from MAD Architects ; and Kengo Kuma from Kengo Kuma Architects – to share about their knowledge and experiences in urban design. With the city looking forward to the built results of the latest Forum, we take a look back at some of the major developments in Moscow that have emerged in the past five years.

1) Gorky Park and Garage Museum

business development strategy slideshare

In 2010 the city government decided to improve Muscovites’ urban environment and create public spaces, and Gorky Park was the first project of note. The Russian equivalent of Central Park, it used to attract masses of tourists to its amusement park, but no residents would spend time there. Its reconstruction began in 2011 and featured infrastructure for strolling, sport, work, culture and leisure.

Inside the park lies the Garage Museum of Contemporary Art , a landmark building from the Brezhnev communist era which was renovated and transformed by OMA in 2015. The Dutch firm kept the original structure “as found,” only repairing elements from its prefabricated concrete walls – often clad with brick and decorative green tiles. Instead, the redesign focused on a double-skin facade of polycarbonate plastic that enclosed the original structure and preserved it from decay.

business development strategy slideshare

2) Zaryadye Park, Diller Scofidio + Renfro

business development strategy slideshare

Due to open in 2018, Zaryadye Park designed by Diller Scofidio + Renfro is probably one of Moscow ’s most cutting-edge projects. Located next to the Kremlin, the Red Square, and St Basil’s Cathedral, the project embodies what the architects calls “Wild Urbanism.” The project notably includes four artificial microclimates that mimic Russian landscape typologies: the steppe, the forest, the wetland and tundra. “It is a park for Russia made from Russia,” as Charles Renfro explains , in that “it samples the natures of Russia and merges them with the city, to become a design that could only happen here. It embodies a wild urbanism, a place where architecture and landscape are one.”

business development strategy slideshare

3) Moscow Riverfront, Project Meganom

business development strategy slideshare

Russian firm Project Meganom has also designed an ambitious project for Moscow ’s riverfront. Their masterplan also aims for a dialogue between the built and natural environment. A series of linear green spaces follow the river, and lines for pedestrians, cyclists, cars, and public transport are clearly delineated, improving the use of the public squares. River embankments are also transformed to function as areas for activities, communication, education and creativity nodes for public gathering.

business development strategy slideshare

4) Krymskaya Embankment, Wowhaus Architecture Bureau

business development strategy slideshare

Wowhaus Architecture Bureau recently transformed the 4-lane road at Krymskaya Embankment into a landscape park that connects Gorky Park with Krymsky bridge. The area used to be deserted, but is now reactivated with distinct transit and sport zones, as well as pavilions for artists’ exhibitions. Wave-shaped bicycle ramps, paths, and benches feature on the artificial landscape, which is also used for sledding, skiing, and skating in the winter.

business development strategy slideshare

5) Hermitage Museum and ZiL Tower in Moscow, Asymptote Architecture

business development strategy slideshare

New York architectural firm Asymptote Architecture are currently building two projects, a 150-meter residential tower and a satellite facility for St Petersburg’s well-known Hermitage Museum , where modern and contemporary art collections will be displayed. Situated in one of Moscow ’s oldest industrial areas, Asymptote’s buildings will lie in place of a Constructivist factory – which explains why the museum was reportedly inspired by El Lissitzky's "Proun" painting, as the terrace interior clearly shows.

business development strategy slideshare

6) “My Street”

business development strategy slideshare

“My Street” is the largest-scale program led by Moscow ’s government. The project aims to create about 50 kilometers of new pedestrian zones within the city center and periphery. The extensive program aims to solve parking issues, renovate street facades, and repair sidewalks and walkways with delimited areas for public transports, cars, cyclists, and pedestrians. “My Street” also requires a strong governance strategy and coordination; led by the Strelka Institute’s consultation arm KB Strelka , the project also involves 17 Russian and foreign architecture practices that were all individually in charge of one street, square or group of streets. Notable architects include the German firm Topotek 1 , the Dutch group West 8 , and the Russian firm Tsimailo , Lyashenko and Partners.

business development strategy slideshare

7) Moscow Metro

business development strategy slideshare

Moscow Metro is an architectural masterpiece that has been elaborated on since the 1920s. Its stations from the Stalin era are known for their unique designs with high ceilings, elaborate chandeliers and fine granite and marble cladding. To ensure that Moscow Metro remains an emblem of the city’s urban culture and powerful transportation system, the city’s government organized various competitions for the renovation of some Metro stations. Russian-based practice Nefa Architects was chosen to redesign Moscow’s Solntsevo Metro Station, while Latvian firm U-R-A will transform Novoperedelkino Subway Station . New stations are also being built, including two stations by Russian firms Timur Bashkayev Architectural Bureau and Buromoscow which should be completed by the end of 2018.

business development strategy slideshare

8) Luzhniki Stadium

business development strategy slideshare

Luzhniki Stadium is Moscow ’s main venue for sporting and cultural events. With Russia hosting the 2018 FIFA World Cup , the stadium should reflect Moscow’s intent to become a leading megacity, which is why $540 million has been spent on construction works. Its renovation mainly focuses on the roof and seating areas, and the capacity is planned to increase up to 81,000 seats. Works will be completed by 2017.

Find out more information and talks on Moscow’s urban development and the future of megacities on Moscow Urban Forum’s YouTube channel .

business development strategy slideshare

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The "Convicted to Grow Podcast" is your compass on a transformative journey of personal  development and business growth. Hosted by Coach Tressa,  each episode is a captivating exploration of real stories, actionable strategies, and the profound wisdom of individuals who have harnessed their convictions to unlock remarkable success in life and business. Join us every week as we uncover the power of resilience, leadership, entrepreneurship, and self-discovery. From overcoming adversity to mastering advanced growth techniques, we dive deep into the principles that drive lasting change.Your Weekly Dose of Inspiration and Growth Strategies in Life and Business.

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  • FEB 23, 2024

Top 5 Expectations of More in 2024

Summary In this episode, Coach Tressa discusses her expectations for 2024 and shares fives things she expects more of this year.  She emphasizes the importance of peace, support, love, sound decisions, opportunities, and money. Coach Tressa encourages listeners to write down their own expectations for 2024 and reminds them that wanting more requires taking action and putting in the work. Takeaways Write down your expectations for 2024 and what you want more of in your life.Seek peace by setting boundaries and being selective about the environments and people you surround yourself with.Build a supportive team that believes in your vision and wants to see you succeed.Embrace love in all aspects of your life, from personal relationships to professional connections.Make sound decisions by considering strategy and not letting emotions cloud your judgment.Create more opportunities for yourself by expanding your network and taking calculated risks.Strive for financial abundance and use it to support your loved ones and give back to your community.Take action and put in the work to achieve your expectations and desires for 2024.Chapters 00:00 Introduction and Purpose of the Podcast 01:12 Starting the Growth Journey 04:04 Desiring Peace 04:43 Seeking Support 08:14 Yearning for Love 15:19 Making Sound Decisions 16:36 Creating More Opportunities 22:42 Taking Action for More 23:14 Conclusion and Call to Action Support the showIf you enjoyed today's episode, be sure to subscribe to the podcast and leave a review so continue to bring you valuable content. Connect with Coach Tressa on Instagram, Tik Tok and Facebook @CoachTressa. To watch this podcast via video, you can go to our You Tube Channel @ConvictedtoGrow. Make sure you subscribe over there to get notifications for our live sessions. Until next time, stay convicted, stay inspired, and keep growing. This is Coach Tressa signing off. Take care, and let's continue to make every day an opportunity for growth IN LIFE AND BUSINESS. I am rooting for you! Love You!

The Journey Begins: Introducing Convicted to Grow

Embark on a growth journey with us as we introduce the first episode of "Convicted to Grow." In this captivating premiere, join your host Tressa Manns also known as Coach Tressa, as we set the stage for a self discovery into the power of redemption, resilience, and personal and business growth. Summary In this episode, Coach Tressa introduces the Convicted to Grow podcast and shares the four reasons why she decided to start it. She expresses her desire to impact others and help them overcome challenges in their careers, businesses, and lives. Tressa also discusses her passion for personal and business development, sharing stories of resilience and perseverance, and using the podcast as an extension of her brand. She encourages listeners to subscribe and join her on this growth journey. Takeaways The Convicted to Grow podcast aims to impact and motivate listeners to overcome challenges and grow in their careers, businesses, and lives.Personal and business development are key passions for Tressa Manns, and she emphasizes the importance of investing in oneself and seeking growth opportunities.The podcast will feature stories of resilience and perseverance from various individuals, providing inspiration and encouragement to listeners.The Convicted to Grow podcast serves as an extension of Tressa Manns' brand, offering coaching services, workshops, and speaking engagements. Become part of a community dedicated to fostering a T.R.I.B.E. (Transformation, Resilience, Innovation, Building Connections, and Entrepreneurship) of real stories, inspiration and practical strategies to grow in life and business. Subscribe now and join us for weekly episodes as "Convicted to Grow" begins its groundbreaking journey towards positive impact and change towards your growth.  Support the showIf you enjoyed today's episode, be sure to subscribe to the podcast and leave a review so continue to bring you valuable content. Connect with Coach Tressa on Instagram, Tik Tok and Facebook @CoachTressa. To watch this podcast via video, you can go to our You Tube Channel @ConvictedtoGrow. Make sure you subscribe over there to get notifications for our live sessions. Until next time, stay convicted, stay inspired, and keep growing. This is Coach Tressa signing off. Take care, and let's continue to make every day an opportunity for growth IN LIFE AND BUSINESS. I am rooting for you! Love You!

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BASF Group: Reporting on the 2023 business year BASF’s financial strength supports proposed stable dividend of €3.40 per share for the 2023 business year

  • EBITDA before special items: €7.7 billion (minus 28.7 percent)
  • Cash flows from operating activities of €8.1 billion (plus 5.2 percent); free cash flow of €2.7 billion (minus 18.5 percent)

Outlook 2024:

  • EBITDA before special items of between €8.0 billion and €8.6 billion expected
  • Free cash flow of between €0.1 billion and €0.6 billion expected due to temporarily higher capital expenditures
  • Further program for Ludwigshafen site announced, targeting annual cost savings of €1 billion by the end of 2026

In a market environment shaped by economic uncertainty, BASF Group reported sales of €68.9 billion in the 2023 business year, compared with €87.3 billion in the previous year. This sales development was mainly driven by considerably lower prices and volumes. Lower raw materials prices in particular led to lower prices in almost all segments. Sales volumes fell in all segments as a result of weak demand from many customer industries. Nevertheless, BASF demonstrated economic strength with cash flows from operating activities rising 5.2 percent year on year to reach €8.1 billion. The company had already released preliminary figures for the full year 2023 on January 19, 2024. Today, Dr. Martin Brudermüller, Chairman of the Board of Executive Directors of BASF, and Dr. Dirk Elvermann, Chief Financial Officer, presented the 2023 business development in detail and announced a further program for the Ludwigshafen site with additional annual cost savings of €1 billion by the end of 2026. This is in addition to the existing cost savings program in non-production units with a focus on Europe and the adaptation of production structures in Ludwigshafen.

Earnings development of BASF Group in 2023

Income from operations (EBIT) before special items in the 2023 business year amounted to €3.8 billion; the decline of €3.1 billion compared with the prior-year figure was primarily due to a considerably lower earnings contribution from the Chemicals and Materials segments. EBIT before special items decreased in the Chemicals segment, primarily due to reduced margins and volumes, as well as lower contributions from shareholdings accounted for using the equity method. Earnings declined in the Materials segment, largely as a result of lower polyamide and ammonia margins. The Nutrition & Care and Industrial Solutions segments’ EBIT before special items was considerably below the prior-year figure, mainly as a result of lower volumes and margins. Conversely, the Agricultural Solutions segment strongly increased EBIT before special items, primarily as a result of price increases and the receipt of a one-time payment. The slight earnings growth in the Surface Technologies segment was attributable to the considerably higher EBIT before special items in the Coatings division due to price and volume increases, which more than compensated for the significant decline in earnings of the Catalysts division. EBIT before special items attributable to Other improved considerably, mainly as a result of higher income from other businesses and lower corporate research costs.

BASF reported EBIT of €2.2 billion in 2023; the steep decline compared with the prior-year figure resulted primarily from special items amounting to minus €1.6 billion. Special expenses resulted in particular from impairments totaling around €1.1 billion. These comprised impairments on property, plant and equipment in the Surface Technologies and Agricultural Solutions segments and on tangible and intangible assets in the Materials segment.

EBITDA before special items in 2023 was €7.7 billion, €3.1 billion below the 2022 figure. EBITDA decreased by €3.6 billion to €7.2 billion. Net income increased by €852 million to €225 million, compared with minus €627 million in 2022.

BASF Group’s cash flow in 2023 and key financial indicators as of December 31, 2023

Cash flows from operating activities amounted to €8.1 billion for the full year 2023, compared with €7.7 billion in the previous year. This improvement was primarily due to cash inflow from net working capital. The reduction in inventories in 2023 alone released cash amounting to €1.9 billion. Free cash flow, which remains after deducting payments made for property, plant and equipment and intangible assets from cash flows from operating activities, amounted to €2.7 billion in 2023 following €3.3 billion in the previous year.

Net debt of €16.6 billion as of December 31, 2023, was almost on a level with the figure of €16.3 billion at the prior year-end. The equity ratio of 47.3 percent at the end of 2023 nearly matched the figure of 48.4 percent as of December 31, 2022. “The very solid equity ratio and strong cash performance are proof of BASF’s continued financial strength, even in challenging times,” said Elvermann.

Proposed dividend of €3.40 per share

A dividend of €3.40 per share, equal to the prior-year level, will be proposed to the Annual Shareholders’ Meeting, representing a payment of €3.0 billion to shareholders of BASF SE. With this proposed dividend, the BASF share offers a high dividend yield of 7.0 percent based on the year-end share price for 2023. BASF is part of the DivDAX share index, which contains the 15 companies with the highest dividend yield in the DAX 40.

Earnings at Ludwigshafen site weaken further in 2023

In 2023, in an extremely difficult market environment with low demand, EBIT before special items declined by double-digit percentages in all regions. “In absolute terms, however, our teams delivered a positive earnings contribution in all significant countries – with the exception of Germany,” Brudermüller said. Results in Germany suffered due to substantially negative earnings at the largest production site in Ludwigshafen. There are two main reasons for this: The temporary low-demand environment is affecting the volume development in both the upstream and downstream businesses. And higher production costs due to structurally higher energy prices predominantly burden the upstream businesses.

Brudermüller: “On the one hand, this situation demonstrates the high competitiveness and health of BASF Group under challenging conditions at the global level. On the other hand, the negative earnings at our Ludwigshafen site show the urgent need for further decisive actions here to enhance our competitiveness.”

Cost savings program already initiated in 2022

In October 2022, BASF was one of the first chemical companies to initiate a significant cost savings program. And in February 2023, the company launched a set of concrete measures to save costs in non-production areas in Europe and to adapt production structures at the Ludwigshafen site. As confirmed in BASF’s third quarter 2023 reporting, total annual cost savings from all the previously announced measures are expected to reach €1.1 billion by the end of 2026. An annual cost reduction run rate of around €600 million was already achieved by the end of 2023. The measures announced in October 2022 and February 2023 will achieve another €500 million in annual cost savings by the end of 2026.

Additional measures necessary at Ludwigshafen site

With an additional cost savings program, it is planned to reduce costs at the Ludwigshafen site by a further €1 billion annually by the end of 2026. The program will generate cost savings in both production as well as non-production areas. Fixed costs will be lowered by driving efficiency in company structures and adapting production capacities to market needs. Moreover, the company aims to significantly trim variable costs by redesigning processes. Brudermüller: “The program will therefore also unfortunately lead to further job cuts.” The details are currently being worked out. Employee representatives will be closely involved in this process going forward.

Besides the required cost reductions, BASF will do everything possible to again significantly increase the utilization rates of its competitive assets in Ludwigshafen. To generate solid earnings here, the company needs additional contribution margins from normal levels of plant utilization. At the Ludwigshafen site, the upstream plants in the Chemicals and Materials segments, in particular, are currently operating with utilization rates considerably below normal levels.

In parallel to this short-term program announced today, the Board of Executive Directors will update the longer-term positioning of the Ludwigshafen site. The target picture for the main site in Ludwigshafen will be presented in the second half of 2024. It will reflect both the regulatory framework and the changed market realities in Europe and Germany.

Brudermüller: “The Board team will remain strongly committed to the Ludwigshafen site. We want to develop Ludwigshafen into the leading low-CO 2 -emission chemical production site with high profitability and sustainability. We will focus Ludwigshafen on supplying the European market to remain the partner of choice for our customers. To achieve this, it is essential that we implement the program consistently and as quickly as possible. At the same time, we are systematically driving forward our business in those regions of the world that are growing more dynamically and offer attractive conditions for investments.”

BASF Group outlook for 2024

BASF expects the weakness in global economic momentum from 2023 to continue in 2024. Global economic growth is only expected to accelerate somewhat later in the year, meaning that BASF expects the global economy to grow by 2.3 percent overall in 2024 (2023: plus 2.6 percent). In Europe, the comparatively high energy prices and unfavorable framework conditions for industrial value creation continue to slow down economic development.

BASF also assumes that global industrial production will likely expand by 2.2 percent overall (2023: plus 1.4 percent). Global chemical production is expected to grow faster in 2024, by 2.7 percent (2023: plus 1.7 percent). This will be driven primarily by the expected growth in the Chinese chemical industry. BASF’s planning assumes an average oil price of $80 for a barrel of Brent crude and an exchange rate of $1.10 per euro.

The BASF Group’s EBITDA before special items is expected to rise to between €8.0 billion and €8.6 billion in 2024 (2023: €7.7 billion). BASF forecasts the free cash flow of the BASF Group will be between €0.1 billion and €0.6 billion (2023: €2.7 billion). This is based on expected cash flows from operating activities of between €6.6 billion and €7.1 billion, minus expected payments made for property, plant and equipment and intangible assets in the amount of €6.5 billion. The high investment-related cash outflow is mainly due to investments in the new Verbund site in China, which will reach their absolute peak in 2024 and then decline in the following years.

CO 2 emissions are expected to be between 16.7 million metric tons and 17.7 million metric tons in 2024 (2023: 16.9 million metric tons). Compared with the previous year, the company anticipates additional emissions from higher production volumes based on rising demand. BASF will counteract this increase with targeted measures to reduce emissions, such as increasing energy efficiency and optimizing processes as well as continuing the shift to electricity from renewable energies.

At BASF, we create chemistry for a sustainable future. We combine economic success with environmental protection and social responsibility. Around 112,000 employees in the BASF Group contribute to the success of our customers in nearly all sectors and almost every country in the world. Our portfolio comprises six segments: Chemicals, Materials, Industrial Solutions, Surface Technologies, Nutrition & Care and Agricultural Solutions. BASF generated sales of €68.9 billion in 2023. BASF shares are traded on the stock exchange in Frankfurt (BAS) and as American Depositary Receipts (BASFY) in the United States. Further information at www.basf.com .

On February 23, 2024, you can obtain further information from the internet at the following addresses:

Forward-looking statements and forecasts

This release contains forward-looking statements. These statements are based on current estimates and projections of the Board of Executive Directors and currently available information. Forward-looking statements are not guarantees of the future developments and results outlined therein. These are dependent on a number of factors; they involve various risks and uncertainties; and they are based on assumptions that may not prove to be accurate. BASF does not assume any obligation to update the forward-looking statements contained in this release above and beyond the legal requirements.

Jens Fey

  • PDF (149.9 kB)

p-24-132

Important Figures 2023

  • PDF (130.2 kB)

Annual Press Conference for the full year 2023, Dr. Martin Brudermüller, Chairman of the Board of Executive Directors.  Photo: BASF SE

  • JPG (1.3 MB)

Annual Press Conference for the full year 2023, Dr. Dirk Elvermann, Chief Financial Officer (left), Dr. Martin Brudermüller, Chairman of the Board of Executive Directors (center).  Photo: BASF SE

  • JPG (1.0 MB)

Annual Press Conference for the full year 2023, Dr. Dirk Elvermann, Chief Financial Officer .  Photo: BASF SE

  • JPG (766.3 kB)

Annual Press Conference for the full year 2023, Dr. Martin Brudermüller, Chairman of the Board of Executive Directors.  Photo: BASF SE

  • JPG (1.4 MB)

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