Business Development Support

Business development fund costs for breaking into a new market with new clients can be an order of magnitude greater than costs for winning a competitive procurement in an arena in which you are already an established player. However, incumbency often leads to complacency and to higher cost proposals due to experienced staff and knowledge of real program risks; therefore winning a re-compete or follow-on work cannot be taken any less seriously than entry into a new market.

Approximately 30 - 50% of business development funds may need to be expended to ensure that sufficient positioning for a target or opportunity has occurred. It takes discipline to prioritize opportunities and pursue only those with sufficient market positioning, service and/or product compatibility with client needs and compliance with your company's own strategic goals.

Key Benefits

A disciplined business development strategy will help:

Focus limited discretionary resources on qualified targets
Improve win rates
Expand market share and capture new markets

Capabilities

A disciplined business development process consists of market analyses, target identification and qualification and win strategy development and implementation. IronPride routinely assists clients in achieving their business development goals by assisting clients to conduct the following:

Market Analyses

Define the business arena, compatible with your company's strategic visions and goals, in which to search for attractive opportunities
Understand the market environment and market forces

Target Identification and Qualification

Identify attractive opportunities and qualify in terms of reality, capability, relations, advantage, posture, resources, conflicts, strategic plan fit, objectives, discriminators and financials
Develop client profiles and understand decision makers and selection or evaluation criteria
Develop project/program profiles/requirements analyses
Determine fit for needed resources and competencies
Understand the competitive challengers and their strategies
Determine vulnerability analyses, including past performance
Conduct performance risk identification (schedule, solutions, compliance)
Conduct business risk identification (bonds, insurance, indemnification, organizational conflict of interest)
Conduct bid/no bid analyses
Develop capture plans

Win Strategy Development and Implementation

Identify strategic issues, create options and make strategic choices
Create value-added personal relationships with customers and understand needs/problems at all levels
Understand all stakeholders' roles and implement a contact plan
Plan critical relationships, including key partners, team members and alliances
Detail complete win strategy and themes, including technical approach, key personnel selection, communications plan, investment plan and costing
Ensure strategic leverage
Understand the price/cost/profit dynamic and market acceptance and develop a pricing strategy
Implement win strategy, including writing a winning proposal with appropriate external and internal reviews
Conduct win/loss analyses to memorialize lessons learned