Business Development

Getting marketing and sales right is crucial to the success of business development. Just as the marketing strategy needs to segment and identify the right target market, the sales strategy needs to identify and make contacts with the decision-makers. Developing customer affinity programs and cooperative strategies, such as strategic alliances, can be key success factors to trust-building and business development.

In an increasingly changing business environment organizations face major changes in competition and market trends; social and cultural values; as well as political, legislative, and regulatory environments. Modal Consulting has developed an approach to support business in the analysis of these changes, the evaluation of their impact, and in the decision-making and implementation processes. 

sales strategy

Wherein the marketing strategy identifies potential in specific target markets, the sales strategy must be designed to identify and pursue the actual customers, in particular the decision-makers. Successful sales strategies not only target new customers, but work to retain existing customers as well. Existing customers not only are often willing to increase the amount of business they currently do but can also be the ideal candidate for new products or services which are being brought to market.

Several of the points that need to be identified in a successful sales strategy include: 

• forecasting
• presales resources 
• pricing 
• target customers 
• key account management 
• value proposition 
• sales cycles 

customer affinity

Customer affinity is different and more meaningful than customer satisfaction, loyalty or advocacy. It addresses the depth, breadth, and importance of the customer-vendor relationship in order to determine its capacity for sustainability, strategic value and trusted, long-term engagement. In today’s fast-changing markets, superior customer interaction may be the most essential competitive advantage.

Customer affinity programs allow for:

• in-depth customer analytics and continuous intelligence gathering; 
• targeted, well-defined messaging that’s relevant to segmented audiences; 
• multiplying relationships in customer organizations; 
• continuous customer engagement ; and 
• monitoring, tracking and leveraging of frontline feedback channels.

cooperative strategy

Cooperative strategies can develop new channels to market and can enable businesses to gain competitive advantage through access to a partner's resources, including markets, technologies, capital and people. Establishing a cooperative strategy involves defining and determining voluntary, meaningful partnerships and collaborative agreements between two or more parties in which all participants agree to work together to achieve a common purpose.

• Joint-ventures involve two or more businesses pooling their resources and expertise to achieve a particular goal. The risks and rewards of the enterprise are also shared. 
• Strategic Alliance is when two or more businesses join together for a set period of time. The businesses, usually, are not in direct competition, but have similar products or services that are directed toward the same target audience. 
• Wholesalers or distributors can broaden market reach. This will means effectively "piggybacking" on their customer bases. Careful consideration need to be given to pricing as intermediaries will need to make a profit. Agents can provide representation in geographic areas that would otherwise be difficult to reach at minimal risk.