Who Should Do What Parts of BD?

The great debate - who should do what parts of BD? Do you hire a BD representative and let them do the entire process from identification to proposal preparation? Do you split it into upfront BD, then Capture, then Proposal Management? And, what about researching opportunity data, internet intelligence gathering, pricing, solution's, and more? The usual answer - when you are small one or two people do it all, and as you grow you will split it into various jobs. This is probably true, but whether you are small or large there is a more fundamental split that is often overlooked, and its impact on the productivity of your BD efforts can be enormous.

To look at this ‘other’ model it can be useful to create a simple view of this complex challenge so we can see how critical success factors fit together, which can help in analyzing value and how we apply resources. Everyone in B2G knows BD is complicated, but allowing ourselves to fall prey to the complexity can blind us from the best path to follow. Because of this, at CLEVER we have tried to produce a “simple” representation of the world of BD to help create a clearer perspective on what needs to be done, and who should do it. Below is that representation.

BD is really about 3 “activities”: 1. Leadership in managing the process and the business strategy (which requires methods and technology to drive the teams understanding, collaboration and progress ), 2. Research providing the building blocks the team uses to move forward, and 3. Relationship Building to generate the customer insights that will differentiate you from the competition. Yes, there are many other “things” to be done, such as a price-to-win, or competitive analysis, but remember, we are purposely keeping the model simple - all of these things could be considered ‘Opportunity’ research in our model.

 When you see CLEVER you will know this is a simplification of a complex challenge, but it does allow for a perspective to be applied to how you get it done. Everything in this model has to be done by someone or there is no BD, whether you are 2 people or 2000. The only issue is, are the same people going to do all of it, or will you segregate it somehow? Tradition says we segregate horizontally, from BD to Capture to Proposal. We agree this should be done when resources permit. But all along the growth curve, from small to large, you can also split vertically. Lets explain.

 When a person is opening their business they have to do it all, no choice. That is why it is so difficult to get beyond those first contracts that come from personal relationships. But what do people do once they begin to have enough revenue to acquire more resources? -- They begin to get other people to help. Here is where the simple model can become useful, because the first thing to address is the split between the top of the model, creating the process and bringing it to life through research, and the bottom of the model – relationship building that uses the research to gather intelligence that enables the pursuit of opportunities. The two activity sets require wildly different skills. They also require different levels of intimacy with the company’s business, which is why it makes sense to split them.

 CLEVER can do the top part of the model for an IT firm, or an architecture firm, or an accounting firm without being intimate with these professions. Of course, the more descriptive information it can assimilate about the firms' business the better the research will be. This is the process of understanding 'what' a firm does and we have built the smarts into CLEVER to master the ‘what’. But, if someone is going to generate solutions and be able to convince others of their value, that person needs to understand 'how' things are done, and for that you must have the professional skills that reflect your company capabilities. This is why at CLEVER, we are focused on the top half of the model, while internal resources should be focused on the bottom half.

 This is all the more critical when you have limited resources, which even the biggest firms perceive as a challenge because of the impact BD has on burden rates, something everyone wants to keep to a minimum. If your staff (which is costly relative to CLEVER) are spending their time doing the top half of the model, then your capacity to successfully pursue larger numbers of deals is being limited by less relationship building.

 Note that the word ‘Intelligence’ in the model is below the line. Yes, all of the activities contribute to intelligence, and key elements of intelligence will come from research, but the high value insights come from interacting with teaming partners and customers, not running searches, evaluating the fitness of an opportunity, or even developing a competitive analysis. Developing a solution that strikes at the heart of what a customer perceives they need/want is a high value necessity that affords an opportunity for differentiation and a demonstration of customer intimacy. While the research can reveal needs/wants and a strong understanding of the customer, it will not reveal the intimate facts that will separate you from the competition, unless of course they fail to do their research, which is more common than it should be.

 Simply said, every moment your BD staff spends in the top of the model takes away from the bottom. But, it has to be done, so the real value question is, who does it and what should it cost? If an outsourced service like CLEVER can provide you the process, the tools, and the research for 1/5 to 1/3 of your internal cost, you not only save money, you enhance internal capacity by having the right opportunities and information at your fingertips all the time. This increases deal flow and the quality of bid preparation - which drives growth.

 So it really does not matter where you are on the corporate development spectrum – if you are 2 people and you can get someone else to do the top half for the right price you have expanded your capacity to grow. If you are 2000 people the same math applies to every BD person you have. So maybe this is a good time to leverage being clever?