Title: It's all about growth - an empirical status report of business development

Authors: Markus Voeth; Jana Poelzl; Anne Theresa Eidhoff

Addresses: Department of Marketing and Business Development, University of Stuttgart-Hohenheim, Fruwirthstr. 32, 70599 Stuttgart, Germany ' Department of Marketing and Business Development, University of Stuttgart-Hohenheim, Fruwirthstr. 32, 70599 Stuttgart, Germany ' Department of Marketing and Business Development, University of Stuttgart-Hohenheim, Fruwirthstr. 32, 70599 Stuttgart, Germany

Abstract: While business development (BD) is currently a widely spread term among practitioners, to date BD has received only little attention in scientific research. The objective of our study is to improve current knowledge on BD by analysing the status quo of BD in practice. Therefore, we conduct a descriptive quantitative empirical study on a cross-industry basis with 352 German companies. Specifically, the analysis focuses on understanding, activities, organisation, people, instruments as well as challenges and future relevance of BD. Our results indicate that BD is understood as the search for growth opportunities in four key dimensions: products, processes, markets and/or business models. It has top management access, highly skilled people with diverse backgrounds, who mainly apply instruments found in management literature. Main challenges in BD result from a paucity of human and financial resources. Yet in the future, BD is of increasing relevance for firms.

Keywords: business development; strategy; strategic management; strategic marketing; corporate entrepreneurship; growth opportunities; status report.

DOI: 10.1504/IJEIM.2018.089713

International Journal of Entrepreneurship and Innovation Management, 2018 Vol.22 No.1/2, pp.4 - 32

Received: 02 Apr 2015
Accepted: 26 Oct 2015
Published online: 08 Feb 2018 *

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