In today’s competitive market, just owning a business is not winning the race. You must constantly work on your business to make it stand out. This is where business development comes into play. Since companies will never run out of this world, a career in business development is an evergreen niche to try out. There are abundant opportunities in this niche that can help you stand out of the crowd as you make valuable contributions to being a business development specialist.
In this blog, we will discuss why business development is an evergreen niche, its pros and cons, and how you can pursue a successful career in this field. So let us start by understanding what business development is.
What is Business Development?
Today a business cannot remain in the market without putting in some extra effort apart from the other competitors. Therefore, it will need a strategy, planning, and the correct execution of these to build a highly successful business.
Business development refers to executing activities, ideas, and strategies to help a business persist in the long run. This includes adopting tasks that would lead a business towards constant growth and techniques that will help it sustain itself in the long run.
Developing such ideas and executing them is not a task of a normal person. It demands a person with extreme knowledge of the business basics and how to implement them in the real world. Such a person is known as a business development strategist. Let us know about a career in business development and how you can pursue one in this field.
Unusual Careers for Commerce Students
Business development offers a vast range of careers. This is because a business contains a variety of aspects that are needed to be handled perfectly. Therefore the need for a professional in each domain increases the career opportunities in the field of business development. Majorly, this domain offers vast opportunities if you have a commerce background. Let us know about these unusual careers for commerce students.
1. Image Consultant
The image of a business among its potential clients needs to be clean and appealing. This is where the work of an Image Consultant comes into play. An image consultant is a great career opportunity in business development wherein your job is to improve the professional image of your client in the market.
This includes promoting the business, creating networks with potential clients, and spreading the image of a company to a larger audience. The task of an image consultant is to improve the way people look towards the business.
2. International Supply Chain Manager
The task of manufacturing, packing, and then supplying a product is a tough one. These tasks become even tougher when dealing with international clients. But the tougher the job the better the pay. As an international supply chain manager, you will have to deal with the logistics and ensure the smooth working of the entire chain until the demand is fulfilled.
A good supply chain manager will fulfill the requirements according to the client and therefore is a great career opportunity in business development.
3. Political Campaign Manager
In a business, there are certain daily activities that need to be executed. A political campaign manager is responsible for managing these campaigns and successfully implementing the political activities inside a company. The main responsibilities of a political campaign manager include the following:
- Planning the campaign and running them perfectly
- Manage the budget of the company
- Manage the campaign staff
- Effectively build teams
Therefore, the political campaign manager is another important and highly demanded course in business development which you can consider pursuing.
4. Credit Risk Manager
Money is the most important aspect of a business. Even in the worst scenario, a business thrives by not risking its profit margins. A credit risk manager is a person who is solely dedicated to adopting such policies that would reduce risking a company’s credits.
Being a credit risk manager, your main responsibility will be to implement such strategies that will prevent the company from losing its hard-earned money. In addition to this, you must also warn the business about the steps that may lead the company into risking its capital.
5. Business Development Manager
Belonging to the core field of business development, this career will need you to bring more international leads for a company. The main role of a business development manager is to bring significant growth to the company and work closely with the marketing team.
This is to ensure that the company is known on the international ground and yields good profit rates in dealing with international clients.
6. Financial Planner
A financial planner is also a financial advisor for a business. Since every company has long-term financial goals that it seeks to achieve. The role of a financial planner is to suggest strategies and methods to successfully achieve these goals.
This includes suggesting a business on certain aspects such as:
- Adopting the correct investment strategy
- How to minimise taxes
- Estate Planning
- Other financial advice
Skills Needed to Have a Successful Career in Business Development
Although business development offers a lot of career opportunities, there is a definite skill set that you must have to succeed in this domain. While the core responsibility of a business development specialist is to grow the business, the exceptional skills needed for the role are as follows:
- Sales ability
- Good communication with clients
- Negotiation skills
- Analysing the data accurately
- Marketing the product of the company
- Building networks
While these are the prime set of skills needed to have a successful career in business development, some other aspects include adapting to any working environment and being flexible. These skills can lead you towards a profitable career in business development.
Conclusion
To conclude, business development offers a lot of career opportunities. So, if you have the correct set of skills, you must take a chance to consider it as a career option. Even if you do not have the proper skill set, you can obtain one by spending some time learning the relevant skills required for different job roles in business development.
When pursuing a career in business development, people often get confused that these jobs are all about sales. The fact is that they often confuse marketing with sales. But if you clearly put marketing and sales together, they are way apart from each other. Marketing vs Sales is an important aspect to know about in business development. To define it briefly, sales refers to fulfilling the expectations of customers not necessarily from the good of a particular company but marketing means promoting and selling products of a particular company to the customer. In sales, the main focus is to maximise the revenue whereas in marketing the prime focus is to satisfy the customer in every aspect.
Still not sure about pursuing a career in business development? You can definitely consider taking career counselling online and be exactly sure of how to be a professional in business development.