a)Market and company monitoring and analysis
b)Communication material (an "internal messenger")
c)Guidelines and tools to support best practices
•Strategic planning Business development competences The competences within the divisional business development units may vary according to the specific area of responsibility (whether operational, M&A-focused or other), but some commonalities exist: together, the people within the unit carry strong analytical skills and versatile knowledge about their field of work. Teams are put together with the purpose of the unit in mind: to accelerate managerial talent. Young professionals are thus hired and put together with more senior people (often the manager of the business development unit). In a timeframe of 2-5 years, they often move on to become leaders elsewhere in the organisation. Business development performance measures The success of business development is dependent on its ability to become the instinctive, preferred choice for managers to turn to. The performance of business development is thus based on its ability to produce expertise services – with a higher quality and/or lower cost of external service providers (e.g. consulting firms). The differentiators that makes Sanoma Corporation the preferred choice are
•Efficiency
•Knowledge of Sanoma and SanomaWSOY
•Holistic view on Sanoma's business environment
•"Easy-to-approach" and "quick-to-respond"
•Cross-divisional co-operation and contact networks These factors are incorporated into the work of the unit, and in addition to that, success criteria for each of the three areas of responsibility have been formulated. When evaluating projects and calculating bonuses, these success criteria are used to assess the degree to which the unit and its members have excelled in carrying out the tasks.
The following example is from the Sanoma Corporation division – the leading newspaper publisher in Finland. The role of business development in Sanoma Corporation The overall purpose of business development in Sanoma Corporation has been formulated as: "The vision of the business development unit is to be the preferred choice of the management of Sanoma when in need for fast and envisioned/insightful business development support." The success of the unit is thus dependent on its ability to position itself within the division to become "the place where management turns for accelerating the execution of strategic 'must-win-battles'." Areas of responsibility of business development Complementing this overall purpose, or vision, is a formulation of the role that business development plays within the organisation: "The mission of the business development unit is to help the management of Sanoma to create growth and profitability through identifying, initiating and implementing M&As, strategic initiatives and new ways-of-doing." Each divisional business development unit in SanomaWSOY supports corporate management in bridging strategy and execution, and all business development units thus have a responsibility for co-ordinating the annual strategic planning process. The divisions provide quantitative and qualitative feedback from their field and report this data to the group-level business development unit. Here, a coherent strategy plan is gathered once a year, and the final strategy is developed in collaboration with the top management. Each divisional business development unit, in turn, plans its work according to its business area specific divisional strategy. Aside from the responsibility of contributing to the strategic planning process, the responsibilities of each divisional unit vary from a strong M&A-focus in one unit to an operational focus in another. In Sanoma Corporation, business development has the responsibility for
•M&As and post-merger integration
•Internal business development projects including
2. MANAGING BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT
