Business Development Manager Job Description & Roles and Responsibilities
A business development manager or BDM is a professional who works with the sales team, manages sales, and clients, and even plans strategies for the company's growth. The business development manager identifies new leads, connects with clients over new proposals, and maintains good customer relations. He or she builds strategies for achieving organisational goals by working with people inside and outside the business.
- Business Development Manager Job Description
- What are the Business Development Manager Roles and Responsibilities?
- Career Progression of Business Development Manager
- Qualifications Required to Become a Business Development Manager
- What are the Skills Required to Become a Business Development Manager?
- Top Recruiters of Business Development Manager
- Salary of Business Development Managers in Popular Companies
- Conclusion
Business Development Manager Job Description
The job of a business development manager or BDM is to help the organisation grow by finding new opportunities and ways to exploit them. He or she does thorough research on leads, establishes relationships with potential clients, and works with various departments to fulfill the desired goals.
A business development manager job description includes analyses of market trends and plans strategies to gain new customers and promote the brand. A BDM uses exceptional business intelligence to extract useful insights from previous data and understands the business model for successful contribution to growth and profitability. This also helps in identifying the loopholes and working on improvement of existing strategies.
What are the Business Development Manager Roles and Responsibilities?
The roles and responsibilities of a business development manager are dynamic and wide. The primary role of a BDM is to help a business grow by improving sales and maximising its market footprint. This involves responsibilities like lead generation, client management, and understanding market trends for introducing new strategies. Here are some of the common Business Development Manager Roles and Responsibilites:
Client management: A business development manager is responsible for strengthening relationships with existing clients and developing new clients. The business development manager also needs to negotiate with clients and find a way beneficial to both the client and the company. He or she should keep up with technical advancement and must be aware of various client management software.
Identifying opportunities: A business development manager duties and responsibilities include identifying new business opportunities for the organisation. He or she analyses market trends, customer requirements, and the activities of competitors in the industry to identify key opportunities and potential ways to exploit them. This can be done by exploring new market segments and launching new products.
Sales management: A business development manager manages sales of the organisation and finds ways to maximise them by establishing a wide customer base. A BDM oversees the entire sales process beginning from lead generation till closing deals. This also includes tasks like qualifying potential leads, conducting market research, sales presentations, negotiating contracts, and closing client deals.
Developing business strategies: The business development manager’s key responsibilities include developing business strategies that help the organisation in increasing sales and lead to the growth of the business. These strategies aim at achieving organisational goals and fulfilling customer needs and expectations. A BDM needs to follow the latest developments in the industry and introduce innovative ideas for succeeding in the market.
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Career Progression of Business Development Manager
The career of a business development manager progresses from roles like business development representative or sales associate to senior positions like Director of Business Development and Chief Business Development Officer. The progression depends on factors like experience, skills, industry, and location of the organisation. Here are business development manager position description of the major roles in the career path:
Business Development Representative: A Business Development Representative or BDR is the entry-level position offered to fresh graduates. This position may also be referred to as a sales associate. This role requires the candidate to perform tasks like lead generation. He or she may also negotiate deals with clients. Here, the BDR learns the basics of sales and business development.
Business Development Manager: A Business Development Manager job duties mean being responsible for managing teams of representatives and executives. A BDM performs tasks like making strategies, Client management, identifying opportunities, and making sure the sales goals are achieved. He or she may also train new candidates to ensure all the employees have the relevant skills required for the role.
Business Development Director: The Director of Business Development oversees the working of all the business development teams, along with client management. He or she identifies growth opportunities and presents ideas for introducing new products and services. The Director of business development drafts proposals that are used for pitching business deals to partners and vendors.
Chief Business Development Officer: The Chief Business Development Officer or CBDO plays a supervisory role for the business development department. He or she works closely with all the senior position holders in the business development department and ensures all the work is done as per the planned strategies. The CBDO analyses the work of the business development team and focuses on better strategy planning.
Qualifications Required to Become a Business Development Manager
The qualifications of a business development manager must include passing 10+2 from a recognised board of education. He or she must opt for a Bachelor’s degree in Management, Business Administration, marketing, or sales. The candidate can also pursue a master's for better opportunities. Here is a list of some entrance exams and UG and PG courses that can be pursued:
Entrance Examinations
Bachelor’s Degree Programmes
Master’s Degree Programmes
What are the Skills Required to Become a Business Development Manager?
Following the business development manager duties requires proficiency in various skills like communication, analysis, and client management. A business development manager should know how to study market trends and plan strategies. Apart from soft skills, the duty of business development manager is to know essential software for customer management, analysis, and preparing reports and presentations for clients.
Here are some of the important skills required to become a BDM:
- Communication skills
- Problem-solving skills
- Negotiation skills
- Strategic thinking
- Adaptability
- Computer skills
Top Recruiters of Business Development Manager
The top recruiters of business development managers include consulting business leaders, E-commerce websites, pharmaceutical and healthcare companies, and even financial institutions. Recruitment in the career of a business development manager varies on aspects like skills and experience. Although it is difficult to pinpoint specific top recruiters of business development managers, here are some of the examples:
- upGrad
- Flipkart
- Vedantu
- ABC
- Oracle
- TATA Consultancy Services
Salary of Business Development Managers in Popular Companies
A business development manager’s salary varies from Rs. 7 Lakhs to Rs. 25 Lakhs per annum. This may also be topped by bonuses and incentives for the phenomenal performance of a business development manager. The salary may be higher than other common sales roles due to more complex business development manager responsibilities. Here are the average annual salaries provided by some top recruiters of BDMs:
| Companies | Average Annual Salary |
|---|---|
TATA Consultancy Services | Rs. 16.70 Lakhs |
upGrad | Rs. 13.90 Lakhs |
Flipkart | Rs. 14.75 Lakhs |
Cognizant | Rs. 11.80 Lakhs |
ABC | Rs. 10.70 Lakhs |
Source: AmbitionBox, Glassdoor, Indeed
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Conclusion
The business development manager job description will include managing clients, sales, and new product development satisfying customer needs and demands. The role comes with responsibilities like market research, planning strategies, and maintaining interpersonal relationships with customers and co-workers. BDMs must possess a variety of skills to succeed in their career. A business development manager work description includes having skills such as problem-solving and decision-making.
Recruitment in the career of business development managers is exceptionally high and pays a decent available salary. BDMs exploit multiple opportunities as they explore a lot of industries for recruitment. Today's dynamic market requires skilled business development managers to successfully increase sales by maximising customer and client base to build an excellent brand image.
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
The business development manager is a middle-level position in the business development team of the sales department. The lower positions include sales associates and executives. The higher role are of Director and Chief.
The business development manager handles sales activities and performs tasks like client management and strategy planning. The scope of business development manager in the sales industry is dominantly high.
A good business development manager is skilled in communication and negotiation with clients. The experience or business knowledge certainly helps in project management and overseeing business development teams.
No, a business development manager is different from a salesperson. The business development manager performs more leadership and supervisory tasks as compared to a salesperson whose main responsibility is to sell products and services by directly communicating with the customers.
The business development department is headed by the Chief Business Development Officer who works with other senior managers and business development managers to fulfil their responsibilities.