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SMALL BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT STRATEGIES

To develop a small business into a big or global business, you must have good strategies in place and the means to implement it. This article explores small business development strategies you can use to develop your business into a big enterprise.
The various strategies and competitions involved in managing and developing a business from a small scale to a larger scale will also be discussed.

Table of Contents

What are Business Development Strategies?

Small Business Development Strategies
Business Development Strategy

Business development strategies are documents which describes the various means used in accomplishing the goals of a business. It also guides small companies in growth by focusing on vital areas of operation. However, in the latter part of this article, we will be discussing about the strategies for small business growth.
Below are some of effective business development strategies:

Networking

This is a key factor that you can employ in your business and it is a commonly used business development strategy. As a result, networking with a target audience can develop new business for you.

Referrals

Establishing a good relationship with your targeted audience can encourage them to refer people to you for business. Certainly, satisfied clients also do the same.

Sponsorship And Advertising

You can develop new business through sponsorship and advertisement. Combining advertisement with other methods, such as speaking at events may give you an added advantage in your business.
The above mentioned small business development strategies can also be achieved through online marketing strategies.

Business Development Basics

Business development is the long-term value relationship of an organization with customers, markets etc. In other words, It’s a sub-set of business commerce and organizational theory.
Business development isn’t just about knowing market opportunities and source of revenues, but also putting into consideration the following factors:

  • The Ideas, activities and initiative required in order to achieve the business goal.
  • The possibilities in expansion and competitors’ development.
  • Knowing the objectives, such as sales growth and increase in profit.
  • General impact on every department like sales, marketing and product department.

What is Business Development?

Business development is simply finding, developing and implementing effective strategies for the growth of a business. In simple terms, business development is those activities or ideas that is aimed at making a business better with time. As a result, it shows the result in implementation of strategic partnership, using your market growth in terms of business expansion, strategic business decision, increased revenues and building your company’s reputation etc.

The Business Plan

In every area of business, it is very important to have a good plan. This plan is the overall structure and show how the business should be run. Certainly, well-structured plans with good implementations will produce amazing results.
The business plan is simply the process involved in the creation of strategies so as to achieve the objectives, and the step-by-step determination of the activities, and also resources necessary to achieve them.
Business planning aids organizations in their policies, procedures and challenges encountered. However, the key part of this plan is to reduce business risk.
There are three kinds of business plan and they include:
a. Plan to do current business,
b. Plan for continuing in business, and
c. Plan for business development and growth.

The Right Fit for Business Development

The right fit for Small Business Development Strategies
The right fit for Small Business Development Strategies

Anyone who brings notable value and key strategies to a business contributes to the business development. Moreover, these persons could be the employers or employees working in the business development.
Also, to be an effective business development professional, you should always work against the word “procrastination” and understand the broad meaning of business development. Several restrictions are in business growth but business development have no restriction.

As successful business developer, you must have acquired the following skills:

  • Good Networking Type Personality
  • Deal-Oriented
  • Be Creative and Innovative
  • Have Good Project Management Skills
  • Good instinct and being extremely perceptive
  • Street Smart.

What Should a Business Developer Know?

It is important for a business developer to have good knowledge about the business. Therefore, some areas a business developer must have proper knowledge of include;

I. He/she must know the strength, weakness, opportunities and threat of the business.
II. The business competitors’ development.
III. Know the customer’s profile.
IV. The new and unexplored market opportunities.
V. know the current state of the overall industry and growth projections.

How to Develop Strategies for Small Business Growth

Growth Strategy shows you how you want to develop from your current state to where you want to be in the future.

Highlighted below are the three strategies for small business growth.

  • The Intensive Growth Strategy
  • Integrative Growth Strategy
  • Diversification Growth Strategy

The Intensive Growth Strategy

For this strategy to work, small businesses must focus on having a reduced market value role initially and then gradually move their way up. Each experience brings more opportunities for fast growth but also slightly more risks.

Market Penetration

The competitive nature of this strategy is fierce, as a result, companies compete directly with their competitors. That is to say, you monitor the current market and its products and find means to improve its current share. Also, you may achieve success over your competitors by giving discounts on your products, and selling at lower prices. As a result of this, you will attract more customers, and keep your existing customers.

Market Development

This is the situation whereby you offer your product or services to other state or city, and not just to your current city, You can also target other market.

Alternative Channel

It involves targeting customers in a different way such as selling your products online, creating an online shop etc. You could also think of a subscription or membership program to expose and find new clients.

Product Development

Certainly, this strategy can help you develop a new product and sell to an existing market or improve an existing product by adding new features to it. You could also change a feature of a product which is no longer in use.

Market Segmentation

This is when you need to divide the market into smaller sections and focus on a specific market so that you can gain more ground.

The Integrative Growth Strategy

After successful implementation of intensive growth strategy, you then consider growth through acquisition or integrative growth strategy. If you have the capital and you can purchase a company which will add value to your company then you should consider it. There are three integrative growth strategies you can implement when you decide to go into it. These include:

Horizontal

This strategy involves acquiring a competing business. In implementing this strategy, you have added value to your company. You have also eliminated another hindrance standing in your way of future growth.

Backward

This Integrative growth strategy involves buying one of your suppliers as a way to improve your business. Therefore, implementing this strategy will help to develop new products faster.

Forward

This is buying component companies that are part of your distribution chain to make your company stand out.

Growth Strategy by Diversification

Small scale businesses use diversification as a means of entering the market with a new product. Diversification can be done by developing a new product or looking at a product which is different from but still service the same market which you are involved in.
The ability to know the growth strategy and also try to be flexible in response to feedback from the market is important in implementing a strategy in a single-minded way.

Types of Strategies

There are three major types of strategies, which business owners should know. They are;

Strategy in General

It simply shows you the relationship between the results we seek and the resources at our disposal.
There are some related questions to be asked and answered in strategy in general, which are:

  • Your objectives?
  • What are the ends you seek?
  • What is your current strategy? Is it implicit or explicit?
  • What course of action might lead to the ends you seek?

Corporate Strategy

This strategy defines the market and the businesses in which the company will operate. In other words, it defines the company’s mission and vision, and what it intends to become.
Below are some of the related questions to ask and answer while using the corporate strategy.

  • What are your growth, size, and profitability goals?
  • The geographical areas?
  • In which businesses?
  • In which markets will you compete?

Competitive Strategy

This strategy shows the means by which a business will compete with other business in its industry. That is to say, it shows the company’s strengths and weaknesses in relation to the market, and the strengths and weaknesses of its competitors.
Some of the questions and answers in competitive strategy are:

  • In what capacities are you required?
  • Which ones are core?
  • What will you make, what will you buy, and what can you acquire through alliance?
  • What are your options?
  • On what basis can you compete?

Business Competitive Strategy

SMALL BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT STRATEGIES
Business Development Strategy

Competitive Strategy is a long-term plan on how a firm will compete after evaluating its strengths and weakness. To clarify, it is regarded as the scope for decision making that create results in a competitive market.
The competitive strategy includes the following;

A. Low-cost Provider Strategy

This strategy helps a company to achieve lower costs than its rivals and they also use it to attract a wide range of customers by under pricing their rivals.

B. Broad Differentiation Strategy

A broad differentiation strategy carefully studies the buyer’s need, behaviour, value and willingness to pay for a unique product or service. It also helps to increases unit sales and premium prices for products.

C. Best-cost Provider Strategy

This competitive strategy strive to give customers more value for their money by producing good and excellent products at a lower cost than their rivals. Therefore, it combines low-cost and differentiation competitive strategy together.

D. Focus Strategy Based On low-cost

This strategy focuses on a particular market, by understanding the market and the unique needs of customers within it. The main objective is to focus and serve buyers with a particular niche better than their rivals and the products offered are produced according to the needs and taste of the niche buyers.

E. Focus Strategy Based On Differentiation

Its aim is to differentiate its products within a small number of target market segment.

Online Marketing Strategies For Small Business Development

Analysis

Online marketing is a very important strategy you can use to grow your business. That is to say, you can reach a lot of your target audience on a regular basis. This is because a lot of people shop online everyday for different products and services.

Your potential customers could be found on social media platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, Twitter or LinkedIn. Therefore, Small and Big businesses use these platforms to market their products and services. Email Marketing, Content Marketing and Pay Per Click (PPC) are other means that can also be used.

Conclusion

How a business grows and develops is dependent on the strategies being employed by a company and the means of implementation to achieve its goals.