A major global biopharmaceutical company focused on developing and commercializing life-changing therapies decided to evaluate available system options for a new global pricing and revenue management system. They wanted to make the right decision if they should develop or buy a new platform that fits their strategy and improves their decision-making process. The organization looked for a partner to work with the business and technology team during this early project phase and provide thought leadership and guidance to select and assess the future pricing platform.

Together with the business project lead, we developed a robust selection process and assessment criteria and established exact briefing materials for the potential vendors. We organized initial presentation meetings with the vendors to provide insights and industry experience as part of their RFP pitch. As a subject matter expert, we created in-depth criteria and a criteria weighing system. Besides, we analyzed the provided supplier’s information, comparing system functionalities and vendor capabilities in terms of innovation, functionalities, deliverables, and value. We performed expert interviews with pricing executives from other pharma companies and assessed client references to collect further insights on their current platform implementations experience, best practices, and recommendations.

Our expertise in pricing and revenue management and cloud platform implementation and selection experience delivered an excellent solution fitting to the individual, organizational needs. The client benefited greatly from our deep engagement in the requirements and selection process and the management between potential vendors, business, and technology executives at all levels.

A medium-sized IT-Service Company encountered many organizational and internal process issues preventing them from achieving their strategic of recent years goals to provide strong customer orientation.

The organization encountered several issues in its Business Development, Sales, and Operations departments while attempting to take on new business.

The Management Team was deeply involved in the day-to-day business operations and managing operational crises rather than advancing the company’s overall strategy and concentrating on business development and sales expansion.

The organization’s executives reached out to Aurynion for support in assessing their business operation and processes and finding improvements, prioritizing the optimization areas, and developing robust action plans and a roadmap to implement the approved changes.

Our Methodology:

As an initial step, we conducted several interviews with management using a structured interview methodology to assess key activities with several business functions. We also conducted individual key team members interviews to identify and assess the company’s strengths and improvement areas. During our in-depth review of the business, we identified and prioritized improvement areas, and their benefit potential through data, best practices and interviews. Using these results, we developed the “to-be” situation to achieve project goals:

• Redesigned Account Management activities to achieve greater product diversification and increased cross-selling opportunities
• Optimized client segmentation structure to redirect the limited resources towards key clients and to increase customer retention and satisfaction
• Defined and clarified roles and responsibilities.
• Improved Governance and Project Risk Management in daily operations
• Identified complexity reduction and transparency increase in relevant business areas, e.g., Customer Service, Business Development, Commercial, etc.
• Developed a realistic and detailed activity and implementation roadmap, including action plans

Impact:

Our solid methodologies and the delivered solution was a successful achievement for their client base. The key client accounts saw a much faster response to their service inquiries due to increased customer service quality and process improvements.

A different and more individualized focus on key clients created higher customer satisfaction, customer intimacy, and an increase in the company’s revenues.

New client onboarding could be done much faster, and the revenue stream was realized earlier than before. Internally, internal crises have decreased, and employees were more engaged due to clear roles & responsibilities and tasks they have to accomplish.

Finally, employee satisfaction and retention have increased due to overall improvements in the organization.

If you ask for a solid definition for business development, you will often get varying and contradictory responses. Some will opine that “Business development is sales”, others might say, “it is all about partnerships”, few business folks would center business development for “boosting revenue and growth”. Thus, most of the time these discussions lack a concise explanation and are not based on an overall framework.

The two major foundation stones for building the right business development strategy include:

• Attracting new customers
• Maintaining existing customers

Implementing the right business development strategy needs a well laid-out process:

Applying the right business development strategy has multiple benefits which are enlisted below:

• Enhancing customer communication
• Increasing brand value
• Strengthening business and raises revenue
• Enabling recurring business leading to successful partnerships and improved employee engagement

Therefore, a business development strategy must be well thought out, sound, appropriate and realistic.

“Business development is the creation of long-term value for an organization through customers and markets focusing on establishing innovative partnerships and by educating your workforce”:

• Create long-term value

Create opportunities that persist over the long term, like keeping the channel open so that value can flow in indefinitely.

• Define customers and markets

Identifying the right set of customers and markets is defined by demographics, lifestyle and buying habits. Analyzing your target market to reach prospective customers is one important gateway to unlocking long term value proposition.

• Establish innovative partnerships

Successful business rarely provide all services themselves. Relationship with partners, customers, employees, the press are all critical elements to the success of any business.

• Educate your workforce

Your product or service offering needs to communicate a clear competitive advantage. This calls for educating your employees effectively.

For a successful Business Development Strategy, all three components (namely: sales, strategy and marketing) must align to enable effective outcomes and to foster creative thinking.