Business Development Outsourcing: What You Need to Know

A Quick Overview

Business development outsourcing isn’t an unfamiliar term for most organisations. Often, organisations turn to outsource to increase lead generation and sales – without having to put in the costs that come with onboarding full-time business development representatives.

While outsourcing isn’t an entirely new concept, some companies are still hesitant in this matter. It’s not the easiest decision to place your core business activity to an external party. Outsourcing relies on the third party’s ability to comprehend what your company is all about entirely.

Even though they’re not part of the internal team, they will also need to have the same strong understanding of your product/service, business models, and business approaches when attracting customers.

On the other hand, outsourcing can be an effective method for companies to extend their capabilities and increase lead generation efforts. By considering all this, it’s safe to say that business development outsourcing has its pros and cons.

Looking at Business Development Outsourcing from Both Sides

Choosing to outsource your business development team is bound to create confusion. If you don’t fully understand what your company can or cannot handle at the moment, there will be no answer to your questions.

In this blog, we’ll take a look at some of the benefits that come with outsourcing your business development team. Additionally, we’ll examine some of the risks that come with it as well so that your company knows what to anticipate should you choose to move forward with outsourcing.

The Benefits of Business Development Outsourcing

• Take advantage of specialists that are solely dedicated to business development
• Give your in-house employees more freedom to do work on other urgent issues to fulfill the needs of your clients
• Have a professional team of business development experts who possess a strong understanding of the dos and don’t of the field
• Be more flexible with incentives as outsourced teams must show results to be rewarded
• Ensure that dedicated biz dev professionals meet your business development needs
• Have a team that’s always at the forefront of business development trends, allowing your inbound employees not always to have to be up-to-date with these matters.

The Risks of Business Development Outsourcing

• Develop too much of a dependency on a third-party organisation that might pose the risk of closing up their business or choosing to end their partnership with your company
• Cause inbound employees to be unprepared for any sudden or unexpected need to make business development decisions
• Put the entire, if not a significant core competency of your business into the hands of an external team whose methods may not always align with yours
• Increases your company’s budget from having to invest in an outsourced team.

Find Out What Works for You

There’s no right or wrong answer with outsourcing your business development team. What you should focus on is whether outsourcing is the best possible solution to craft killer campaigns.

If you’re planning to maintain an in-house team, here are a couple of things you should consider:

1. Organisations must have at least two or three full-time employees who solely focus on delivering qualified sales leads.
2. You must allocate a period to analyze your sales leads to track your team’s efforts and progress
3. You will need to train your in-house team regarding the knowledge and expertise of your product and equip your team with skills to make immediate changes.

However, not everyone has the time or resources to maintain such efforts. As a result, companies turn to business development outsourcing to grow their operations.

Outsourcing your business development team works well if:

1. You don’t have the time and resources to staff an entire internal department and educate them on business development.
2. You require a dedicated business development team that primarily revolves around cold calling and appointment scheduling.

Is It Worth the Risk?

One primary concern that typically comes with business development outsourcing is budgeting. While it may seem you’re putting out money from the start, ask yourself: are you getting a bang for your buck?

Try to think of it this way: if you’re planning to keep an in-house business development team, that’s not an issue. However, you will need to be accountable for all the effective hiring and training processes that will ensue. Additionally, training may take up months, or even years, before your team can get a strong understanding of your vision.

But with business development outsourcing, you’re giving these responsibilities to a professional team that already knows their way around. There’s no need to train them from the ground up. Provided you have given a solid briefing from the start. Their background expertise will help you generate quality lead generation and sales.

As long as you have set your expectations clearly upon your third-party team and maintain strong communication through weekly catch-ups, you’ll be surprised at the long-term benefits of investing in outsourcing.

Reach Out to digitus

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We aim to involve your customers in a deeper, more sustained relationship with your product or brand.

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