Business Development - A Market-Oriented Perspective

This textbook answers the basic questions: "What is business development?" "What does the business developer do?" and "What characterises good, structured, effective business development?" Distinguishing business development and the tasks of the business developer from traditional approaches of strategic management, entrepreneurship, and strategic marketing, this textbook will enable the market-oriented business developer to conceive, craft, and implement superior business plans.The book is divided into three modules focusing on the market-oriented business developer’s mindset, on providing a state-of-the-art toolbox for careful strategic analyses and decisions, and lastly on the critical aspects of business plans and their content.The approach of the book is focused and selective in its choice of content and provides a cumulative development of the relevant topics. Each chapter includes an ‘implications for the market-oriented business developer’ at the end to enhance a student’s learning.The content of the book is applicable to any new business venture as well as for the development and implementation of growth opportunities in mature organizations. Inherently international in its scope, the text includes numerous real world examples, taken from the author’s own experience as a biotech entrepreneur, as well as from the wider global business community.

* Defines business development and the tasks of the business developer
* Introduces market-oriented business development
* Introduces the notion and role of integrative generalists
* Explicitly focuses on value creation and value appropriation
* Provides a state-of-the art toolbox for careful strategic analyses and decisions
* Applied with strong theoretical foundation
* Includes guidelines for crafting and implementing superior business plans
* Focused and selective in choice of content

Hans Elbe Sorensen currently holds a position as Assistant Professor in the Strategic Organization Design unit at the Department of Marketing and Management, University of Southern Denmark. During his PhD he was visiting doctoral fellow at The Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania, USA.
Professor Sorensen's research interests include the strategic organization of customer and competitive information and market orientation and the role of customer and competitive information in the development and deployment of firm's resources. His teaching portfolio includes courses in Business Development, Advanced Market Strategy and Theory, Marketing Channels, and his business experiences cover various endeavors, such as co-founding, being CFO and Chairman of biotech start-up companies, freelance consultant and data analyst, coaching in business plan competitions since 2001, and being sergeant at the Royal Danish military police.