Scope of Bizdev Team in Startup

In the organization, all people from various divisions have tasks that are mutually sustainable with one another. In their own way, all of them want to target the same direction, they want to pursue what the company has set in its vision.

Same goes for the team business development or more often shortened to bizdev. Some assume this team is part of Sales, when in fact it is very different.

#TuesdayStartup The last week's edition in January 2020 invites Belimobilgue CEO Johnny Widodo to share his views on all things bizdev and its scope in startups.

Bizdev is not the same as Sales

Before joining Belimobilgue and become CEO, Johnny is a professional with a wealth of experience in analysis, marketing, sales and operations across industries. His previous position at Ovo was Director of Sales and Partnerships.

Armed with this experience, he understands very well what the position of Bizdev should be. According to him, the bizdev team has a different domain. They have the task of how to develop a business to target new and existing consumers.

He gave an example, companies engaged in bottled water have a target to target new segments. Previously the company made bottled water with PT A, the seal was taken from PT B and the label was from PT C. When it wants to expand, the bizdev team will tweak new ideas with potential partners they want to hook up with.

"Bizdev people will think why not just sell carbonated drinks? From there they will think of looking for partners to sell carbonated drinks beg syrup, while bottled and branded from its own. That's how the bizdev thinks," he said.

While people Sales are the people whose job it is to sell the product. There is a target that must be achieved by them periodically for each person.

Common mistakes of bizdev . people

According to him, the most common mistakes that bizdev teams often make, especially in new startups, are mental blocks, tend to be easy to assume but in the end did not do it.

Next is less doing follow up. They have to do a lot of process mapping so that it is well recorded which ones can be used.follow up which one should look for another.

In order not to do that, he gives tips that the bizdev team should open minded, have high initiative and dare to try. "The important principle is to try it first, from there you learn a lot, don't forget to be diligent follow up, and don't stick to one lead. When you have found or not potential businesses, Have to be diligent explore Keep going."

Determining the priority scale

Johnny also gave tips on how to determine priorities for the bizdev team when exploring potential partners. He stressed that bizdev's strategy must be in line with what the company wants. It needs internal discussion and limited tests whether it is in line with the directions.

When it's clear, then the bizdev team starts looking for enablers-his. Who do you think you can work with? The team must be active "tap pintu" to get leads. Sometimes every time you meet new people, you can't meet directly with those who are responsible for making decisions.

"If that happens, it means that you have to find a loophole until you can finally meet with decision maker for direct presentation. From what was previously an idea based on exploration, now it is more concrete and can be directly implemented with businesses."

With Johnny's mature experience, since he led, in the period August 2019 until now, it has experienced rapid growth compared to Belimobilgue which was established in 2017. It is said that now the company has spread across 110 locations in seven cities, including Greater Jakarta, Bandung, Bali, Surabaya, Medan, Yogyakarta, and Semarang.

Then, there are 2 thousand partners who have been invited to buy supplies of used cars that are sold through the platform. The team grew rapidly to 800 people.