In this Era of the digital economy, what is the now and the Future of Business Development (BD)?

Having activities of pursuing strategic opportunities for a particular business or organization is Important for the growth of businesses or organizations. These activities may include creating relationships, identifying new markets for products or service, etc,

In times like these, it is Important to position your business so as it reflects the reality of our environments. It is crucial to understand how well we can position our businesses to meet the needs of the Digital Economy.

I would say,

“If your business is not digital or thinking about going digital you prolly missing one of the economic features of this era”

By the way, let’s dive a little deep into what is digital economy, according to Deloitte, the digital economy is the economic activity that results from billions of everyday online connections among people, businesses, devices, data, and processes. The backbone of the digital economy is hypoconnectivity which means the growing interconnectedness of people, organizations, and machines that results from the Internet, mobile technology, and the internet of things (IoT).

The digital economy is taking shape and undermining conventional notions about how businesses are structured; how firms interact; and how consumers obtain services, information, and goods.

Look at “Uber, the world’s largest taxi company, owns no vehicles. Facebook, the world’s most popular media owner, creates no content. Alibaba, the most valuable retailer, has no inventory. And Airbnb, the world’s largest accommodation provider, owns no real estate… Something interesting is happening.”

Questions to ask ourselves are; what is so special about these companies? what allows these companies to re-imagine the traditional boundaries and value proposition of their industry? What can we learn? what digital transformations can we bring to our companies? how can we adapt the digital economy from the traditional economy?

Therefore, BD should be able to answer the above questions, I am trying to think about Tanzanian Businesses and how they can leverage the power of the digital economy, most of us/businesses thinking going digital is about having social media pages or presence, I agree that fact that; having social media pages is a small aspect of being digital because it eases your way to digital marketing.

Digital Economy needs an investment of time, technology, and resources. So as business developers we have to find ways of navigating the now and the future of the digital economy. This will enable the sustainability of our business. The fact is; “if at the end of the day you will not be digital, you will probably not make sense”.

The technology is moving so fast and to be ahead of the game a business needs to adapt to digital opportunities and capitalize on digital spaces. Here we need business developers who can think about the long-term game and coming out with strategies that can change the game for the particular company or organization. And this will help to better position the company or organization to meet the needs of the future.

We all know How COVID 19 has changed the whole game, now the pressure on digital consumption is higher than ever before, and we believe things will never be the same, so with time people will prefer to work remotely, people will prefer purchasing online, people will prefer virtual meetings, people will prefer virtual investments, etc,

As we think about the now and the future of business development in the digital economy following are the areas to look at, The Internet of Things (IoT), data, information, Customers experiences, utilization of digital spaces, file management, Organization Changes, virtual engagements, building trust, future of works, etc,

To be continued

(Views expressed above are basing on my point of view and some of them are from the Deloitte website)