Evaluate Resources and Analyze Processes for Greater Impact

The “Great Resignation” and fluctuating predictions around market stability create necessity for firms to ensure their marketing and business development (BD) planning is positioned for quick recovery in the event of internal or external shifts. From team alignment and resource allocation to diversification of workload and strategic pipeline development, firms with intentional plans – with resiliency considerations in place – are positioned to respond quickly and more likely to thrive during change.

Plan Now to Prepare for the Future

Weathering the impacts of market shifts begins with a comprehensive audit of your BD and marketing strategies – to include people, process, plans, resources, structure, and alignment with the strategic plan. Audits identify key gap areas and align activities with best and next practices along with proven strategies. This in-depth review forms the basis of your ability and readiness to effectively plan for the future. To compete, your BD and marketing structure and strategies require greater focus.

Tip: If your firm is considering M&A, conduct or engage a consultant to perform a BD/marketing audit during the due diligence process to ensure you understand their BD/marketing approach and value (or lack of value) they bring.

Create a BD/Marketing Organizational Structure that Supports your Strategic Plan

Begin with an audit to evaluate your organizational structure. Too often, firms create structure around the people currently in place rather than their actual needs or future growth plans. By aligning organizational structure to support the firm’s strategic goals, you identify necessary positions for the present while creating a roadmap for the future. Next, access your current team to validate where they fit based on skill and passion and develop job descriptions for the unfilled positions you will add. This assessment ensures your team members are in the right roles which can contribute to increased retention and employee satisfaction.

Case Study:

An engineering design firm focused on four market sectors in four geographic regions to provide marketing and BD support and leadership, engaged Elevate to assess and make recommendations for their BD/marketing structure. Due to the national recruiting crisis and inability to source traditional BD/marketing talent, Elevate’s recommendations for positions was based on skills rather than title. Positions were filled internally first based on skill set before strategic external hires were (and, yes, BD and marketing hires are strategic!) Following is the structure.

In addition to traditional roles like Chief Marketing and Business Development Officer, Corporate Marketing and Brand Manager, Corporate BD Manager, Corporate Communications and Social Media Strategist, Graphic Designer, Pursuit Manager, Elevate recommended recruiting nontraditional roles including:

• Journalist (proposal/collateral copy development, thought leadership, and internal/external communications)

• Multi-media Specialist (photography and video production as well as a licensed drone operations)

Finding talent is the hard part… Providing A|E|C industry specific training is doable.

Develop Processes that Create Efficiency

Process efficiency is a measure of how smoothly a process is executed considering the time and resources spent. Components of high efficiency include increased productivity (you accomplish tasks faster) with minimal errors (well-defined systems help eliminate mistakes), and with agility (ability to quickly respond to change).

Audits can help identify areas where efficiency is broken in your process. To increase efficiency, consider this multi-step loop approach:

1. Begin with a thorough understanding of existing processes and how they work in application. If there are breakdowns, are they do to the process itself or the people responsible for following the process? Invest time to clearly understand issues and address the process or people directly.

2. Establish goals and KPIs to ensure your processes support those goals.

3. Continually evaluate and adjust your processes to ensure they align with goals and KPIs are valid.

4. Implement new processes based on what you’ve learned. Do this in stages and engage all stakeholders to facilitate alignment.

5. Give it some time and evaluate the processes again working back through this multi-step loop.

Processes embraced by all team members streamline efforts and eliminate recreating the wheel or duplication of efforts. Once you implement these and other key activities resulting from audit findings, you will have taken the first steps toward leveraging your firm’s strengths and preparing for the future.