The Multi-Faceted Art of Business Development: Lessons from the OEM and First-Tier Supplier Perspective
“The best way to predict the future is to create it.”
— Peter F. Drucker
Introduction – Beyond the Buzzword
Business development is often mistaken for sales. In truth, while sales focuses on closing deals, business development is about creating the environment where sales can occur. It is the discipline of building relationships, influencing requirements, and aligning a company’s capabilities to future customer needs.
Like a hawk scanning the horizon, effective business development professionals cultivate strategic foresight — spotting opportunity early, understanding the competitive landscape, and striking with precision when the time is right.
For companies that design, develop, and manufacture complex products such as those in aerospace, defense, industrial, and advanced manufacturing, business development is a long game. It involves years of positioning, trust building, and technical credibility. The most successful organizations recognize that business development is not confined to a department or a single role. It is an enterprise-wide function that integrates engineering, program management, operations, finance, contracts, supply chain, and leadership, all working together to position the company for long-term growth and customer success.
1. Defining Business Development vs. Sales
Sales and business development are deeply connected, but they create value in different ways. Sales excels at converting defined opportunities into revenue. It is centered on execution: engaging known customers, responding to requests, negotiating scope, managing pricing strategies, and closing contracts that keep the business moving.
Business development operates earlier in the lifecycle. It focuses on shaping the environment in which future sales can occur. This includes identifying new markets, influencing emerging requirements, uncovering latent customer needs, and aligning the company’s long-term technical and operational capabilities with where customers are headed, not just where they are today.
Another way to think about the distinction is through time horizon. Sales delivers this quarter’s results. Business development creates next year’s and the next decade’s opportunities. Both are essential, and both must work in concert for sustainable growth.
For companies that design and manufacture engineered products, business development often begins long before any formal request for proposal exists. The process starts when engineers collaborate with customers to explore technical challenges, when program managers and operations teams demonstrate performance and reliability that build trust, and when executives invest in relationships with decision-makers and influencers. Product teams also play a critical role by aligning technology roadmaps with customer strategies and industry trends.
In complex industries, successful growth is rarely the work of a single department. Business development provides critical market insight, customer intelligence, and strategic opportunity analysis that help senior leadership set direction. Sales then executes the resulting opportunities, while engineering, operations, program management, finance, and contracts strengthen the company’s positioning through technical excellence and reliable performance.
2. The Business-Development Spectrum
Business development is not a single tactic but a continuum of approaches that evolve with a company’s maturity, markets, and risk appetite. Some organizations operate almost entirely in the near term, maintaining existing relationships and revenue streams. Others invest in shaping entirely new markets where no formal demand yet exists.
Understanding where your company sits on this spectrum and where it needs to move helps leaders balance short-term performance with long-term growth. The most resilient businesses intentionally blend these modes, ensuring that today’s revenue funds tomorrow’s opportunity.
Farmers ensure stability. Hunters expand reach. Super Hunters create demand through innovation and strategic positioning. The journey from Farmer to Super Hunter requires a mindset shift from reacting to market demand to actively shaping it.
The three business-development maturity profiles — Farmer, Hunter, and Super Hunter — illustrating how organizations evolve from sustaining existing customers to creating entirely new markets and long-term growth opportunities.
3. The OEM Perspective – Shaping the Market
For an Original Equipment Manufacturer (OEM), business development is synonymous with market leadership. The OEM sits at the top of the value chain, integrating technologies from multiple suppliers into a cohesive product or system. Success depends on anticipating customer needs before they are articulated.
Key OEM business-development priorities include:
Developing product and technology roadmaps that align R&D investments with future market demand
Influencing customer requirements through early collaboration or co-development programs
Driving operational excellence since consistent delivery and quality build credibility
Translating technical capability into mission relevance for customers
When an OEM links its business-development strategy to operational performance, it improves on-time delivery, accelerates new product introductions, and translates reliability into trust. That trust becomes a competitive advantage in every capture effort.
In the OEM world, performance is the most persuasive marketing message. Operational excellence is business-development currency.
4. The First-Tier Supplier Perspective – Getting Specified In
For first-tier suppliers, business development centers around one goal: getting designed in. Achieving that status, being specified on an OEM’s drawing or bill of materials, often takes years of persistence.
The Typical Supplier BD Cycle
Influence: Identify the real decision-makers, often engineers who specify components or materials.
Collaborate: Co-develop prototypes or proof-of-concept solutions that solve customer problems.
Validate: Support qualification and testing to demonstrate reliability and compliance.
Sustain: Deliver consistent quality, cost, and schedule performance once in production.
In sectors such as defense, the Engineering and Manufacturing Development (EMD) phase can last three to five years before meaningful revenue appears. Yet once a supplier is designed into a platform, the program can span decades and become an annuity-like revenue stream.
The most effective first-tier suppliers combine technical expertise with relationship endurance. They stay visible throughout program lifecycles and continuously offer improvements that help OEMs meet performance or cost objectives.
5. Strategic Capture and Cross-Functional Execution
Business development does not live in isolation. It is an orchestration across departments.
In mature organizations, business development acts as the conductor ensuring every function contributes to growth:
Program Management provides insights into current customer satisfaction and upcoming bids
Engineering develops differentiated, manufacturable solutions
Operations ensures cost, schedule, and quality credibility
Contracts and Finance evaluate risk and shape competitive offers
Leadership reinforces priorities, allocates resources, and removes obstacles
Cross-functional capture planning transforms potential into results. I saw this firsthand while leading a turnaround effort for several underperforming product lines. Before my arrival, these programs had become unprofitable, pricing was no longer competitive, and key US Department of Defense (DoD) customers were beginning to source elsewhere.
To reverse the trend, I led a cross-functional team that included program management, engineering, operations, quality, and finance. Together, we developed a Balanced Scorecard to map every initiative, cost reduction, delivery improvement, and customer engagement, back to strategic company goals for customer satisfaction and profitability.
By reducing cost and improving delivery performance, we regained competitiveness, stabilized customer relationships, and secured follow-on contracts at healthier margins. More importantly, the effort repositioned the entire business unit for future opportunities.
Business Development in Practice — Influence, Innovation, and Cost Leadership
Developing solutions to customer problems often leads to reimagined and repurposed technologies that create new opportunities. In one instance with a subsea customer in the global energy industry, we persuaded them to consider a market-driven lower operating pressure based on our understanding of their business and market space. This strategic conversation positioned us for successful product validation and customer acceptance.
In parallel, our engineering team developed a new sensor-based technology through a novel application of existing sensing methods. The result was so compelling that the customer modified the contract midstream to include our new design, a win for both performance and innovation. That technology became the foundation for an entire portfolio of new products, addressing previously unserved "white space" in the market.
Customer collaboration also played a direct role in cost and lead-time reduction. At a first-tier defense contractor, we discovered that costly qualification tests had been repeatedly added to future procurements to address past quality issues that no longer applied. By asking the right questions and engaging in open dialogue with the customer's engineering team, both sides agreed to remove the unnecessary tests. The result was lower cost, shorter lead times, and improved customer satisfaction, a clear example of how collaboration and transparency create mutual value.
That experience reinforced a lasting lesson: business development is an enterprise function. Every department, from operations to engineering, plays a direct role in shaping a company's market posture and ability to win the next opportunity.
Even in established markets, growth can emerge from overlooked gaps. With curiosity and persistence, companies can transform constraints into opportunities for renewal and innovation.
6. Influence and Relationship Building – The Long Game
True business-development professionals understand that influence precedes opportunity. Influence is not about persuasion but about credibility and timing. The best professionals apply consistent practices that strengthen relationships and position their companies for success.
Shape Requirements Early – Engage in technical forums, consortiums, and working groups where future program requirements are discussed.
Build Layer-by-Layer Support – Cultivate advocates at every level, from engineers to executives.
Participate in Technical and Academic Networks – Leverage partnerships to extend credibility and capability.
Market Through Thought Leadership – Publish, present, and share expertise to build trust.
Build Coalitions – Lead collaborative partnerships that combine complementary strengths.
Adopt a Long-Horizon Mindset – Relationships and opportunities mature over years, not months.
Influence often happens years before a solicitation appears. Sometimes the work shapes a market that never fully materializes, yet the relationships, insight, and credibility gained still compound for future pursuits.
Influence in Action — Shaping Requirements in a Multinational Program
Context
Early in my career, our team participated in Industry Support Groups within NATO and the U.S. Navy that were exploring requirements and policy for a potential joint procurement of a ship-based VTOL UAV system. We were focused on helping shape the emerging requirements so our company could compete effectively once formal solicitations appeared. It was a long-horizon effort that required technical credibility, collaboration across companies, and consistent engagement with government stakeholders.
What We Did
- Contributed to NATO and U.S. Navy working groups developing operational and technical requirements for next-generation ship-based UAVs
- Built relationships with subsystem suppliers, integrators, and other prime contractors, including international corporations, for potential teaming on future programs
- Led a coordinated multi-corporation presentation to NATO that proposed a unified UAV system concept for seven NATO navies
Outcome
Despite promising early alignment and strong interest, NATO ultimately chose not to pursue the program due to shifting priorities, funding dynamics, and geopolitical considerations. This is a reality of pursuing large, strategic opportunities. Even well-positioned teams can find that the customer's needs or political environment changes in ways no company can control.
Why It Still Mattered
- We gained early insight into evolving maritime UAV requirements that informed later pursuits
- We established relationships across OEMs, subsystem suppliers, and international partners that strengthened future collaborations
- We elevated visibility and credibility for our technology and our organization within NATO and the broader defense community
Influence work is a long game. It requires persistence, patience, and a willingness to engage even when outcomes are uncertain. Programs of this scale can shift or disappear due to factors unrelated to performance or capability, yet the relationships, insights, and credibility developed through deliberate engagement rarely go to waste. They compound over time and position the company more strongly for the next opportunity.
7. Organizational Enablement – Business Development as an Enterprise Capability
Business development becomes truly powerful when it shifts from being the responsibility of a single department to a capability embedded across the entire organization. Sustained growth requires the alignment of quality, operations, engineering, finance, program management, leadership, and customer-facing teams. These functions collectively create the credibility, insight, and responsiveness that position a company for long-term opportunity. The following enablers illustrate how organizations can strengthen their enterprise-wide business development posture.
Core organizational enablers that transform business development from a standalone function into a fully integrated enterprise capability, supported by quality systems, market insight, technical presence, cross-functional alignment, and leadership engagement.
8. The Business-Development Mindset – From Reactive to Strategic
Sustainable growth requires more than chasing every lead; it demands discipline, prioritization, and foresight. In many mature markets, the growth is not in new product launches alone; it’s in finding the cracks, unaddressed customer pain, legacy inefficiencies, and adjacent technology leaps.
High-performing business-development organizations understand that even in well-established industries, innovation often comes from reframing existing capabilities to solve problems others have overlooked. These organizations learn to observe the cracks, listen closely to customer needs, and partner creatively to turn mature product lines into new growth engines.
Finding Growth in the Cracks — Two Industry Examples
Smart Innovation in a Mature Materials Market
In one of my previous roles leading business development for a thermoplastics manufacturer, I saw firsthand how curiosity and technical creativity can open new markets in an otherwise mature industry. The company produced PTFE components for industrial and aerospace applications, but I believed there was untapped potential in the civil infrastructure sector — particularly in bridge construction.
I began exploring how our PTFE materials could play a role in addressing a major public challenge: the monitoring of aging bridges. By initiating a partnership with a university research center, I led a feasibility effort to explore embedding load sensors directly into PTFE bridge bearings. The goal was to create "smart bearings" capable of measuring load and stress in real time, giving engineers the data needed to manage bridge structures more effectively. This collaboration combined our materials expertise with the university's knowledge in sensor integration and bridge dynamics, and together we developed proof-of-concept prototypes that positioned the company for a unique competitive advantage.
The project ultimately resulted in the issuance of a joint patent shared among myself, the university professor, and his lead graduate student — formal recognition of the innovation that emerged through applied collaboration between industry and academia.
While pursuing that opportunity, I also discovered another market insight through curiosity and networking. By attending bridge-engineering tradeshows, asking questions, and engaging with designers and owners, I learned that U.S. bridge specifications required flat PTFE bearing plates, whereas European bridge designers specified dimpled PTFE surfaces to better distribute lubricant. That design difference reflected a distinct engineering philosophy — and it represented an opening. I worked with one of our process suppliers to develop a dimpled PTFE product line, which allowed us to compete for both U.S. and European bridge projects and nearly doubled our addressable market potential.
The experience taught me that innovation in business development isn't always about inventing something new; it's often about seeing something established from a new angle. By combining material science with real-world application insight, we turned a commodity product into a differentiated solution that created new growth and strengthened our industry position.
Growth in mature markets often comes from curiosity, partnerships, and cross-pollination — connecting what you already do well with needs others haven't yet solved.
Dual-Use Innovation in Aerospace
A commercial helicopter manufacturer recognized that its externally lifted cargo aircraft could solve a long-standing U.S. Navy logistics problem. The Navy's aging H-43 fleet struggled to perform vertical replenishment (VERTREP) missions efficiently, reliably, and cost effectively.
Through a multi-year capture effort and strong executive advocacy, the company successfully positioned a fleet of its commercial helicopters for lease by the Navy's Military Sealift Command, a program that marked a competitive win and successful military market entry.
The same platform was later transformed into an unmanned cargo-resupply aircraft for the U.S. Marine Corps. The resulting system demonstrated autonomous delivery of critical supplies in remote, mountainous environments, marking the company's first unmanned military application and a major step in redefining aerial logistics. These efforts resulted in a competitive win for the company's first unmanned helicopter military application.
Growth opportunities often exist where commercial capability meets defense mission need. Aligning technology performance with operational requirements can unlock entirely new markets.
Conclusion – The ROI of Patience
Business development is a long-duration strategy built on consistency, credibility, and connection. For companies that design and manufacture, it is as much about influencing the future as competing in the present.
Whether you are an OEM shaping global requirements or a first-tier supplier striving to be designed in, success depends on how well your entire organization plays the long game by integrating innovation, operational reliability, and relationship management.
Enduring business-development wins come not from aggressive selling but from trusted partnerships that last through programs, leadership changes, and technology shifts. That is the true return on investment of business development and the foundation for long-term competitive advantage.
If your organization is exploring new markets, preparing for major pursuits, or aiming to strengthen its business development or program execution capabilities, thoughtful strategy and disciplined cross-functional alignment can make all the difference. To discuss how these principles can be applied to your company, connect with Hoagland Management & Consulting LLC at www.hoaglandmgt.com or email info@hoaglandmgt.com.
About the Author
Michael Hoagland is the Founder and Managing Director of Hoagland Management & Consulting LLC and brings more than 40 years of experience in executive leadership, program management, business development, and engineering, across aerospace, defense, industrial, and technology-driven manufacturing environments. He has led complex strategic pursuits, revitalized underperforming product lines, shaped emerging requirements in domestic and international markets, and collaborated with industry, government, and academic partners to drive innovation and growth. Michael is known for his collaborative leadership approach, technical fluency, and ability to align cross-functional teams to position organizations for long-term competitive advantage.
Read Michael's full bio to learn more about his background and expertise.
Michael Hoagland - Hoagland Management & Consulting LLC
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