Opening New Markets and Strategic Pursuits for an Established Commercial Products Manufacturer
The Client
An established U.S. manufacturer of commercial building products with a nationally recognized brand, a strong position in its core domestic markets, and a growing international distribution footprint.
Role
Business and Corporate Development Advisor. HMC served as an extension of the client's leadership team, representing the company in front of public agencies, industry groups, and international trade contacts, building a disciplined capture process for a major strategic pursuit, and turning market intelligence into recommended actions leadership could act on.
Situation
The client had built a well-respected brand and a loyal customer base in its core markets. Leadership saw an opportunity to build on that foundation by pursuing larger and more strategic sources of growth: major public infrastructure programs, deeper relationships in international markets, and strategic partnerships that could extend the company's reach into new project types.
Opportunities of this kind take a different kind of effort than day-to-day selling. Large public procurements reward companies that show up early, build relationships with agency decision makers and prospective bidders well before a solicitation is released, and pursue the opportunity with a structured capture plan. International growth depends on relationships built through trade and diplomatic channels. And industry conferences only pay off when someone turns what was learned into concrete next steps. With a lean leadership team focused on running the business, the client engaged HMC to add senior business development capacity and bring a proven, structured approach to these pursuits.
Approach
Drawing on decades of experience pursuing complex programs in aerospace, defense, and advanced technology, HMC worked alongside the client's leadership and sales team across several parallel business and corporate development workstreams:
Strategic Pursuit and Capture Management
• Industry Day Representation: Attended a state agency's industry day for a large public-private partnership (P3) infrastructure program on behalf of the client and its strategic partner, networking with prospective developers, bidders, and industry participants and following up afterward to keep those conversations moving.
• Direct Agency Engagement: Secured and led follow-on one-on-one meetings between HMC and agency officials to understand program objectives and position the client's capabilities early, then delivered a detailed trip report with recommended follow-up actions.
• Capture Framework and Plan: Designed a reusable capture management framework for major strategic pursuits and applied it to write a detailed capture plan for the opportunity, including stakeholder mapping, a teaming approach, positioning strategy, and an owner-assigned action item list.
• Capture Strategy Coordination: Coordinated and met regularly with the client's team on capture strategy through weekly working sessions and a cross-functional task force, while continuing outreach to key industry contacts and developing co-branded positioning materials with the client's strategic partner for use with bidding consortiums.
International Business Development
• Diplomatic and Trade Networking: Attended a Consulate General business event and networked on behalf of the client with trade officials and business leaders, supporting the company's growth and partner relationships in a priority international market.
• International Growth Infrastructure: Developed domestic and international territory plan templates and a channel management framework so international opportunities could be pursued with the same discipline as the core business.
Conference Intelligence and Recommendations
• Industry Conference Attendance: Attended a national business operating system (EOS) conference and related training, focused on what practices and tools could strengthen the client's planning and execution.
• Trip Report and Recommended Actions: Delivered a detailed trip report with recommended actions for the client to consider, along with a white paper on connecting EOS-style execution disciplines to formal strategy development, which later informed HMC's assessment of the client's goal-setting process.
Corporate Development and Growth Enablement
• Strategic Partnership Operating Model: Developed a partnership playbook with the client and a strategic partner, defining roles, lead handoff procedures, communication protocols, and a phased approach to joint go-to-market activity.
• Executive Deal Engagement: Created an executive deal engagement protocol defining when and how senior leadership engages on significant opportunities and how decisions get made.
• Market Focus: Defined target markets and ideal customer profiles to focus business development effort and pipeline prioritization on the highest-value opportunities.
• Funding Pathways: Explored state manufacturing extension partnership funding and identified ways to structure future work around grant-eligible programs to help offset growth investments.
• Global Sales Leadership: Supported the search for a senior global sales leader by building tailored interview guides and screening materials, interviewing finalist candidates, and delivering a candidate evaluation and recommendation report.
Results
Through this engagement, the client gained:
Early, visible positioning on a major multi-year public infrastructure opportunity, with direct relationships established with agency officials and prospective bidders well ahead of the formal solicitation.
A documented capture plan and a reusable capture management framework, giving the team a repeatable process for pursuing future strategic opportunities.
A partner-aligned teaming approach and co-branded materials ready for engagement with bidding consortiums.
New international relationships and visibility in a priority overseas market, built through trade and diplomatic channels that complement its existing distribution partners.
Conference learnings converted into a clear set of recommended actions, giving leadership practical options for strengthening how strategy is set and executed.
A defined operating model for its strategic partnership and an executive deal engagement protocol that brings the right leaders into the right opportunities at the right time.
Sharper market focus and the territory, channel, and leadership foundations needed to pursue growth both domestically and internationally.
By adding experienced business development capacity alongside its own team, the client was able to pursue larger, longer-horizon opportunities without pulling leadership away from running the business, and it now has the processes, relationships, and partner alignment in place to compete for them with confidence.
Ready to Pursue Your Next Big Opportunity?
Hoagland Management & Consulting helps companies that design and manufacture engineered products find, position for, and win new business. Whether you are pursuing a major public or private program, expanding into international markets, building strategic partnerships, or simply need experienced senior talent to represent your company and turn market intelligence into action, HMC's Business Development services bring the structure and relationships that complex pursuits require. Unlike firms that stop at strategy or only support execution, HMC does both, building the plan and then working alongside your team to carry it out.
Hoagland Management & Consulting LLC | info@hoaglandmgt.com | hoaglandmgt.com