Technology has made it easier than ever to identify prospects, research businesses, automate outreach and maintain contact at scale.
AI can analyse information, spot signals and complete in minutes work that once consumed hours of a commercial team’s time.
In theory, business development should be easier than ever.
Yet many businesses would argue that creating genuinely meaningful commercial conversations has become harder.
Decision-makers are exposed to more approaches. Buyers can research suppliers extensively before ever speaking to them. AI-generated communication has dramatically increased the amount of content competing for attention.
That is changing what good business development looks like.
As activity becomes easier, judgement becomes more valuable
For years, commercial performance has often been measured through activity: calls made, emails sent, meetings booked, proposals issued and pipeline created.
Those measures still have value.
The difference is that technology has changed how easily that activity can now be generated.
Research that once took an hour can happen in minutes. Outreach can be personalised and distributed across hundreds of prospects. Automated sequences can maintain contact without anybody manually sending the next email.
The differentiator is increasingly what someone does with that capability.
Can they recognise which opportunities genuinely matter?
Can they distinguish a meaningful buying signal from noise?
Can they understand why a particular organisation might need something now?
And, most importantly, can they turn that information into a conversation another human being actually considers worth having?
The ability to do more is becoming less unusual.
Knowing what is worth doing is becoming much more valuable.
Technology can scale bad business development too
One unintended consequence of better sales technology is that poor outreach has also become easier to scale.
Most senior decision-makers will recognise the experience.
A message references something from your LinkedIn profile, but clearly has little understanding of your business. An email appears highly personalised until the same structure arrives from three other suppliers. Automated follow-ups continue regardless of whether any real engagement has taken place.
Technology can create the appearance of relevance very quickly.
Actual relevance still requires understanding.
The strongest growth professionals take the time to understand the organisation they are approaching, its market, its pressures and the person they are speaking to.
Senior buyers rarely need another description of what a supplier does.
They need a reason to believe that having a conversation might actually be useful.
Commercial curiosity matters as much as traditional sales ability
That requires curiosity.
Strong commercial people ask good questions because they understand enough to know which questions matter.
They can connect what is happening in a client’s market with the capabilities of their own organisation. They understand the commercial impact of the problem rather than simply presenting the features of the solution.
Sector knowledge can help enormously here, particularly in complex markets where credibility matters.
But knowledge alone is not enough.
The best people can take what they know and turn it into useful conversations. They listen, challenge appropriately and understand that good business development is often much closer to consultancy than pitching.
AI can support that process by speeding up research and removing administration.
Used well, it gives commercial professionals more time to focus on the things technology is less capable of replacing: judgement, curiosity, empathy, relationships and trust.
Used badly, it simply creates more noise.
Growth no longer sits neatly inside one department
The traditional boundaries between marketing, new business, sales, account management and customer success are becoming increasingly blurred.
New opportunities can emerge from marketing activity, existing clients, partnerships, delivery teams or the reputation and visibility of senior leaders.
That means the person a business needs to drive growth may not always have the most obvious job title or the most conventional sales CV.
We might speak to a business initially looking for a Business Development Director, Growth Director, Client Partner or Commercial Director.
But the more useful question is:
What does this person actually need to make possible?
One organisation may need somebody to build a pipeline almost from scratch.
Another may already have an excellent client base but need someone capable of turning those relationships into greater revenue.
A founder-led business might need someone to introduce commercial structure and create a growth engine that no longer depends entirely on one person.
Another may need credibility and access at senior decision-maker level.
They are all growth challenges.
They may require completely different people.
Hire for the problem, not the job title
This is where recruitment can easily become too narrow.
Starting with a familiar title and searching for people who already hold it may feel logical, but it can exclude candidates whose experience is highly relevant to the actual business problem.
Instead, start with the outcome.
What needs to be different in 12 months because this person joined?
Do you need them to create new opportunities, deepen existing accounts, improve commercial discipline, reposition the proposition or build a team?
Once that is clear, the skills become easier to define.
For many senior growth roles, we are increasingly looking for evidence of:
- Strong commercial judgement
- Genuine curiosity about clients and markets
- The ability to build credibility with senior decision-makers
- Consultative rather than purely transactional selling
- An understanding of how marketing, sales and account growth connect
- Confidence using technology without becoming dependent on it
- The ability to translate expertise into business outcomes
- Strong relationship-building and communication skills
The exact balance will differ from one organisation to another.
That is the point.
The strongest people may not be applying
There is another challenge for businesses recruiting growth talent.
Many of the people capable of creating significant commercial impact are already doing exactly that somewhere else.
They are generating revenue, developing relationships, influencing strategy and building value for their current employer.
They may not be actively applying for jobs or regularly appearing through conventional recruitment channels.
Finding them is one challenge.
Giving them a compelling reason to listen is another.
That makes understanding the role and the business even more important. A strong candidate is unlikely to move because somebody has sent them a generic job description.
They need to understand the opportunity, the problem they are being asked to solve and why it represents an interesting next step.
What should employers really be looking for?
Perhaps the question is no longer simply:
“Who can sell what we do?”
A better question might be:
“Who can help us understand where our next stage of growth is going to come from, and help us make it happen?”
That changes the hiring conversation.
It places less emphasis on activity, familiar titles and traditional sales credentials, and more emphasis on the ability to understand a market, recognise opportunity and create meaningful commercial momentum.
Technology will continue to change how business development is delivered.
But the qualities that make somebody exceptional at creating growth remain much harder to automate.
Judgement. Curiosity. Credibility. Commercial understanding. And the ability to build trusted relationships.
Those are becoming more important, not less.
Looking to strengthen your business development, growth or commercial team? We are always happy to talk through the challenge you are trying to solve, what the market looks like and the type of person most likely to make a real difference.
