The perception of business development in SMEs in Germany

Business development is a term that is used by many people but nobody exactly knows what it means. There is no consensus about the definition of business development in literature. However, nowadays business development becomes more and more important for companies, due to the fact that the environment is changing rapidly. As SMEs display an important part in the economy, it is interesting to see how they perceive business development, what role it plays for them and to what extent they think that it is of importance. To find out more about that semi-structured interviews were held in 14 SMEs in Germany. It was found that SMEs perceive business development as further development of the company, growth, keeping up with the times and the developments on the market, constant improvement of processes and as a complex concept that is done within the whole organization, meaning that all departments and functions can be included in business development. Furthermore, SMEs think that business development is important. However, it does not play a main role for all of them.