How do SMEs in Germany incorporate business development?

As the term “Business Development” becomes more popular, it is crucial to identify how it is incorporated among SMEs as those make up for 99% of all enterprises in the EU. 14 semi-structured interviews have been conducted in order to find out which activities SMEs utilize, how these are organized and coordinated. Results show that activities vary with different organizational goals and respectively chosen process designs. Most of the analyzed SMEs conducted business development using projects which may either target a performance improvement or an extension of the mode of operation. Activities related to performance improvements were predominantly marketing or process optimization activities while in order to extent modes of operations SMEs stated to screen their markets. It remained unclear how opportunities are found and evaluated as SMEs did not actively search but rather reacted when an undesired situation came up. Only very view cases showed the appearance of a fixed process in order to identify, evaluate and implement growth opportunities. Further, SMEs did not have a job description, nor did most of them assign labor to conduct business development. Also, almost no planning activities took place. However, it can be assumed that with increasing size and age, business development becomes more formalized in SMEs.