International Business Development and Partnerships

The Context
Several clients commission the services of Mirabilis Management to support Business Development and Partnership Development and Management internationally. These have included Media Companies, The British Council, The British High Commission, Association of Colleges, FE Colleges, UKTI, Universities and Schools in the UK, India, the Middle East, the ASEAN Region, Africa and Latin America.

The Client Aims

Taking the FE Sector as our example for this case study, our clients aimed to understand the

  • Market drivers and inhibitors, and competitive environment, for their products and services in new International markets and markets they are operating in but want to improve business and partnership opportunities
  • Customer segmentation for their products and services in international markets
  • Funding opportunities
  • How to write successful bids for tender opportunities
  • Partnership opportunities
  • Market entry options
  • Partnership management models
  • Financial and pricing models
  • How to deliver services with partners from different cultures

The Service Engaged

To achieve their business development aims, FE players engaged the services of Mirabilis to lead on International Strategy, Business Development and Partnership Management. The teams for each project included associates with in-depth country experience in the UK and the partner country, working with partners based both in the UK and partner countries too. For instance, for market research feeding strategic planning, The Research Base and IRN Research were involved, for partnership modelling, workshop delivery and coaching and mentoring, partners including Rosy Banwait and Nexus' Smuts Beyers worked with Natalie Warren-Green in different countries, and John Rees led on Pricing Strategy for several projects.

International Strategy, Business Development and Partnership Management

We supported our clients to do the following ensuring that knowledge transfer was applied to everything so that the work would be sustainable:

Strategic Planning: We ran workshops with teams using market information to develop and strategic for entry or development which resulted in strategic plans which prioritised markets, partners, funding opportunities and tactical activities to turn strategic thinking into business success

Business Development, Partnership identification and development: We worked with business development teams to identify opportunities and partnerships that would deliver the strategy, taught teams stakeholder engagement methods and skills, lined up meetings and workshops and worked with our clients to develop partnership models transferring knowledge to them

Bid Identification and Writing: We have skilled bid writers on our team and for some clients wrote bids for them with information supplied for each question in a tender which we requested, and for others we coached and mentored business development leads to teach them the skills of bid identification and writing  

Funding Identification and Pitches: We have skilled fund raisers on the team, as like our bid work, for some clients we managed funding databases and wrote pitches for them with information supplied for each question required of a funder, and for others we coached and mentored business development leads to teach them the skills of fund-raising 

Organisational Development and Change Management: Business development and partnership work always involves some form of organisational change. Our clients have benefited from our ability to work with them to redefine business development and partnership roles, to train teams on cultural awareness as they enter new markets and to embed this through role play and workshops and also through leading some overseas trips and mentoring team members as they develop partnerships. This has included working with teams on cross culture working for joint strategy development, team role alignment, Diversity and Gender Equality mentoring, Product/Content Portfolio Development and operational roll-out, Sales Force Effectiveness, and Pricing Strategy that meets the needs of the respective partners

Outcome
Several outcomes have been realised as a result of our Business Development and Partnership work including: Revenue gains for businesses in the targeted countries, strategic positioning leading to partnership work in and out of different international markets, products and services becoming aligned to local requirements and brands names becoming established in countries where previously they were little heard of. These outcomes have been achieved for individual businesses, consortiums, NGOs and government establishments (see our client page HERE)