A Career in Business Development
A lot of us business minded/technically trained newly grads are drawn towards a career in business development. I really had no clue what a biz dev guy did when I first heard about it, but I was drawn to it because it had the word business in it - not engineer, sales or marketing. So what do they actually do?
Career Overview
Business development is a combination of strategic analysis, marketing, and
sales. Business development (or “biz dev”) professionals can be
involved in everything from the development of their employers'
products and services, to the creation of marketing strategies, to the
generation of sales leads, to negotiating and closing deals.
The job of the business development professional is typically to identify
new business opportunities—whether that means new markets, new partnerships
with other businesses, new ways to reach existing markets, or new product
or service offerings to better meet the needs of existing markets—and then
to go out and exploit those opportunities to bring in more revenue.
Since the field is a cousin of marketing and sales, even when an
organization doesn't have a stand-alone business development department
or employees with the phrase “biz dev” in their job titles, you
can bet that folks in sales and/or marketing are handling business
development responsibilities. You can find biz dev jobs in all
industries—at everything from tech startups to huge pharmaceutical
companies. What the work entails, exactly, depends on how big a company is
and what industry it's in.
What You'll Do
Your job in business development may involve any or all of the following:
The first aspect of the business development professional's job is
typically to identify new business opportunities.
This means several things, in terms of what you'll do. First,
you'll need to stay abreast of what's happening in your
industry—what your competitors are up to in terms of products and service
offerings, pricing, marketing strategies, and so on. Second, you'll
need to make sure you understand what your company is up to on an ongoing
basis—to understand your company's strategy, how your company compares
to its competitors, and how it's perceived in the marketplace. Third,
you'll need to understand the market for your company's
offerings—who comprises it, and how it may be changing.
Source: Wetfeet: Helping You Make Smarter Career Decisions
In a technology environment, business development will often times lead you back to academia in search of new technologies and business opportunities. You'll be responsible for finding and understanding how new pieces of technology will fit into the bigger company picture, and negotiating licensing opportunities with the schools. Your counterparts will be the senior licensing officers at the university's tech transfer office.
So as part of my due diligence regarding the subject of a career in business development, I spoke to a Senior Licensing Officer, Barry Gelernt, from UCSD Tech Tips, who has obviously dealt with a lot of Business Development Executives. BD, like venture capital, like seemingly all good jobs 
, is something you do later on in your career. It is a position that requires great networks, thorough domain knowledge and superior people (sales, negotiation) skills. In addition, for certain industries like biotech, it is almost a requisite to have a PhD to be able to understand all the technologies you will be positioning your company acquire. However, he did suggest some things that I could do now to lead me towards a career in BD.
a.) Find an industry that I want to work in.
b.) Start career in sales or engineering (Sales will help you build industry knowledge, people skills, and network - engineering will help you….. not too sure why I'd want to be an engineer.
)
c.) Take a patent BAR exam to become a certified Patent Agent (You'll be dealing with a lot of intellectual property issues in BD.)
d.) Get an MBA (Something I can't really do right now, but down the line as well. If you don't have a PhD, you gotta have something to put behind your name don't you?)