This is my second time in a NBD, new business development unit. Both struggled. They’re different companies, but some patterns remain.
- NBD of billion dollar corporation.
- Highly anticipated by the corp office.
- Heavy expansion on engineer headcount.
- Product oriented, usually to satisfy a couple of potential key accounts.
- Relies on existing channels of the corporation, ranging from ODM to distribution model.
The dilemma is about face. The face between corporate expectation and doing the dirty job of knocking door-to-door. From my two experiences, the fragmented and laborious works don’t look well compared to the logos and TAM of key accounts. How could it? It must rise just as the sibling business units.
Meanwhile, engineer recruitment and corp investment continuous to snowball. Sunk cost fallacy kicks in. I have yet to see it’s final destiny, but it will not die nor will it prosper in 3 to 5 years.