From a wide range of growth options to clear market decisions.
In our series “A Day with MODELYZR,” we show how the day-to-day work of various decision-makers changes when they gain a clearer view of the market.
This time: the VP of Business Development & Strategy.
This role occupies a unique position within the company
This role is uniquely positioned within the company—working closely with the executive team while collaborating across Sales, Marketing, Finance, and Product. The mission is to turn company objectives into tangible growth opportunities.
The challenge? There is rarely a shortage of growth ideas. One country looks promising. An industry is expanding. A product has the potential to gain more market traction. A region is asking for additional budget. Sales sees opportunities within existing accounts. Marketing is identifying the right audience for the next campaign. And this is exactly the core challenge of the role:
A Day in the Life of a VP of Business Development & Strategy at MODELYZR
When preparing for the week ahead, she no longer starts Monday morning with isolated market studies, CRM reports or Excel analyses from country managers. She starts with the company’s market model.
It shows her not only where the company already has customers, but also:
- Which segments offer high potential but are still largely untouched
- Which countries appear attractive at first glance, but contain too few relevant target accounts
- Which industries are a better fit for the company’s offering than others
- Which companies are still missing from the CRM, despite having clearly identifiable revenue potential
These insights fundamentally change the way she aligns stakeholders and plans strategic initiatives. This becomes particularly clear in a strategy meeting about a potential market entry into a new region.
Before MODELYZR, such meetings were often shaped by many individual perspectives. All of them came with valid arguments, but each was based on only part of the picture.
The sales lead reported on conversations with local partners. Marketing presented data from previous campaigns. And the product team explained why the offering could be a good fit for the market.
From these individual inputs, she eventually had to build the business case requested by the board.
With MODELYZR, the VP of Business Development & Strategy starts from a different point today.
She shows which companies in the region actually have potential. Together with all stakeholders, she analyzes which industry segments have enough substance. And they jointly identify where a market may sound attractive, but currently does not provide enough concrete target accounts.
This makes the discussion significantly more precise.
The hypothesis “This market sounds attractive” becomes a much more concrete question:
“Are there enough companies with real potential in this market to justify a dedicated go-to-market program?”
What has changed compared to before?
Before MODELYZR, strategy often started with assumptions. And that is not wrong. Strategy needs assumptions. Experience, market intuition and the perspectives of the teams remain an essential foundation. But in many companies, these assumptions were tested against reality too late.
Here’s an example: The company plans to position a new offering more strongly in the industrial sector. The term “industry” sounds broad enough. The target audience seems obvious. Some existing customers come from this sector. Sales knows contacts there. Marketing can build a campaign around this. In the past, this would quickly have become a project. A team would have built industry lists. CRM data would have been exported. Marketing would have narrowed down the target audience by revenue, company size and region. Sales would have added a few preferred accounts. And then the campaign would have gone live. It would have taken weeks to see whether the target audience had really been chosen well.
Using MODELYZR, the VP of Business Development & Strategy evaluates the idea earlier.
It looks not only at the industry itself, but also at its potential relative to other segments. How does the sector rank compared to other industries? Which existing customers show revenue potential for the new offering? How many companies outside of the CRM sector are a good fit? Are they really industrial companies in general? Or are they specific sub-segments within this group? Are there regions where these companies are more concentrated?
Based on the data, the initiative may ultimately change. It might become smaller, but also more focused and more precise. And that is exactly why it becomes stronger.
Instead of “Industry DACH,” a clearer target segment is emerging. Less broad. Less wastage. Easier to explain to marketing. More concrete for sales. And that is exactly the point. The VP of Business Development & Strategy is not there to shut down bold ideas. Her role is to turn them into viable growth plans.
Before MODELYZR: It was difficult to compare growth ideas
The biggest pain point of this role isn’t that there aren’t enough ideas. There are too many.
One region wants additional sales resources. Marketing wants a budget for a new campaign. A partner is proposing a joint marketing effort. The product team sees opportunities for a new offering. Management expects growth in new segments.
Every initiative has a rationale. But the VP of Business Development & Strategy has to decide which one deserves priority. Before MODELYZR, this was often the difficult part.
One had strong support from Sales. Another fit well with the product strategy. The third had great market potential. The fourth was politically important because a region had been pushing for it for months. The real question remained difficult to answer:
Which growth opportunity deserves our limited resources?
With MODELYZR, she can approach this question differently.
She can tell whether a market just sounds big or whether there are actually suitable target companies there. She can tell whether a region has many well-known accounts but little untapped potential. She can tell whether a segment, while smaller than expected, is a better fit for her own offerings. This also changes the discussion with Finance. The business case is no longer built on market size alone, but on concrete revenue potential. On reachable target accounts. On segments that can actually be activated. And on a clearer view of where strategy can realistically translate into pipeline.
Before MODELYZR: The CRM only showed the known market
The CRM remains important. But for Business Development and Strategy, it is not sufficient on its own. A CRM mainly reflects the market the company already knows: existing customers, opportunities, activities, known prospects and historical pipeline. It is a valuable source of information. But real growth often starts beyond this known part of the market.
Before MODELYZR, the VP of Business Development & Strategy often saw only a partial picture. If a segment was underrepresented in the CRM, there could be two reasons for this. Either the segment was truly of little relevance, or it simply hadn’t been addressed much up to that point.
That’s a big difference, and without a clear picture of the market, it’s hard to tell which of the two is true.
A segment may appear small in the CRM but still have a lot of potential. Another segment may appear active in the CRM even though its actual potential has almost been exhausted. Yet another segment may not appear in any pipeline, even though it includes many companies that would be a good fit for your offerings.
With MODELYZR, she can see this difference at the click of a button.
She can identify whether a market is genuinely small or whether it only appears small because it has never been systematically addressed.
That is central to her role.
After all, it doesn’t just determine what is visible today. It must also identify what the company has been missing so far.
Before MODELYZR: Business development was sometimes too far removed from implementation
A strong strategy is only valuable if it can be translated into execution. And this is exactly where many organizations experience friction. Business Development identifies a growth area. Marketing turns it into a campaign. Sales has to generate conversations. And in the end, Finance expects a measurable contribution and a positive ROI.
On paper, this looks like a clear process. In practice, it raises many questions:
- Sales asks, “Which specific accounts should we target?”
- The marketing department asks, “How narrow or broad should the target audience be?”
- Finance asks, “When will we see the pipeline?”
- Management asks, “Why this particular market and not another?”
Before MODELYZR, the VP of Business Development & Strategy often had to bridge this gap through extensive coordination and by relying on assumptions derived from manual analyses. She explained the market logic. Sales added its own assessments. Marketing adjusted the target audiences. In the end, a compromise was reached.
With MODELYZR, growth initiatives become tangible for everyone involved.
When an initiative is approved, it doesn’t stop at the segment level. It can be translated into target accounts, clusters, and priorities. Sales gains not only a strategic direction but also a better foundation for its work. Marketing sees not just a broad target audience but a segment with clearer potential. Finance doesn’t just see a growth story—it sees a more robust foundation.
This makes decisions transparent for everyone, and clear go-to-market strategies can be derived from a pure strategy.
How MODELYZR changes the day in concrete terms:
In the past, a typical day for the VP of Business Development & Strategy consisted of many conversations in which she had to reconcile different perspectives.
In the morning, a country manager explained why he needed a larger budget. Shortly afterward, the product team argued why a new offering needed to be brought to market quickly. After that, Marketing wanted to know which target audience should be prioritized for the next campaign. In the afternoon, Finance asked for reliable figures for the business case.
Each discussion used to be based on its own set of data. And that is exactly what made the process time-consuming. With MODELYZR, questions, requirements and priorities can now be aligned around one shared market view — at the moment the decision needs to be made, not after weeks of research and analysis.
If a region requests a larger budget, it can assess whether there really is enough untapped potential there. If a product team is planning a launch, it can identify the segments where suitable target companies are located. When Marketing is preparing a campaign, it can help ensure that the target audience is not only large but also relevant. And when Finance asks for the business case, it explains, based on data, why a particular initiative deserves priority.
Discussions about assumptions take a back seat, and the focus shifts to conversations about the actions behind decisions.
The biggest changes for the VP of Business Development & Strategy
Before MODELYZR, the central question was often: “Which growth story sounds most convincing?”
With MODELYZR, the central question becomes: “Which growth option is actually supported by the market?”
That is a different management lever.
Because many companies do not fail because they lack ideas. They fail because they pursue too many ideas at the same time. Too many markets. Too many target groups. Too many initiatives. Too little focus.
This is exactly where the VP of Business Development & Strategy needs to create clarity and make bold decisions.
And today, she no longer has to rely on opinions, assumptions, lengthy analyses or manual reports.
With MODELYZR, she can see more clearly which markets have potential. Which target accounts matter. Which white spaces are still open. And which go-to-market initiatives deserve priority.
Exactly when the decision needs to be made.
Learn how MODELYZR helps strategy and business development teams assess markets more clearly, prioritize target accounts more accurately, and drive growth based on data. Schedule a meeting with our team.