Scrum For Dummies, 3rd Edition

Chapter 15

Business Development

IN THIS CHAPTER

Improving marketing agility with scrum

Increasing sales revenue

Success is not final; failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts.

— WINSTON CHURCHILL

The primary function of Business Development is to drive customer acquisition and retention. Marketing and sales are fundamental to the growth and health of almost every organization. After all, getting the word out about what you do, finding prospective clients, and converting them to paying clients keeps the motor of business running.

• Marketing: The strategic role is to understand the market, uncover what prospects and customers want, and bring that information to executives and product and service design and development. Tactically, marketing delivers information to engage prospective clients until they are “sales-ready.” Marketing is highly measurable and pivots to new messaging and tactics to widen and deepen engagement with your company.
• Sales: At the point when an individual responds proactively to marketing, it’s time for a handover to sales. Sales picks up the conversation, whether that would be an individual consumer (B2C) or an organization (B2B), guiding the prospect through the stages to purchase.

In this chapter, we cover how scrum can support the ...