Insight · Business development
Customers Don’t Buy Technology. They Buy a Supplier They Can Trust
Many technology startups see business development as presentations and meetings. Those matter, but in industrial markets such as automotive or aerospace, they only open the door. The decision itself is made somewhere else. The customer is not only asking whether your technology works. They are asking whether you can deliver it, at the required quality and price, for years.
A great demonstration is only the beginning
In the automotive AI company where I led operations and engineering, the first meetings with potential customers went well. The product was impressive, and the demonstrations created real interest. But every demonstration ended with feedback about what had to change for the camera to fit into the customer’s vehicle and perform there under real conditions.
That feedback became our work plan. It drove technological changes and adaptations, and a design built around form, fit and function. The camera had to integrate into the vehicle the way the automaker needed, and not only the way the lab preferred.
Then came the real list
Once the conversations became serious, the customers brought a long list of requirements that the company was not yet ready for. Engineering and functional requirements came first. Right behind them came quality, price, yield and a long series of KPIs typical of the automotive industry. None of these asked whether the technology worked. All of them asked whether we could be a supplier.
We went through that list together with one of the world’s largest automakers, requirement by requirement. In parallel, we built a production line from scratch and qualified suppliers around the world. About a year and a half after I joined, the process ended with a project win. The full story, with the numbers, is in the case study.
Business development is a promise you must be able to keep
In industrial markets, every deal is a promise about the future. The customer is about to design your product into their own, and their reputation will depend on yours for years. That is why they examine your production and your quality as closely as they examine your technology.
Business development that sells only the technology makes a promise the company cannot yet keep. Business development that sells readiness makes a promise the company has prepared to keep. The second kind is slower at the start, and it is the kind that wins.
Sometimes the best deal is a connection
Business development is not only about selling. One of the most meaningful deals I took part in started on the other side of the table. The company I worked for needed a particular technology product, and it was buying it from a single supplier. I knew one company that was developing one part of such a product, and another company that was developing another significant part of it. Neither could offer the full product on its own. This time I sat on the customer’s side, and I wanted exactly what our customers had wanted from us: a supplier we could trust.
I connected the three companies. Together, the two developers could offer a complete product, and the company I worked for got what it needed. Instead of receiving the product from a single supplier, we succeeded in receiving it from an additional supplier as well, with better features and performance, at a competitive price compared with a similar product from the existing supplier.
That connection created real synergy. For the two developers, it opened a customer for a product that neither could have offered alone. For the company I worked for, it brought an additional, better supplier instead of dependence on one. I wrote about the risk of that kind of dependence in One Supplier Can Stop a Whole Company. Good business development often looks like this: seeing the pieces that already exist in different places, and putting them together.
What this means in practice
- Bring engineering into customer conversations early. The feedback that shapes the product is technical, and it needs to reach the people who can act on it before it gets diluted on the way.
- Turn feedback into a plan. Every requirement a customer raises should become a task with an owner and a date, or a conscious decision not to do it.
- Build production readiness in parallel with the sale. If you wait for the order before thinking about production, the customer will see the gap before you do.
- Know your numbers. Questions about cost and reliability will come up early. Estimates you can explain are worth more than optimistic promises.
- Choose your first customers carefully. A demanding first customer is hard work, but it forces the company to become a real supplier, and it becomes a reference for those who follow.
- Look for connections, not only for customers. Sometimes the strongest offer is built by combining the capabilities of several companies, each of which holds only part of the solution.
Questions for the leadership team
- When a customer asks about yield and cost, do we have answers, or only intentions?
- Who on our side translates customer feedback into engineering decisions?
- Is our production plan moving at the same pace as our sales plan?
- Which requirements of our target customers are we not ready for today?
- Which capabilities are we missing that another company already has, and could we offer more together?
A closing thought
A strong technology gets you into the room. What keeps you there is the customer’s confidence that you will still deliver, at the same quality and the same price, five years from now. In technology companies, business development is in the end the work of building that confidence, and that is true on both sides of the table.
Business development and strategic partnerships are part of our Executive Advisory services.
This article reflects the author’s personal opinion only. It is general information, not professional advice or a recommendation to take any action, and any use of it is the reader’s sole responsibility.