Business development, strategic not just busy.

What should a growth thesis answer?

Every engagement starts with the growth thesis:

• Where will revenue come from over the next two to three years, beyond today’s pipeline?
• Which untested channels could add real upside?
• Which partnerships would compound, rather than add activity?
• Which relationships would change your competitive position?

Which kinds of partnership work?

Partnerships often outperform paid channels on trust: Pew Research found users clicked a traditional search result on only 8% of Google visits with an AI summary (Pew, 2025), so referrals and partner channels carry more weight.

“Google users who encounter an AI summary are less likely to click on links to other websites than users who do not see one.”

Pew Research Center, July 2025

• Channel partnerships: referral, reseller or affiliate arrangements that monetise overlapping customers. Watch for misaligned incentives and channel conflict.
• Strategic alliances: complementary businesses going to market together. More committed than a channel deal, more reversible than an acquisition. Decision rights and exit terms matter.
• Ecosystem positioning: alignment with platforms, marketplaces, industry bodies or free zones. Low cost, and low impact unless pursued seriously.

How an engagement runs

1. Discovery (free, 30 minutes): growth trajectory, pipeline concentration, and whether sales or marketing would do more than BD right now.
2. Growth thesis workshop (week 1): with the founder and key people. Output: a one-to-three-page written strategy.
3. Partner mapping (weeks 2–3): candidates scored on fit, willingness and impact.
4. Approach plan (week 4): who, through which introduction, with what proposition and ask.
5. Execution support (week 5 onward): early conversations, outline terms before lawyers, then handover to your team.

How is business development different in the UAE?

The market keeps adding players: Dubai alone gained 129,600 new property investors in 2025, per the Dubai Media Office, and LinkedIn counted 10.0 million UAE members in late 2025 according to DataReportal. Relationships, not volume, decide who gets the meeting.

• Relationships first. Warm introductions and reputation carry more weight than cold outreach.
• A regional hub. Dubai-based businesses can build channels across the GCC and wider region.
• Government and semi-government partners. Free zones and public programmes can be transformational but slow; fit is assessed first.

What I don’t do

• Cold outbound sales.
• Networking for hire.
• Partnership hunting without a thesis.
• Taking equity in partner businesses.