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Business Development & Strategic Partnerships
Strategic growth opportunities—prioritized, operationalized, and kept under your control.
Business development works when it’s treated as a disciplined growth function—not a loose collection of “let’s grab coffee” conversations or one-off partnership ideas.
Why this matters.
Most companies aren’t short on intros, decks, or exploratory meetings. What they lack is clarity on where growth should come from—and a repeatable way to convert intent into qualified opportunities. We help you define a sharp growth thesis: which markets and segments matter most, where you can credibly win, and how BD should connect strategy, sales, marketing, product, and capital.
What we run.
From there, we design and operate a portfolio of strategic growth plays: new market entry, strategic accounts, offer and product adjacencies, joint ventures, tuck-in acquisitions, and partnerships that materially change outcomes. That includes mapping and prioritizing counterparties (customers, platforms, channels, co-sell partners, and potential JV/M&A targets), shaping clear approaches, and wiring execution into your go-to-market—who leads, how opportunities are sourced and qualified, and how progress shows up in pipeline and planning. We keep the work anchored in business value, using the same language the business runs on: revenue, margin, capacity, and risk.
What you can expect.
Your team stays in control of relationships, commitments, and brand; we stay in the business-design and operating lane. We bring structure, cadence, and accountability—play governance, decision-ready working sessions, and metrics that matter—so BD stops living in inboxes and decks and starts showing up reliably in pipeline, roadmap, and ultimately your P&L. Partnerships are one toolset inside that broader mandate: activating strategic growth opportunities end-to-end.
Why this matters.
Most companies aren’t short on intros, decks, or exploratory meetings. What they lack is clarity on where growth should come from—and a repeatable way to convert intent into qualified opportunities. We help you define a sharp growth thesis: which markets and segments matter most, where you can credibly win, and how BD should connect strategy, sales, marketing, product, and capital.
What we run.
From there, we design and operate a portfolio of strategic growth plays: new market entry, strategic accounts, offer and product adjacencies, joint ventures, tuck-in acquisitions, and partnerships that materially change outcomes. That includes mapping and prioritizing counterparties (customers, platforms, channels, co-sell partners, and potential JV/M&A targets), shaping clear approaches, and wiring execution into your go-to-market—who leads, how opportunities are sourced and qualified, and how progress shows up in pipeline and planning. We keep the work anchored in business value, using the same language the business runs on: revenue, margin, capacity, and risk.
What you can expect.
Your team stays in control of relationships, commitments, and brand; we stay in the business-design and operating lane. We bring structure, cadence, and accountability—play governance, decision-ready working sessions, and metrics that matter—so BD stops living in inboxes and decks and starts showing up reliably in pipeline, roadmap, and ultimately your P&L. Partnerships are one toolset inside that broader mandate: activating strategic growth opportunities end-to-end.
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What we mean by Business Development & Strategic Partnerships
At MKC, business development isn’t a loose collection of intros or side projects. It’s a cross-functional growth discipline that sits where Sales, Marketing, Strategy, Partnerships, and Product meet. The job is to translate vision into a pipeline of executable opportunities—new customers, new markets, new offerings, and new commercial relationships—that the business can actually deliver.
In practice, that means we help you:
- Clarify the growth thesis – what you’re solving for over the next 12–36 months, and which markets, segments, and use cases matter most.
- Prioritize and operationalize growth plays – market entry, strategic accounts, adjacencies, and expansion paths with clear owners, milestones, and success measures.
- Align marketing and demand creation – campaigns, content, and signals that support specific plays instead of generic “air cover.”
- Shape offers and product-adjacent initiatives – bundles, pilots, pricing, and service constructs that make it easier for customers and partners to say “yes.”
- Execute partnerships, JVs, and M&A support – partner alignment, co-selling, platforms, joint ventures, and tuck-in opportunities that expand reach, capability, and credibility.
Strategic partnerships are one set of tools within the broader growth mandate—not the whole story. We help you identify which counterparties truly move the needle, then structure relationships so they produce visible outcomes in the pipeline: introductions, joint pursuits, new routes to market, and, where relevant, strategic investors whose capital aligns with long-term commercial value—not just a term sheet.
Our role is to build the roadmap and run the cadence with you, not to act as a broker or sit in the middle of your relationships. We connect leadership intent to field execution: a clear growth thesis, defined plays, a counterparty pipeline, and operating rhythms that keep Sales, Marketing, Product, and Finance looking at the same picture. Done well, business development becomes a disciplined function that shows up in your forecast and P&L—not a hopeful list of coffee meetings and MOUs.
Growth plays we help you run
Business development & strategic partnerships, in numbers
of companies plan to increase investment into partnerships as part of their go-to-market strategy. [1]
of companies use multi-touch attribution across the funnel for partner revenue measurement. [1]
Survey evidence suggests roughly one half of alliance portfolios underperform—highlighting the need for disciplined partner selection and governance. [2]
According to most studies, between 70 and 90 percent of acquisitions fail—one reason M&A support must be treated as an execution discipline. [3]
Sources
- PartnerStack & Wynter, The State of Partnerships in Go-to-Market 2026 (report landing page): partnerstack.com
- Hoang & Rothaermel (MIT Sloan Management Review, Fall 2016), How to Manage Alliances Strategically (PDF via Georgia Tech): scheller.gatech.edu
- Harvard Business Review (Mar 16, 2020), Don’t Make This Common M&A Mistake (“between 70 and 90 percent of acquisitions fail”): hbr.org
Example business development plays
Designing growth you can execute
We help you move from “we should be in that market” to a concrete entry plan that fits your team: which segments matter, what offer travels, and the commercial motion to back it up. From first pilots to repeatable wins, we build a staged roadmap that Sales, Marketing, and Product can actually run—anchored in profitability, capacity, and risk.
Explore our market entry playbooks
See how we stage and de-risk expansion
Partnerships and tuck-in M&A as strategic options
We work with you to identify when a partnership, alliance, or targeted acquisition is the right lever—access to customers, a capability you need faster, or a route to market you can’t build on the same timeline. Then we pressure-test the business case and plan the execution so value shows up quickly: commercial handoffs, customer messaging, and the first 90 days of integration. The emphasis is disciplined growth, not deal theater.
See how we evaluate growth deals
View a sample partnership & M&A roadmap
See a sample engagement
Joint ventures that don’t stall
Most JVs don’t break on the idea—they break on clarity and follow-through. We help you define the shared thesis, align incentives, and translate the agreement into a simple operating approach: who owns what, how decisions get made, and what the first joint pursuits look like. The goal is practical: a JV that produces opportunities you can track in pipeline and results you can see in the P&L.
Learn how we structure joint ventures
Review a sample JV operating blueprint
Specialized Services (A-la-Carte)
Business Development Overview
Click any specialized service to dive deeper—or request a private briefing
We turn business development from ad-hoc introductions into a repeatable growth system—where strategy meets Sales, Marketing, Product, and Partnerships. The goal is simple: convert ambition into a visible pipeline of opportunities the business can actually execute—new customers, new segments, new routes to market, and partner-led motions that produce measurable revenue.
The work is concrete: a clear growth thesis, a short list of priority plays, target account/partner mapping, and an operating cadence that keeps ownership and follow-through tight. We help you define what “qualified” means, how opportunities move through the funnel, and how partner-sourced and partner-influenced deals get tracked without hand-waving.
Each wedge in the wheel is one part of that system. Start with the thesis, translate it into plays, build the pipeline and partner motion, and run weekly execution so momentum compounds. Our role is to design and run the system with you—not broker relationships—so BD shows up in your forecast and P&L, not a list of coffee meetings and unsigned MOUs.
The work is concrete: a clear growth thesis, a short list of priority plays, target account/partner mapping, and an operating cadence that keeps ownership and follow-through tight. We help you define what “qualified” means, how opportunities move through the funnel, and how partner-sourced and partner-influenced deals get tracked without hand-waving.
Each wedge in the wheel is one part of that system. Start with the thesis, translate it into plays, build the pipeline and partner motion, and run weekly execution so momentum compounds. Our role is to design and run the system with you—not broker relationships—so BD shows up in your forecast and P&L, not a list of coffee meetings and unsigned MOUs.
How We Get You Raise-Ready
Business development & strategic partnerships for growing companies
We help teams turn business development into a repeatable growth engine: a clear thesis, focused target accounts, partner motions that produce pipeline, and an operating cadence that keeps deals moving. The result is more qualified conversations, cleaner execution, and a system that scales beyond individual relationships.
Request a private briefing
What's in your way
How we remove it
- BD is reactive—too many pursuits, not enough focus
- ICP and offers aren’t crisp, so outreach and conversion are inconsistent
- Partnerships are opportunistic; co-sell rarely becomes a real motion
- Pipeline hygiene and attribution are unclear, so investment decisions are noisy
- Wins depend on a few people instead of a repeatable system
- A clear growth thesis, ICP/segments, and offer shapes that travel
- Tiered target accounts with a pursuit plan that fits real capacity
- Partner ecosystem strategy plus co-sell rules, cadence, and enablement
- A practical operating rhythm with scorecards leadership can trust
- Playbooks and templates that make execution repeatable across the team
"¹ Partnerships and strategic options vary by industry and go-to-market model; we prioritize a small set of plays that can be executed with your current capacity. ² We coordinate with/through your internal leads (Sales, Marketing, Product) and outside advisors as needed (e.g., counsel for JV/M&A terms), but we don’t act as a broker or sit in the middle of your relationships."
MKC BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT & STRATEGIC PARTNERSHIPS –
WHERE WE BUILD THE ENGINE
SO YOU CAN SCALE THE GROWTH
We turn business development from ad-hoc introductions into a repeatable growth engine: clear theses, targeted plays, partner ecosystems, and joint motions your teams can execute. The result is visible, accountable growth across new customers, markets, and capabilities.
Growth thesis • target accounts • partner motions • pipeline cadence
Monthly growth playbooks. No spam.
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