Business Development

The Basic Idea

Business Development is one of the three core aspects of Rural Community Development. It encompasses both the development of existing businesses to enlarge their capacity, and the fostering of new business initiatives.

The selection of business development as a community development intervention strategy has several advantages:

• It is practical , concrete, tangible, and easy to evaluate in terms of results.
• It can be an early "easy success" which CD activities often need in order to generate community momentum.
• If other more general approaches fail to materialize, at least one business enterprise was assisted.
• Working on a concrete example often surfaces gaps in community infrastructure, making it easier to flag these gaps as good infrastructure development projects in the larger community
• Linkages both forward to markets and backwards to suppliers often spin-off from the development of a business creating a spiral of development.
• There is the modeling effect, where other people get inspired to do their business or community development projects.
• It creates jobs which in turn reduces problems in other areas of community life which often accompany unemployment.
• In Rural Communities, where most news is often bad news in the business sector, business development often generates far more positive effect than it's small effect in a city would bring about.

The need for a healthy economic climate and infrastructure in a community was commented on by Lyle Schumacher when he noted after his work in Burma, that one really appreciates good infrastructure when one is suddenly confronted with its absence ( ). This aspect of business development is addressed under the heading of Economic Development. The line between Economic Development and Business development is a fuzzy one, because the two activities are related and overlap to some degree.

There is a wide variety of approaches to Business Development. The approach selected depends to a great extent on the circumstances.

Off-Line Resources

On-line Resources

Reprinted in Ferrazzi, Gabe. Course Reader, Rural Community Development, Brandon University, 2001.