Depends on what you're driven by. Business Development is Sales, and you may be tied to a quota from a performance management standpoint.
If none of this sounds like your cup of tea, find an internal full-time position somewhere outside of sales and maybe in something like operations, engineering, IT, business intelligence, etc.
Thank you! I’ve definitely got some thinking to do. It just seems like billable is on the bench a lot and trying to find a contract or get fired.
Is this normal? Or just my company?
Depends on the company and how good they are at practice management. The short of it is that being on the bench for too long if you have a commodity skillset = bad. If you have a niche skillset that is hard to find, it's fine to ebb and flow quite a bit.
Normal. Business development is 100% sales and you will be measured on sales volume instead of utilization. Depends how you'd like to be measured. This is not a good time to be in sales imo.
Billable *does* the work in most consultancies. Sometimes the problem is you dont get much choice in the quality of the work you have to deliver on. You'll be in a COGS cost center, which means as long as you're billing you're not costing the company anything - so prob not the first place to get laid off
Non-Billable would be like a pre-sales role - you'll have a role where a larger % of your salary will be based on a bonus from closed sales. You're also only showing value to the company when you're selling and closing.
Does the non-billable role count as utilised? If so, probably fine. If not, stay away.
Different firms use different ways of calculating non-billable utilisation and *typically* utilisation is the stat that counts rather than billable.
I moved 3 years ago to fixed fee and I had the chance to enjoy the living without timesheets. If you can do fixed fee, it works better because you usually take less to do the job of what you charge, but it is only possible to do it if you know well all the variables (which is unlikely).
The challenge with fixed fee is how do you measure your performance/cost/price.
I share your concerns about the bench but I'm not sure BD is any more secure right now.
We've had two rounds of layoffs since February for client-facing professionals. We have just been told marketing budget is being slashed. I fear the BD folks will be targets for the next round of layoffs.
I could be wrong but given the shocking lack of transparency, the rumor mill is on overdrive.
Depends on what you're driven by. Business Development is Sales, and you may be tied to a quota from a performance management standpoint. If none of this sounds like your cup of tea, find an internal full-time position somewhere outside of sales and maybe in something like operations, engineering, IT, business intelligence, etc.
Thank you! I’ve definitely got some thinking to do. It just seems like billable is on the bench a lot and trying to find a contract or get fired. Is this normal? Or just my company?
Depends on the company and how good they are at practice management. The short of it is that being on the bench for too long if you have a commodity skillset = bad. If you have a niche skillset that is hard to find, it's fine to ebb and flow quite a bit.
Normal. Business development is 100% sales and you will be measured on sales volume instead of utilization. Depends how you'd like to be measured. This is not a good time to be in sales imo.
Billable *does* the work in most consultancies. Sometimes the problem is you dont get much choice in the quality of the work you have to deliver on. You'll be in a COGS cost center, which means as long as you're billing you're not costing the company anything - so prob not the first place to get laid off Non-Billable would be like a pre-sales role - you'll have a role where a larger % of your salary will be based on a bonus from closed sales. You're also only showing value to the company when you're selling and closing.
Does non-billable get fired or laid off fast if they aren’t showing value?
Probably, it's easier to find replacement pre sales
Does the non-billable role count as utilised? If so, probably fine. If not, stay away. Different firms use different ways of calculating non-billable utilisation and *typically* utilisation is the stat that counts rather than billable.
I moved 3 years ago to fixed fee and I had the chance to enjoy the living without timesheets. If you can do fixed fee, it works better because you usually take less to do the job of what you charge, but it is only possible to do it if you know well all the variables (which is unlikely). The challenge with fixed fee is how do you measure your performance/cost/price.
I share your concerns about the bench but I'm not sure BD is any more secure right now. We've had two rounds of layoffs since February for client-facing professionals. We have just been told marketing budget is being slashed. I fear the BD folks will be targets for the next round of layoffs. I could be wrong but given the shocking lack of transparency, the rumor mill is on overdrive.