Choosing Between Business Analyst and Business Development Manager: Which Path Offers More Growth and Satisfaction?

Need career advice. I am a 27-year-old MBA with 3 years of experience in business development (ERP, Software, Web Applications, Custom Applications, etc.), project executions, requirement analysis, giving demonstrations, proposal making, negotiating, closing project deals, etc. I have domain knowledge in construction, real estate, manufacturing, and also good functional knowledge in some specific areas.

Now, in my company, I have both options: to be a Business Development Manager or to be a Business Analyst (My company is a small IT company with 100+ employees located in India). Which one should I go for? Which profile will give me more prestige, job satisfaction, knowledge, growth opportunity, and money? In big IT companies (CMM5 level), do they need any BDM kind of profile, or do they prefer the BAs? - I need your valuable advice...!! Thanks...

If you ask me, business development would heavily depend on sales and marketing. You need to set heavy targets in closing new business deals. There is big money in there and also challenges.

Being a business analyst involves looking at the overall organization's projections in closing business deals, its profit gains, its reporting, and it revolves at the very core of business operations. These responsibilities would lie on your shoulders. In terms of challenges, a business analyst faces similar challenges to a business development manager.

A business development manager focuses on various ways or pipelines to gather business deals and close them, whereas a business analyst looks into the intricate business operations as a whole. It's about creating harmony within sub-departments to ensure that the business day runs smoothly with minimal costs and systematic procedural problems.

No job in this world provides complete satisfaction. Human males were historically meant to hunt for food and farm, while wives tended to children and the family. This is what ancient people practiced. Thousands of years have passed, and we are now striving for the so-called perfection of proper livelihood by working in the corporate world. Have any of us achieved a perfect solution? No. We are in 2020, and yet there is no job satisfaction, simply because we are not doing what we were meant to do.

But this is just my perspective.

A Business Analyst would be a better option if you are interested in pursuing a career in Business Development. Also, let me know which location you belong to. Good luck!!