Before building AI systems for business development, Vijayender Nalla spent nearly a decade in education, then transitioned into the food processing sector in the Netherlands. It was there that he noticed a consistent challenge: a gap in talent, especially in agribusiness. This observation led him to create Agribusiness Academy, a digital learning platform that served learners across more than 50 countries, particularly in Africa.
Now based in the UK and operating as a Dutch entrepreneur of Indian origin, his work blends decades of cross-sector experience,from education to systems thinking,to help small and mid-sized businesses rethink growth through AI-powered tools. Agribusiness Academy, the platform he founded, offers digital programmes focused on sustainable food supply chains, value chain development, and agrifood innovation.
With offerings like the Mini MBA in Sustainable Food Supply Chains and targeted training for early-career professionals, the Academy equips learners across the globe with practical knowledge designed for real-world impact. Its mission is to connect people with the expertise and tools needed to create a more resilient and sustainable agribusiness sector. His latest focus is on turning business development into something scalable, testable, and repeatable,without overwhelming teams or stretching resources thin.
For companies looking to grow, the landscape of business development is evolving rapidly. Conversations are shifting from tactics to transformation,especially as AI reshapes what’s possible. In this edition of the Business Insights Series, we explore how organisations can use AI to scale smarter, without multiplying headcount unnecessarily.
Technology is opening new doors, and with it comes the challenge of applying tools in ways that genuinely solve business problems. Knowing how to match solutions to the right use cases is becoming the real differentiator. In business development, those problems often look the same: finding the right leads, creating meaningful outreach, and doing all of it with limited time and energy. Even the most seasoned founders and teams know how heavy that can feel.
But what if we could approach it differently? What if the goal shifted from simply doing more to doing what matters most,more effectively, more clearly, and with better outcomes? That’s where AI-powered systems begin to make sense, not as flashy replacements for human work, but as smart extensions of it.
“Most of my challenges in business have come down to business development.“
That reflection shows awareness of what consistently blocks momentum in a growing business. And more importantly, it’s about the search for better tools and better systems. That search led to the use of AI agents,tools developed to support business growth with precision and speed, while working alongside human capabilities.
Lead generation is taking on a new form
From building a digital academy serving learners in over 50 countries to developing AI tools for lead generation, his work spans continents,including India, the Netherlands, Africa, and the UK. Vijayender’s journey reflects a broader shift in how businesses approach growth: through more structured and intentional systems. His current work explores what it takes to build scalable, intelligent processes for business development that reduce inefficiencies and unlock new kinds of leverage.
Business development still keeps most founders up at night. Leads that go nowhere. Outreach that feels like shouting into the void. Teams that can’t scale fast enough to meet demand. Vijayender’s insight? That these are surface symptoms. The deeper constraint lies elsewhere.
He’s spent years exploring how to fix that,initially through education, then through productising expertise, and now through AI agents that he calls multipliers. The idea is simple: let machines do the heavy lifting where scale and speed matter most.
Vijayender refers to one of their agents as the “Holy Grail” of their work: an AI that scrapes the web, identifies relevant leads, and delivers them in real time, based on fine-tuned targeting commands issued through a Telegram interface.
“So one is content marketing. The other one is lead generation and approach outreach agent. So that’s the most powerful part of the whole business development multiplier (BDM).“
He gave it a test. It returned results,fast. Results he wouldn’t have found in 15 years of global networking. He had strong networks and plenty of experience, yet the agent surfaced opportunities that traditional search methods simply could not reach.
“It gave me 100 results… it’s impossible for me to get that all by myself.“
These agents leverage multiple AI LLMs and APIs to search the internet with precision. But there’s a catch. This isn’t for everyone. If your targeting is vague or your business isn’t committed to building a business development (BD) system that runs consistently, no agent can save you.
“If you are not giving it sharp instructions, if you don’t know your targeting very well, then no one can help you. AI cannot help, no one can help.“
Research from McKinsey’s 2025 State of AI survey confirms this point,successful AI implementation requires precise targeting and clear strategic frameworks. Companies that define specific use cases and sharp targeting parameters see significantly higher success rates than those attempting broad, unfocused implementations.
This should raise a question for any founder: how precise is your understanding of who you want to reach?
Talent as the true lever for growth
When discussing what consistently limits growth in organisations, Vijayender points to one thing above all: talent. Growth challenges are rarely just about effort, products, or capital. The real driver is people,their fit, their motivation, and their ability to keep developing with the company’s direction.
“There is no bigger power than talent and there is no bigger weakness than talent.”
He describes talent as both the fuel and the safeguard of growth. In his view, AI doesn’t replace this. Instead, he sees it functioning as an amplifier of whatever qualities a team already has. If people are aligned and capable, AI extends their reach. If they aren’t, the technology simply magnifies the gaps.
This perspective reframes the conversation around business development tools. The central question is whether your team has the skills and clarity to apply the systems you adopt effectively. Vijayender’s own path illustrates this: it took him years to bring together a small core group of people he could fully rely on, and that alignment changed how far his ideas could travel.
This aligns with findings from IBM’s research on AI-powered workforce development, which shows that organizations using AI to identify and develop talent can reduce the time to fill critical roles by 40%. The key insight: AI amplifies existing capabilities rather than creating them from scratch.
There’s value in hearing this from someone who has built across multiple industries. It reminds us that technology can accelerate the pace, but talent sets the direction. The sharper the team, the more the systems deliver.
Moving from curiosity to capacity
The interest in AI is almost universal at this point, and businesses in every sector are experimenting with it. But as Vijayender points out, interest alone doesn’t build systems. What matters is intentional design,deciding clearly what problems need solving and how technology should serve those goals.
Harvard Business Review’s 2025 research reveals that success with AI means investing intelligently across build, buy, blend, and partner strategies. Only 13% of IT leaders plan to build AI models from scratch, while 53% intend to start with pretrained models and augment them with enterprise data. This strategic approach reflects the maturity that’s developing in the market.
The work of AI-powered business development, in his view, is about aligning intent with action. These agents are designed to multiply meaningful efforts, support real conversations, and uncover opportunities that manual methods might miss. Automation on its own is limited; leverage comes from how well it is designed and applied.
He stresses that teams need to think carefully about design questions: What outcomes are we aiming for? How do these tools integrate with existing processes? Who on the team will own and guide them? Without those answers, AI can become another unused resource rather than a growth engine.
This framing raises critical questions for any team:
- Are we clear on the core constraints in our business development?
- Do we have the systems,and the people,to act on them?
- Are we testing growth strategies in a way that lets us adapt quickly?
- Who is responsible for learning from these experiments and applying the lessons back into the business?
Final thoughts
This conversation with Vijayender makes it clear: business development is undergoing a redesign. What used to rely heavily on hours and outreach is now shaped by algorithms, interfaces, and decision-making frameworks that demand focus. The challenge today involves more than setting up automations,it requires understanding precisely what they should achieve, who they should serve, and how they integrate into broader business goals.
His journey,across education, entrepreneurship, and system design,illustrates the type of experimentation that will guide successful companies in the years ahead. The organisations most likely to thrive will be those that cultivate curiosity, commit to strengthening their talent, and put structures in place that allow them to test, learn, and grow without exhausting resources.
Instead of focusing solely on acquiring better tools, the real opportunity lies in becoming builders who design smarter systems, stronger teams, and more adaptive strategies.
Questions to take forward:
- What part of your business development process could be productized or systematized?
- How sharp is your targeting,and could AI help you refine it?
- Are you using your time and team for tasks that require human strength, or things machines could handle?
- If you had to double your revenue without hiring more people, what would need to change first?
These questions act as prompts to rethink how growth is designed and sustained. Businesses that wrestle with them often uncover blind spots, hidden opportunities, and ways to get more from the resources they already have.
Think about it: how would your sales conversations change if your targeting became sharper? What possibilities would open up if your team’s time shifted from repetitive tasks to higher‑value work? And what strategies would you put in place if doubling revenue without adding headcount was non‑negotiable?
These questions are practical checkpoints for leaders who want to adapt, stay relevant, and scale with intention.
Want to explore how your team can turn these insights into action? Let’s talk about it.
About the Author
Vlad writes about automation, operations, and the little tweaks that make a big difference in how businesses run. A former game designer turned founder, he now helps teams fix broken workflows and spot the revenue leaks hiding in plain sight.
About Serenichron
Helping businesses grow by simplifying strategy, streamlining systems, and making tech actually work for people. We bring clarity to chaos with practical tools, honest guidance, and just enough curiosity to question the default way of doing things.