MakeMyTrip: Interview Preparation For Senior Business Development Manager Role
MakeMyTrip, founded in 2000 and active in India since 2005, is a pioneer in the country’s online travel landscape. The company simplifies end-to-end travel with a comprehensive platform for flights, hotels, holiday packages, trains, buses, and car rentals, and has expanded into business travel solutions, a marketplace for travel agents, and villas and homestays. With scale across India’s key destinations and a strong focus on partner enablement, MakeMyTrip’s vision is to make travel simple and fun for everyone-bringing together travelers, accommodation partners, and technology to drive reliable, delightful experiences.
This comprehensive guide provides essential insights into the Senior Business Development Manager at MakeMyTrip, covering required skills, responsibilities, interview questions, and preparation strategies to help aspiring candidates succeed.
1. About the Senior Business Development Manager Role
As a Senior Business Development Manager (RL2) reporting to the Zonal Manager, you operate within the supply function that manages accommodation supply across India, with around 70,000+ properties contracted on MakeMyTrip platforms. The role centers on relationship and account management for hotel partners-onboarding and advocating for new properties, deepening engagement with existing partners, and ensuring partner success through best practices, performance reviews, and data-driven recommendations. You will frequently travel to properties, consult on metrics and operations, and ensure MakeMyTrip’s competitiveness across channels.
Beyond account stewardship, the role is accountable for market-level growth: building and executing business plans to achieve revenue goals, safeguarding inventory availability to meet demand, and maintaining rate and content competitiveness. You will leverage analytics and MIS reporting, review monthly production, and share market insights with partners and internal stakeholders. Strong negotiation, deal initiation, and closure skills are essential to help partners serve customer needs while profitably growing their businesses-making this position pivotal to MakeMyTrip’s topline and partner ecosystem health.
2. Required Skills and Qualifications
To succeed as a Senior Business Development Manager at MakeMyTrip, you need a strong blend of education, commercial acumen, stakeholder leadership, data literacy, and negotiation capability. Below are the core qualifications and competencies aligned to the role’s expectations in supply, partner management, and growth delivery.
Educational Qualifications
- Mandatory: A Master's degree from a reputed institute.
Key Competencies
- Relationship & Account Management: Skill in connecting and engaging with suppliers, managing accounts, and driving the sustainable performance of a region.
- Communication & Influencing Skills: Strong communication and influencing skills, great interpersonal & stakeholder management skills.
- Negotiation: Ability in networking, deal initiation, negotiation, and closing deals with clients.
- Teamwork & Attitude: High on energy, a team player coupled with a great attitude.
- Analysis & Strategic Thinking: Ability to provide expertise, metrics analysis, and recommendations based on industry best practices to partners.
Technical Skills
- Portfolio Management & Growth: Experience in growing net revenue by developing business plans, managing inventory, and maintaining competitiveness.
- Data Analysis & Reporting: Proficiency in building MIS/retailer intelligence reports, reviewing production reports, and sharing market insights.
- Software Proficiency: Essential proficiency in MS Excel and MS PowerPoint.
- Travel Industry Knowledge: Prior experience in sales, the travel trade, or key account management is preferred. Experience in recruiting local accounts as a partner is also preferred.
3. Day-to-Day Responsibilities
Your daily and weekly rhythm blends field engagement with analytical planning. You will nurture hotel relationships, drive portfolio metrics, and ensure competitive availability and pricing. Expect to collaborate with your Zonal Manager and cross-functional stakeholders while using data to guide performance conversations with partners.
- Relationship and Account Management: Establish, connect, and engage with suppliers and partners (accommodations and hotels). Conduct account management to drive the sustainable performance of the region, including traveling to properties to provide expertise and recommendations.
- Portfolio Management and Revenue Growth: Grow net revenue in the market by developing and executing business plans. Ensure optimal inventory levels and maintain competitive pricing across platforms to achieve revenue goals.
- Data Analysis, Reporting, and Market Intelligence: Analyze metrics and performance data to provide insights. Build MIS and retailer intelligence reports, review monthly production, and share market and industry insights with clients and internal stakeholders.
- Negotiation and Deal Closure: Network with potential clients, initiate deals, and lead negotiations to successfully close contracts with property partners, helping them to grow their business.
4. Key Competencies for Success
Beyond foundational qualifications, standout performers combine strategic planning with operational rigor and partner-first execution. The following competencies repeatedly differentiate high-impact Senior Business Development Managers in MakeMyTrip’s supply organization.
- Strategic Account Planning: Translating market opportunities into clear revenue plans and aligning partners on actions that move key metrics.
- Data-Driven Execution: Using production reports and MIS to diagnose issues quickly and prioritize interventions with measurable outcomes.
- Commercial Acumen: Structuring win–win deals, optimizing margins, and maintaining long-term competitiveness across channels.
- Influence Without Authority: Orchestrating cross-functional support and securing partner buy-in through clear communication and credibility.
- Resilience & Pace: Managing a high-energy field schedule, handling ambiguity, and delivering consistently against ambitious targets.
5. Common Interview Questions
This section provides a selection of common interview questions to help candidates prepare effectively for their Senior Business Development Manager interview at MakeMyTrip.
Show fit with the travel-tech domain and how your experience aligns with supply and partner growth.
Demonstrate empathy, cadence of communication, and measurable impact on account outcomes.
Explain segmentation, potential vs. performance, and intervention plans tied to targets.
Highlight cross-functional alignment and how you secured support to deliver results.
Walk through your plan, execution, data checkpoints, and final metrics.
Show active listening, reframing to shared goals, and a structured resolution approach.
Focus on root-cause analysis, course correction, and how you institutionalized learning.
Discuss routines, planning, and energy management tied to outcomes.
Connect ownership to proactive problem-solving and end-to-end accountability.
Show tailoring for partner CXOs vs. property managers vs. internal leadership.
Use STAR format and quantify outcomes; tie stories to metrics like revenue, conversion, ADR, and inventory availability.
Discuss availability, pricing, content quality, visibility programs, and targeted campaigns.
Cover monitoring parity, working with partners on allocations, and corrective actions.
Mention conversion, ADR, occupancy, cancellations, inventory depth, and production trends.
Show forecasting approach, pacing checks, and how you secure inventory ahead of peaks.
Explain building retailer intelligence/MIS, funnel views, and action tracking.
Outline onboarding modules, SOPs, FAQs, and change management for adoption.
Talk about mapping supply gaps, prioritizing segments, and rapid activation plans.
Share examples of analysis dashboards and partner review presentations.
Describe A/B baselines, lift analysis, and payback/ROI tracking.
Answer with scale, demand generation, analytics-led guidance, and operational support.
Anchor answers in data and mechanisms you control: availability, pricing, content, and partner enablement.
Explain diagnosis, partner discussion, corrective actions, and monitoring cadence.
Cover demand forecast, early negotiations, and value exchange to win allocations.
Use data to isolate drivers (availability, price, content) and implement fixes.
Clarify objections, present demand/value proof, and design a pilot with success criteria.
Segment by potential, recency of actions, and quick-win interventions.
Define objective criteria, rotate placements, and track impact transparently.
Educate on rationale, show impact with data, and phase adoption with support.
Assess rate types, policies, messaging, and align with partner on remedies.
Reforecast, reallocate, adjust policies tactfully, and communicate with partners/customers.
Escalate constructively, propose alternatives, and reset partner timelines proactively.
Structure your approach: diagnose, prioritize, act, and measure. Use data and clear partner communication at every step.
Quantify baseline, actions taken, and revenue/ADR/inventory lift achieved.
Show geographic scope, property mix, and any specialty (leisure, corporate, boutique).
Detail strategy, give–get tradeoffs, and final commercial outcomes.
Discuss portfolio size, cadence of reviews, and tiering logic.
Explain methodology, insights generated, and actions that followed.
Cover goals, production trends, issue diagnosis, and agreed next steps.
Highlight content, adoption, and performance impact post-training.
Explain planning, reporting, escalations, and knowledge-sharing routines.
Align expectations with field-intensive responsibilities of this role.
Tie your strengths to relationship depth, growth delivery, and operational rigor.
Curate resume examples that mirror the JD: partner growth, data-led planning, and negotiation outcomes.
6. Common Topics and Areas of Focus for Interview Preparation
To excel in your Senior Business Development Manager role at MakeMyTrip, it’s essential to focus on the following areas. These topics highlight the key responsibilities and expectations, preparing you to discuss your skills and experiences in a way that aligns with MakeMyTrip objectives.
- Account Growth Mechanics: Be ready to discuss levers like availability, pricing, content, and visibility programs, and how you plan and track impact.
- Data Analysis & MIS: Practice turning production data into insights and action plans; prep to showcase Excel dashboards and decision frameworks.
- Negotiation Playbooks: Rehearse deal structures, give–get frameworks, and objection handling that lead to sustainable, win–win outcomes.
- Market Intelligence: Understand seasonality, events, and competitor dynamics; explain how you stay competitive across platforms.
- Operational Excellence: Cover SOPs for partner onboarding, trainings on extranet/wholesale workflows, and CRM hygiene for pipeline health.
7. Perks and Benefits of Working at MakeMyTrip
MakeMyTrip offers a comprehensive package of benefits to support the well-being, professional growth, and satisfaction of its employees. Here are some of the key perks you can expect
- Impact at Scale: Work with a nationwide hotel supply base, engaging across 70,000+ contracted properties to drive meaningful market outcomes.
- Growth-Oriented Culture: Performance-driven environment with clear goals, frequent reviews, and opportunities to lead initiatives across regions.
- Learning & Exposure: Hands-on experience in partner enablement, analytics-led planning, and cross-functional collaboration with zonal leadership.
- Field-Centric Experience: Pan-India travel and on-ground partnership building that accelerate commercial and stakeholder skills.
- Career Progression Pathways: Opportunities to expand scope within the supply function and adjacent domains based on performance.
8. Conclusion
The Senior Business Development Manager role at MakeMyTrip blends strategic planning, partner relationship depth, and data-backed execution to unlock sustainable growth. Success hinges on strong negotiation skills, disciplined account reviews, and the ability to keep inventory, pricing, and content competitive across markets.
By mastering portfolio analytics, building credible partner plans, and collaborating closely with zonal leadership and cross-functional teams, you can drive measurable impact at scale. Prepare concrete examples that showcase revenue growth, problem-solving under constraints, and stakeholder influence, and you’ll be ready to demonstrate the value you bring to MakeMyTrip’s supply function.
Tips for Interview Success:
- Lead with outcomes: Quantify revenue, conversion, ADR, and availability improvements in your past roles.
- Show your playbook: Explain how you diagnose issues and execute actions across availability, price, and content.
- Prove negotiation rigor: Share give-get structures, objection handling, and deal outcomes you’ve delivered.
- Make data your anchor: Bring sample Excel/PPT artifacts to demonstrate analysis and partner storytelling.