In business development, the only objective of the company is to grow sales?

Indirectly yes as improvement in all functional areas will have their positive impact on sales.

Apart from sales, it is a process of finding future growth options in all possible ways including new business connections,customer relations, business mergers and amalgamations, new product lines and product mix, and all that what is required for a consistent growth and horizon expansion with divergent activities.

For larger and well-established companies, especially in technology-related industries, the term "business development" often refers to setting up and managing strategic relationships and alliances with other, third-party companies. In these instances the companies may leverage each other's expertise, technologies or other intellectual property to expand their capacities for identifying, researching, analyzing and bringing to market new businesses and new products. Business-development focuses on implementation of the strategic business plan through equity financing, acquisition/divestiture of technologies, products, and companies, plus the establishment of strategic partnerships where appropriate.

Not only Sales growth but BD has other objectives like:

- Increase revenue

- Research and Development: look for new market trends, new markets, develop and improve products 

- Product segmentation

- Build long-term strategic relationships

Good Day!!!

Sales growth is not even the direct objective of Business development. It is rather the outcome of the services done by the BD department. BD has a main responsibility for creating partnerships and making strategic relationships with professional contacts in target market and to develop new markets in other regions.