As a Chief Sales Officer – what keeps you awake at night?  You’re probably thinking about how to counter the newly imposed high tariffs on imports by the US government, how to fulfill your targets, how to turn around underperforming countries units, how to improve flaws in processes or how to grow and empower your team.

In today’s competitive B2B landscape, commercial excellence has become a strategic imperative for organizations aiming to outperform their peers.  The successes of leading companies over their competitors in a wide range of B2B industries* speak for themselves**:

• 1-3 % points higher EBITDA vs. peers

• 10-15 % higher growth rates vs. peers

• Improved depth of commercial talent to enable tailored demand management, commercial savviness/ solution selling or value propositions

• Greater sales and marketing representation and experience within the leadership team

Commercial Excellence in B2B

But what exactly does commercial excellence entail in B2B companies, and how can it be successfully realized? Commercial excellence is far more than only having an effective sales organization.  It is a holistic, cross-functional discipline that creates a real competitive advantage.  It integrates go-to-market strategy, sales effectiveness, pricing and margin management, customer centricity, marketing, performance management, digital and data driven decision making to name a few.  

It breaks traditional functional or business unit silos, requires joint optimization to align every commercial touchpoint with the strategic objectives of the business and the evolving needs of customers. Recommended key levers:

• Further invest or retract? Focus on attractive and significant markets and customers segments – potential and relevance of geography and accessible profit pools, customer segments, and product portfolio compared to previous performance.

• Establish a future proof and powerful market organization with an efficient operating model –commercially excellent and effective teams, comprising all relevant capabilities from lead generation to transaction along the entire sales cycle

• Deploy CRM to set up a potential based customer approach and complement farming with hunting mentality

• Introduce a pricing and margin management discipline/guidelines per business model to counter margin erosion

• Steer via a cascaded performance and target system which also enables an end-to-end profitability consideration

• Orchestrate joint optimization and collaboration between Business Units and Market Organizations via the establishment of a Chief Commercial Officer / Practice

How to achieve it?

As a leader, it is your vision that defines your company’s future.  It takes leadership, commitment, and collaboration to embark on the way to commercial excellence and making your business fit for the future.  From our experience, four actions are essential:

 1. Define a strong program with clear targets and objectives

Successful companies create tailored programs aligned with their organization’s maturity and goals.  They have a realistic assessment of their own maturity level, a clear view on “what looks great” through benchmark with industry leaders and secure buy in and sponsorship at the highest management level making it a corporate priority. Set measurable targets like growing underpenetrated markets, gaining market share, or entering new segments. Communicate these goals consistently to ensure focus and accountability.  For example, a packaging firm set “333” goals: 3 years, 3% incremental annual growth achieving $300 million$ revenue—transforming commercial excellence into a clear business priority.

2. Lead from the front

Leading from the front and being visible to your team is critical. Transforming commercial operations takes courage to challenge old practices and make bold moves.  Have open conversations addressing team concerns (“What’s in it for me?”). Don’t save at the wrong place: investing 0.5–1.5% of your overall SG&A budget in training can yield 1–3 percentage points EBITA improvement. Cultivating a high-performance culture aligned with commercial goals ensures sustainable execution and continuous innovation. Challenge the acceptance of mediocrity and “we always have done it like this”.  Support upskilling with modern training solutions, eventually supported by leading EdTech companies such as Emeritus to scale fast and integrate latest business school thinking.