Commercial Excellence

Commercial Excellence is a series of steps that an organization can take to define its target customers and deliver its value proposition to them through effective sales and marketing. Commercial Excellence is essential both for businesses entering new categories or markets, and for established businesses seeking to gain a competitive advantage and achieve incremental growth in mature, highly competitive categories. L.E.K. works closely with management teams on Commercial Excellence initiatives aimed at reinvigorating revenue growth, optimizing sales and marketing spend, and improving resource allocation.

Why companies need to improve commercial excellence

Companies face headwinds from intensifying competition in mature markets, weakness in emerging markets, global oversupply in commodity industries or other factors. With underwhelming market growth, pressure increases to find unique ways to build competitive advantage and drive market share gains. Customers nowadays demand far more customized solutions and services for their specific needs, putting more pressure on commercial teams.

In addition, technology advancements, such as the Internet of Things and connected devices, mobility, cloud computing, and big data, are threatening to disrupt established market relationships and existing business models. As these changes unfold, there is significant opportunity for businesses to transform their commercial models. Indeed, market leaders are evolving their organizations to support customer outcomes rather than product/service needs. 

This transformation requires companies to redesign every organizational function— especially commercial functions that involve delivering on the value proposition. Sales and marketing teams need to redefine their relationships with customers and deliver solutions that generate the right customer outcomes. Other functions, such as product development, engineering and customer service, which tend to be disconnected from sales and marketing, need to embrace more cross-functional collaboration to improve product and service innovation.

Helping clients achieve commercial excellence

Our Commercial Excellence framework takes a holistic approach to addressing these key challenges. The framework ensures that a company’s go-to-market model is specifically configured to target the highest-value customers and to consistently deliver the company’s differentiated value proposition. Our Commercial Excellence initiatives entail working closely with management teams in three distinct areas:

  • Customer targeting and value proposition: Focuses the business on the right customer segments, aligns each offer with customer needs, and delivers the right economics to both customers and the provider.
  • Go-to-market and commercial organization: Ensures that the business is using the appropriate sales channels (e.g., direct, inside sales, third-party intermediaries) for each customer segment and that commercial organization is optimally designed.
  • Sales and marketing effectiveness: Puts the right processes and systems in place to maximize the effectiveness of sales and marketing.

L.E.K.’s Commercial Excellence FrameworkThe L.E.K. Framework

Our professionals have extensive experience in commercial excellence. They combine their deep knowledge with market-leading research and analytical capabilities to help clients identify opportunities for improvement and define unique, practical solutions. Our work focuses on both generating quick wins building our clients’ strategic capabilities for the long term.

Commercial Fitness Assessment

Sometimes the root causes of commercial challenges are not readily apparent. In those instances, a quick diagnostic of the current commercial approach can help pinpoint issues and focus future efforts. Our Commercial Fitness Assessment (CFA) helps us quickly and effectively understand the drivers of under (and over) performance across the sales team, and highlight areas that need attention.

We work closely with our clients to build a commercial platform for strong future growth, optimize resource allocation and drive cost-efficiency. We typically help our clients achieve a 5-10% revenue uplift with minimal investment, or, where appropriate, reduce selling costs by 15-30%.

Commercial excellence in action

We help clients achieve commercial excellence across multiple industries:

  • Commercial diagnostic to position a leading building & construction services company, uncovering an opportunity for >2% projected increase in overall gross profit margin. 
  • Commercial model redesign for leading SAP implementation services firm, creating ~$3M in cost savings with an additional >10% revenue upside possible if reinvested in the sales force. 
  • Sales force effectiveness, margin improvement, and opportunity prioritization for a national electrical equipment distributor. Read more
  • Commercial transformation and growth strategy for a facilities solutions provider that led to successful penetration of a number of new verticals. Read more
  • Overhaul of a commercial organization for a leading U.S. packaging company, resulting in closer cross-functional coordination, higher customer satisfaction and revenue uplift. Read more
  • Growth plan review and post-merger integration and optimization of commercial functions for a manufacturer of body armor and emergency services PPE. Read more
  • Go-to-market strategy and commercial team approach for a foodservice parts manufacturer, resulting in immediate productivity gains from the sales team. Read more
  • Sales force transformation, including process and organizational redesign, for a global BPO services provider, resulting in significant commercial productivity gains and major new customer acquisitions. Read more
  • Growth strategy development, commercial organization redesign and activation program mobilization for a global manufacturer of ophthalmological surgery equipment and systems. Read more
  • Commercial cost-to-serve and organizational efficiency capability enhancement for a global technology conglomerate’s EMEA operations. Read more
  • Commercial performance diagnostic and improvement plan development for a leading Asian animal feed producer. Read more
  • Sales force effectiveness and new product launch program for a leading European drug manufacturer. Read more
  • Go-to-market strategy development, channel partner strategy optimization and commercial function processes and organization redesign for a leading office furniture manufacturer. Read more
  • Sales force and marketing effectiveness commercial model design and rollout for a global roofing solutions provider. Read more
  • Growth strategy for a building products manufacturer seeking to understand the potential for a disruptive channel strategy in North America. Read more

Actionable insights borne out of deep, in-market experience in the world’s major industries.

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