I want to tell you something that most consultants won’t say.
Because it undermines a significant portion of what they sell.
The technology is not the problem.
In almost every digital transformation that fails, and 88% of them do, according to Bain’s 2024 analysis, the technology did what it was specified to do.
The CRM is live.
The marketing platform is connected.
The automation sequences are running.
The website is fast and indexed.
The analytics are reporting.
Everything is integrated. The tools are all there.
And yet the revenue hasn’t moved. Conversion rates are flat. The pipeline is full of deals that don’t close. Customer acquisition cost is up. Retention is inconsistent. The board is asking the same question it asked before the programme started:
why aren’t we growing?
I’ve been in those rooms. The answer, almost every time, is the same.
Nobody assessed whether the commercial model the technology was being applied to was actually built to perform.
Having a CRM is not the same as having a CRM built around a sales framework that converts.
Having a marketing platform is not the same as having marketing targeting a validated ICP.
Having a website is not the same as having a website with commercial conversion architecture.
Having automation is not the same as having automation executing a designed commercial logic.
The tools can all be present. The commercial engine can still be broken.
This is the distinction between digital transformation and commercial transformation and it is one of the most consequential distinctions in commercial leadership right now.
Digital transformation verifies and connects the tools.
Commercial transformation determines whether each tool is commercially configured and whether they are working together as a connected system.
These are different disciplines. Different questions. Vastly different outcomes.
📧 Require our services? Please fill in the form below. A member of our team will contact you within 1-2 business days.
At b10, we built the Commercial Transformation Index.
A 250-point, 6 band diagnostic across 10 domains.
Because there was no structured way to assess this.
The CTI covers Website, CRM, Marketing, Operations, Automation, Sales Framework, ICP, Positioning, Pricing Strategy, and Retention.
Each domain is scored not just for whether the component exists, but whether it is performing commercially and connected to the others.
The pattern we see consistently:
Organisations with most or all of the tools in place, scoring in the bottom two CTI bands, because the tools are not configured around a commercial architecture.
The ICP is assumed rather than validated.
The sales framework is informal rather than designed.
The positioning doesn’t differentiate.
The pricing hasn’t been reviewed in years.
The automation is executing a process that was never assessed for commercial performance.
Digital transformation answered the tool question.
Commercial transformation answers the performance question.
Both matter. The order matters more.
A genuine question: if someone audited your commercial engine tomorrow, not your tech stack, but the ICP validity, the sales framework, the positioning, the pricing etc, what would they find? What would the honest score be? Hit reply. I read every response.
Here’s to your success,
The b10 Team
Comments
Nothing yet. Say the first thing.
Sign in to join the conversation.