The challenge
Growth opportunities existed. The sales model was not designed to capture them.
The Group had an experienced sales organization and a large installed base. Yet commercial performance depended more and more on traditional opportunities and marketing-generated leads.
Account Managers sold a project, delivered the opportunity and moved on to the next one. Nobody looked systematically at the customer lifecycle to spot the moments when new needs were most likely to emerge. Hunting was limited too: salespeople relied on inbound demand rather than creating their own opportunities through targeted prospecting, business signals, ecosystems and executive networks.
The issue was broader than sales effectiveness. Large pools of revenue existed in the installed base and in the market, but the commercial model was not built to find and capture them.
The CEO's ambition
Create new sources of growth without simply adding salespeople.
Two transformations were needed:
- Open new growth engines: new moments, channels and methods to create business.
- Build a high-performance sales model: the practices, incentives, tools and management cadence to capture that potential consistently.
The transformation
1Uncover untapped revenue
Map the customer journey to find where more business can be created. Instead of starting from the sales process, the team analyzed the whole customer lifecycle and identified the moments when new needs typically emerge. For each one, a dedicated commercial play was built:
Account Managers were prompted to re-engage customers when a trigger occurred, rather than waiting for the customer to start a new buying cycle. The installed base became a systematic source of growth. The sale stopped being the end of the cycle and became the beginning of the next one.
2Create new paths to market
Move from waiting for leads to creating demand. Salespeople were made explicitly responsible for generating their own opportunities, through target accounts, social networks, partners, influencers, business introducers and executive relationships. External signals flagged when a prospect or customer was likely to have a new need: executive changes, acquisitions, expansion, new subsidiaries, strategic initiatives, technology changes.
3Turn ambition into personal reward
Make performance visible, motivating and financially attractive. A common management-by-objectives model linked commercial priorities, individual performance and pay. Salespeople saw their quota attainment and potential earnings in real time, and transparent thresholds and accelerators made overperformance worth it. Quarterly objectives, certification, individual development plans and recognition programs reinforced the annual targets, and successes were celebrated at Sales Kickoffs across the Group. The goal was not only to change compensation, but to create ambition and a culture of success.
4Industrialize sales excellence
Turn good selling into a repeatable discipline. Common practices were rolled out across countries: qualification, account planning, CRM discipline, forecasting, value proposition, CPQ, pricing and discount governance, engagement committees and closing plans. The CRM was simplified and repositioned as a selling and management tool, not an administrative chore. Strategic deals were challenged in engagement committees, and salespeople were trained and coached throughout.
5Move management closer to execution
Manage performance every week, not after the quarter.
| Rhythm | Focus |
|---|---|
| Weekly | Key opportunities, prospecting, forecast, qualification, pipeline coverage, closing plans |
| Quarterly | Account plans, territory strategy, pipeline development, performance, priorities |
| Annually | Go-to-market strategy, objectives, training, certification, performance reviews, best practices, success stories |
Sales Managers moved from reviewing numbers to coaching and driving performance.
6Augment sales capacity with AI
Automate the work around the salesperson, not the relationship with the customer. In a second phase, AI agents were deployed on the activities that consumed selling time or could uncover more business:
| Agent | Role |
|---|---|
| Opportunity Signal Agent | Detects business events that can create new opportunities |
| Decision-Maker Agent | Identifies the right executives and stakeholders in target accounts |
| Proposal Agent | Generates complex proposals combining value proposition, pricing, delivery assumptions and planning |
| CRM Quality Agent | Detects missing, outdated or inconsistent opportunity data and triggers corrections |
The team could detect, pursue and convert more opportunities without a proportional increase in sales resources.
The operating model shift
Wait for demand → Sell → Move to the next opportunity
Reactive selling, dependence on marketing, little hunting, untapped installed base, inconsistent practices
Detect → Create → Engage → Qualify → Convert → Expand → Repeat
Proactive growth, multiple sources of opportunity, continuous customer development, performance discipline, AI-augmented execution
The organization moved from processing the demand available to systematically creating and capturing new sources of growth.
The impact
| Indicator | Before | After |
|---|---|---|
| Installed-base win rate (8 months) | 22% | 41% |
| New-logo win rate (8 months) | 17% | 32% |
| 12-month rolling pipeline coverage vs. quota (8 months) | 1.5–2× | 3× |
| Organic revenue growth, year after vs. year before | +27% |
No new sales organization was added. The transformation unlocked new revenue pools, prospecting channels and commercial behaviors, then embedded the management system, incentives, practices and technology to turn them into repeatable growth.
Growth is not always about finding a new market. Often, it is about capturing the opportunities your organization already has but does not see.
First, identify where more business can be created. Then redesign the commercial operating model so the organization can pursue, convert and expand it, again and again.