The Missing Function That's Costing B2B Companies Millions

INTRODUCTION

While 89% of companies believe their use of Strategic Account Management plans is going to increase (Global Partners Training, 2022), only 14% of B2B companies have truly embedded customer-centricity in their culture (B2B International, n.d.). The gap? Most organisations lack a dedicated function to design and govern their customer management standards. The winners are those with formal Commercial Excellence, Sales Enablement, or KAM Centres of Excellence who achieve 2x the industry average in revenue growth (Bain & Company, 2025). The laggards are struggling to survive.

What is a Customer Management "Centre of Excellence"

These functions are often referred to as Commercial Excellence, Sales Enablement, Revenue Operations, or KAM Excellence Teams. Their mission is consistent: to systematically design how the organisation identifies key customers, allocates resources strategically, develops compelling value propositions, and captures value throughout the customer lifecycle.

Think of it as the architectural blueprint for customer engagement. Rather than leaving account management to individual interpretation, these teams establish best practices, provide tools and training, and ensure consistency in how your organization engages its most valuable relationships. They bridge the gap between strategy and execution.

The Impact of NOT Having This Function

The data is sobering. Companies without these capabilities face:

• 48% report their strategic account management lacks effectiveness due to poor company structures, systems and processes (Mercuri International and RAIN Group, cited in Global Partners Training, 2022)
• Only 32% of companies know how to articulate value messages to strategic accounts (Global Partners Training, 2022)
• 82% of companies run sales plays but only 21% realize full value—a massive execution gap (Bain & Company, 2025)
• Sales and marketing misalignment costs $1 trillion annually in lost productivity and wasted marketing efforts (cited in iCumulus, 2024)

Meanwhile, organisations with mature Commercial Excellence functions increase profit margins by 3-5 percentage points within six months (Strategy& PwC, 2013). Companies with formal sales enablement achieve a 49% win rate, compared with 42.5% without it (CSO Insights, cited in multiple sources). The cost of inaction isn't just missed opportunity, it's falling further behind competitors who are systematising their approach.

"The Profit & Loss Statement has just ONE line that describes how many sales the organisation has made. That is the revenue line. 

However, there are 500 lines after that, all describing COSTS. Guess where leaders focus their effort? On the 500 cost lines - but without a strong revenue line, there is NO business! It is one of the great mysteries of business. 

Professor Malcom McDonald

Emeritus Professor of Marketing - Cranfield School of Management

My proven 10 steps to get you started

Building a Customer Management Centre of Excellence is no longer optional; it's essential. Here's your roadmap, grounded in John Kotter's proven change management principles (Kotter, 2007):

Davies / Value-Matters 2026

Step 1. Recognise This is Organisational Change
You're not just creating a new team, you're building a fundamental organisational capability and potentially reshaping your entire business model. This requires introducing change, and according to Kotter's research, over 50% of change initiatives fail in the first phase alone (Kotter, 2007). Don't underestimate the challenge. People will resist, existing power structures will push back, and comfortable routines will fight for survival. Approach this with the seriousness it demands, understanding that you're embarking on a multi-year transformation journey, not a quick fix.

Step 2. Identify Your North Star
Establish a compelling BHAG (Big Hairy Audacious Goal) that will convince leadership to invest and allocate resources. Think in terms of what executives actually care about: enabling strategic goals, accelerating revenue growth, outmanoeuvring competitors, or creating sustainable competitive advantage. Your North Star must be both ambitious and plausible—audacious enough to inspire action, credible enough to secure investment.

This is Kotter's "burning platform" (Kotter, 2007). Without genuine urgency and a compelling vision, you'll never get 75% of management convinced that business-as-usual is unacceptable. Be specific: "Increase key account revenue by 25% within 18 months" beats "improve customer management" every time.

Step 3. Form Your Guiding Coalition
You won't secure several full-time executives initially, so build a powerful part-time team representing critical functions: Sales, Marketing, Business Unit Heads, Product Managers, Finance, Legal, and experienced Key Account Managers. This cross-functional coalition is essential; Kotter's research shows that transformation fails without a sufficiently powerful guiding team (Kotter, 2007).

Top tip - Select individuals who possess dual expertise: deep customer knowledge AND understanding of internal organisational dynamics. Change requires political savvy alongside commercial acumen. Start meeting regularly. I suggest every 6-10 weeks initially, to build trust, align perspectives, and develop shared commitment. This coalition must operate outside normal hierarchy boundaries, which can feel awkward, but is absolutely necessary when the existing structure isn't delivering results.

Step 4. Write Your Strategy
Develop a high-level strategy that aligns diverse viewpoints and establishes clear communication. This isn't bureaucratic documentation...it's your roadmap and rallying cry. Without a strategy, you're operating on hope rather than direction.

Your strategy should address: What customer management capabilities will we build? How will these capabilities drive competitive advantage? What resources and timeline are required? How will we measure success? This document serves as your north star for decision-making and your vehicle for building broader organisational support.

Step 5. Secure Executive Sponsorship
Identify and recruit a main board member to champion your initiative. This sponsor must publicly endorse your BHAG and actively coach, support, and guide you through strategy development and implementation. Their visible commitment signals organisational priority and provides air cover when you encounter resistance.

Without C-suite sponsorship, your initiative will stall the moment it conflicts with departmental priorities or quarterly pressures. Your sponsor should be someone with genuine influence, not just a ceremonial figurehead. They'll open doors, break logjams, and ensure resources materialise when needed.

Step 6. Evaluate External Markets
Conduct comprehensive external analysis across multiple dimensions: macro trends (STEEP analysis; Social, Technological, Economic, Environmental, Political), customer evolution, existing competitor capabilities, emerging competitive threats, and supplier dynamics. This assessment is critical; it builds the compelling narrative for why internal capability development isn't optional.

Think forward: Where will your business be in 2-5 years? As Wayne Gretzky famously said, "Skate to where the puck is heading, not where it's been." Document market shifts, increasing customer sophistication, competitive threats, and technological disruption. For many businesses, developing this customer management capability may be the only way to compete in an increasingly complex, AI-enabled environment where relationships and value creation matter more than ever.

Step 7. Audit Internal Capabilities
Conduct a brutally honest assessment of current strengths and weaknesses. Examine: customer knowledge depth (do you truly know who your strategic customers are?), segmentation sophistication, channel and distributor management effectiveness, talent selection and development processes, supporting team structures, account planning quality, data capture and utilization, account team adequacy, value proposition clarity and differentiation, coaching effectiveness among sales and KAM leaders, customer-centricity across the organization, and value-based selling capabilities.

Benchmark against competitors and customer expectations. Don't worry if you lack answers to many questions, remember identifying gaps is the point. Remember: You don't need excellence in everything, only strategic focus on capabilities that drive competitive advantage. Use frameworks and workshops to systematically evaluate these dimensions. The gap analysis directly informs your strategic initiatives.

Step 8. Develop 5-8 Strategic Initiatives
Your internal audit revealed gaps between current capabilities and what's required to achieve your BHAG. Select 5-8 high-impact initiatives that address the most critical shortfalls. These become your focus for the next 12 months.

Be strategic about phasing: Plan for 12-month horizons, then 24-month extensions. Markets evolve; therefore, incorporate regular strategy reviews to ensure initiatives remain relevant. Don't spread resources too thin; focus beats breadth in transformation efforts. Each initiative should have clear ownership, measurable outcomes, and defined timelines. Examples might include: implementing systematic account planning, developing value-based selling training, creating customer segmentation frameworks, building coaching capabilities, or establishing data analytics foundations.

Step 9. Secure Quick Wins
This is classic Kotter wisdom: Don't try to boil the ocean with organisation-wide change from day one (Kotter, 2007). Instead, focus on ONE strategic customer and implement your new approach comprehensively. Develop the strategy, execute with discipline, achieve measurable commercial results, and document your methodology and outcomes.

Quick wins serve multiple purposes: they prove your approach works, build credibility with sceptics, generate momentum, and provide concrete examples for broader rollout. One organisation I worked with achieved a 75% increase in sales within six months by applying a new KAM planning methodology and a customer value proposition framework to a single account. When they communicated these results to senior leadership, the response was immediate: "We want this approach deployed across our top 12 customers." Suddenly, the customer management team had traction, support, and investment. Success breeds success—visible wins in 12-24 months keep urgency high and demonstrate that the journey produces real results (Kotter, 2007).

Step 10. Keep Going
Markets constantly evolve, and that change is accelerating. Don't declare victory prematurely. This is Kotter's Error #7, and it kills more transformations than almost anything else (Kotter, 2007). Maintain your Customer Management team, continuously refine and implement your standards, and build this capability into organisational DNA.

Real transformation takes several years to become "the way we do things around here" (Kotter, 2007). Celebrate wins, but use them as fuel for tackling even bigger challenges. This isn't a project with an end date; it's building enduring organisational capability. In an era of AI and increasing commoditization, systematic customer management excellence represents a genuine competitive advantage. Companies that get genuinely close to customers, understand their evolving needs, and deliver distinctive value become trusted partners rather than interchangeable vendors.

The Bottom Line
The research is unambiguous: Most B2B organisations lack formal customer management functions or execute them poorly. Revenue Operations adoption grew 55% in just one year, from 20% to 31% of companies having dedicated RevOps groups (LeanData and Sales Hacker, 2019), and Gartner predicts 75% of the highest-growth companies will deploy a RevOps model by 2025 (cited in Secret Source Marketing, n.d.). If you build this capability systematically, following proven change management principles, it becomes your major competitive advantage: one that's nearly impossible for competitors to replicate quickly. The question isn't whether you need this. It's whether you can afford to operate without it while your competitors build this muscle.

Self-Diagnistic 

Would you benefit from a customer management function?

Answer these 10 questions honestly. Score: Yes = 1 point, No = 0 points

1. Strategic Account Concentration
Do your top 20% of customers generate 60% or more of your revenue?
☐ Yes ☐ No

Note: Research indicates that key accounts can account for 30-50% of revenue and margin for many B2B companies (McKinsey & Company, 2016).

2. Account Management Effectiveness
Can you confidently say that 75% or more of your account managers consistently deliver effective strategic account plans?
☐ Yes ☐ No (Score 1 point for NO)

3. Customer Knowledge
Do you have a systematic, documented approach to segmenting and classifying your customers based on strategic value and growth potential?
☐ Yes ☐ No (Score 1 point for NO)

4. Value Proposition Clarity
Can your account managers clearly articulate differentiated value propositions for each strategic customer in under 5 minutes?
☐ Yes ☐ No (Score 1 point for NO)

5. Standards & Best Practices
Do you have documented standards, methodologies, and best practices that govern how your organization manages key customer relationships?
☐ Yes ☐ No (Score 1 point for NO)

6. Cross-Functional Alignment
Do Sales, Marketing, Product, Finance, and Customer Success operate with shared KPIs and collaborate systematically on strategic accounts?
☐ Yes ☐ No (Score 1 point for NO)

Note: 36% of companies attribute inadequate SAM effectiveness to "lack of cooperation and collaboration among various groups" (Global Partners Training, 2022).

7. Capability Development
Do you have a structured program for developing account management skills, including coaching, training, and career progression?
☐ Yes ☐ No (Score 1 point for NO)

Note: 343% increase in sales enablement adoption over the past 5 years demonstrates the growing recognition of this need (iCumulus, 2024).

8. Performance Measurement
Can you measure the specific impact of your customer management approach on metrics like win rates, account retention, revenue expansion, and customer lifetime value?
☐ Yes ☐ No (Score 1 point for NO)

9. Competitive Pressure
Are you facing increasing customer sophistication, competitive intensity, or pressure on margins that demands a more strategic approach to key accounts?
☐ Yes ☐ No

10. Growth Ambition
Is accelerating revenue growth from existing customers a top-3 strategic priority for your organization?
☐ Yes ☐ No

Note: 65% of a company's business comes from existing customers, and 61% of companies consider strategic account management key to increasing revenue (cited in DemandFarm, 2025).

Your Score:

0-3 points: You likely have strong customer management capabilities in place. Focus on continuous improvement and staying ahead of market evolution.

4-6 points: Significant gaps exist. A Customer Management Centre of Excellence would drive measurable improvement. Consider starting with a pilot initiative focused on your top 5-10 accounts.

7-10 points: Critical capability gaps are limiting your growth. You need a systematic approach urgently. The good news: you have enormous untapped potential. Organisations in your position typically see 3-5 percentage point margin improvements within 6 months of establishing proper customer management functions (Strategy& PwC, 2013).

Key Statistics Summary

The Gap:

• Only 14% of B2B companies are truly customer-centric (B2B International, n.d.)
• Only 20% of B2B leaders are confident their organisation understands how their experience program supports strategy (CustomerGauge, 2023)
• 48% believe their SAM process lacks effectiveness (Global Partners Training, 2022)
• Only 17% of marketers have mature ABM strategies (Demand Metric and MRP, 2021)
• 40% cite lack of internal expertise as their main ABM challenge (Statista, 2022)

The Growth:

• 343% increase in sales enablement adoption over 5 years (iCumulus, 2024)
• 62% of companies now have sales enablement functions (iCumulus, 2024)
• 90% of organisations have dedicated sales enablement programs (cited in multiple sources)
• RevOps adoption grew 55% in one year (LeanData and Sales Hacker, 2019)
• 58% of B2B organisations have or are building RevOps functions (Secret Source Marketing, n.d.)

The ROI:

• Winners achieve 2x industry average revenue growth (Bain & Company, 2025)
• Commercial Excellence adds 3-5 percentage points to margins in 6 months (Strategy& PwC, 2013)
• Sales enablement achieves 49% win rates vs. 42.5% without (CSO Insights)
• Companies with ABM achieve 91% increase in annual contract value (cited in Analytive, 2024)
• RevOps-aligned businesses grow 12-15x faster and are 34% more profitable (SiriusDecisions)

The Execution Gap:

• 82% run sales plays but only 21% realize full value (Bain & Company, 2025)
• 91% of B2B companies failed to hit sales quotas in 2023 (cited in iCumulus, 2024)
• Sales/marketing misalignment costs $1 trillion annually (iCumulus, 2024)
• Only 21% have implemented generative AI for B2B selling (McKinsey & Company, 2024

References and sources

References

Analytive (2024) Key account-based marketing B2B stats: A comprehensive analysis. Available at: https://analytive.com/blog/key-account-based-marketing-b2b-stats-a-comprehensive-analysis/ 

B2B International (n.d.) Six steps to B2B customer experience excellence. Available at: https://www.b2binternational.com/publications/six-steps-to-b2b-customer-experience-excellence/ 

Bain & Company (2025) The B2B growth divide: What sets winners apart. Bain Commercial Excellence Longitudinal Survey. Available at: https://www.bain.com/insights/the-b2b-growth-divide-commercial-excellence-agenda-2025/ 

CustomerGauge (2023) B2B account management: What works and what doesn't. Available at: https://customergauge.com/blog/b2b-account-management 

DemandFarm (2025) Account planning guide - Grow key accounts. Maximize revenue. Available at: https://www.demandfarm.com/blog/account-planning/ 

Demand Gen Report (2019) New research highlights rapid adoption of Revenue Operations models in B2B. Available at: https://www.demandgenreport.com/features/industry-insights/new-research-highlights-rapid-adoption-of-revenue-operations-models-in-b2b 

Demand Metric and MRP (2021) The state of ABM maturity. Available at: https://www.demandmetric.com/content/state-abm-maturity 

Global Partners Training (2022) 10 best practices for strategic account management programs. Available at: https://globalpartnerstraining.com/10-surprising-stats-about-strategic-account-management-sam-plans/ 

iCumulus (2024) 70+ sales enablement statistics to blow your mind in 2024. Available at: https://icumulus.ai/sales-enablement/70-sales-enablement-statistics-to-blow-your-mind-in-2024/ 

Kotter, J.P. (2007) 'Leading change: Why transformation efforts fail', Harvard Business Review, January 2007, pp. 96-103.

LeanData and Sales Hacker (2019) The state of Revenue Operations 2019. Available at: https://www.leandata.com/blog/the-rise-of-revenue-operations/ 

McKinsey & Company (2016) How to unlock growth in the largest accounts. Available at: https://www.mckinsey.com/capabilities/growth-marketing-and-sales/our-insights/how-to-unlock-growth-in-the-largest-accounts 

McKinsey & Company (2024) Five fundamental truths: How B2B winners keep growing. Available at: https://www.mckinsey.com/capabilities/growth-marketing-and-sales/our-insights/five-fundamental-truths-how-b2b-winners-keep-growing 

Secret Source Marketing (n.d.) RevOps – For companies who want to grow! Available at: https://blog.secretsourcemarketing.com/double-digit/revops-revenue-operations 

Statista (2022) Leading challenges faced by B2B marketers in executing their account-based strategy in the United States. Available at: https://www.statista.com/statistics/1291254/b2b-account-marketing-challenges-us/ 

Strategy& (PwC) (2013) Commercial excellence programs: A way for B2B companies to pursue growth in hard times. Available at: https://www.strategyand.pwc.com/gx/en/insights/2011-2014/commercial-excellence-programs.html 

About the Author

Mark Davies is MD & Founder of Value-Matters and Visiting Fellow at Cranfield School of Management, where he has directed the KAM Best Practice Research Club for over 20 years. He specialises in helping B2B organisations build systematic customer management capabilities that drive competitive advantage.

Contact: [email protected]
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Need help getting started? I've led global customer management teams and supported dozens of organisations across multiple industries and countries. It works—but you don't have to do it alone!

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