Aligning Commercial Functions around Revenue Outcomes

Big Problem

Marketing, sales, product, R&D and commercial priorities competed for attention without a shared framework for evaluating their impact on revenue.

Symptoms

CEO: Why do we have a this post on social media? We are selling CTs, not dogs licking ice cream cones.

CFO: I see activity, but no results - where are the results?

Controller: But what do we expect to get out of this spend?

The Context

Functional planning emphasized departmental activity rather than enterprise outcomes, making prioritization difficult and obscuring where commercial investment created the greatest return.

My Role

• Designed a revenue-linked operating model that connected marketing priorities, commercial initiatives, and organizational resources to measurable business objectives.

• I translated cross-functional priorities into a shared planning framework that improved commercial alignment and executive decision-making.

Enabled through: Developing an ROI evaluation and forecasting tool, revenue planning, cross-functional governance, initiative prioritization, portfolio planning

The Transformation

Commercial planning shifted from departmental execution toward enterprise prioritization grounded in revenue impact and organizational goals.

Impacts on Commercial Health Indicators

↑Institutional Clarity

↑Forecast Reliability

↑Commercial Instrumentation

Learn more about what I mean by these terms: See the Commercialization Executive Brief here.

Results

In 30 days, went from spend based on "historically successful" activities to an ROI-informed decision model with ROI forecasting.

In 90 days, cut discretionary spending by ~40% to focus solely on high-yield activities.

Enterprise Impact

Improved executive visibility into commercial priorities while strengthening coordination across sales, marketing, and product functions. Collaboration with sales team was rough because trade shows were sacrificed in favor of digital outreach methods like email-enabling technologies, but everyone got on the same page when we saw the near-term pipeline impacts after the shift.

Takeaway

Data on activities can be deceiving, and ROI data should be driving decisions, not history, anecdotal recollections or vanity metrics.

Why This Works

Organizations fail because of reliance on anecdote, feel good metrics, and historical activities to guide the future.