While it’s something of a cliché to talk about uncertainty when it comes to business, no organization can avoid the forces fundamentally changing the global operating environment. Trade norms are in flux, monetary policies are shifting, and geopolitical developments are impacting global business practices.
For B2B companies, the net result is many are under tremendous pressure to adapt and grow. While that might seem a tall order, it can be done: Leaders are consistently achieving growth rates 200 to 300 basis points above the market. Catching them depends on some factors out of a business’s hands, such as economic forces, and some require longer-term investments, such as developing next-gen technology capabilities. But in our experience, there are a set of practical, high-impact actions companies can quickly take to catapult themselves ahead and position for longer-term growth.
These actions may not surprise any chief marketing officer (CMO) or commercial leader. But companies often overlook them or fail to focus on them sufficiently, unnecessarily leaving significant gains on the table.
Are you doing as well as you think you are?
Reaching an ambitious growth target requires a crystal-clear understanding of where your company stands. Too often, companies rely on outdated or overly broad comparisons that miss the nuance of fast-moving markets. What matters is having a real-time, competitive lens against peers, disruptors, and shifting customer expectations. Coupled with the instincts of sales teams or isolated business units, codifying and centralizing all this intelligence, then acting on it, is what turns benchmarking from a report into the fuel injection for growth.
So what does a clear snapshot look like? Exhibit 1 uses the specialty chemicals industry as an example, plotting companies by revenue growth (x-axis) and EBITDA margin expansion (y-axis) with dotted lines denoting the industry average. Bubble size reflects topline revenue, offering a comprehensive view of relative scale. On this landscape, leaders occupy the top-right quadrant, laggards are in the bottom-left, and others fall across the spectrum in between.
We have highlighted a company positioned in the laggards quadrant, signaling clear potential to improve. By examining players in the leaders quadrant, the organization can begin to identify what differentiates high performers. This analysis should spark a focused discussion around critical questions, such as how leaders are deploying sales and marketing resources to unlock value or the role that pricing, product innovation, or customer experience enhancements play in their success. One example: High-growth companies prioritize sales operations investment at 1.4 times the rate of low-growth companies.1
The leader-laggard plot is a powerful tool to ground these conversations in data, challenging leadership teams to assess whether they are truly prepared to take the bold steps required to achieve their growth aspirations.
Accelerating toward above-market growth
Our analysis of successful turnarounds highlighted five acceleration levers—practical, high-impact approaches that drive measurable results, particularly when paired with a strategy informed by a clear understanding of where you stand in the market and internal capabilities. These levers strike the right balance between driving immediate impact and setting the stage for a broader, multiyear growth agenda:
- Stop the bleeding. Reduce churn and win back customers.
- Win more at home. Cross- and up-sell to increase share of wallet.
- Scale lead acquisition. Use generative AI to speed up prospecting.
- Focus for impact. Scale big-deal support teams to win where it counts.
- Lasso the outliers. Employ analytics to enhance pricing specificity and discipline.
1. Stop the bleeding: Reduce churn and win back customers
Customer churn is more than a revenue leak—it is a growth killer. A business cannot grow if it is losing more at the top line than it is gaining, and churn hits right where it hurts: revenue, growth, and brand reputation. Each lost customer drains future lifetime value and forces companies to spend more on costly customer acquisition.
As shown in Exhibit 2, the negative revenue impact of churn can be twice as significant as the positive gains from revenue growth initiatives, effectively neutralizing the benefits of customer acquisition efforts. Retaining a customer costs less than a third of acquiring one, and existing customers generate, on average, 10 percent more revenue than new ones.
That is why churn prevention stands out as a high-return initiative that can be implemented with speed and impact. In our experience, however, organizations fail to address churn because of an overemphasis on acquisition-driven growth metrics (for instance, “hunting” new customers is well rewarded) while underestimating the complexity of diagnosing and addressing underlying retention issues.
As an example, one B2B company sought to prioritize reducing customer churn by using predictive modeling that incorporated customer intrinsics—such as increased buyer touchpoints and customer satisfaction surveys—with a churn-prevention war room for rapid decision-making. The initiative began delivering results just six weeks after implementation, and within a year the company achieved 3 percent sales growth among at-risk customers. Leading companies also prioritize reengagement strategies for lost customers, deploying winback campaigns and exclusive offers to reignite interest.
2. Win more at home: Cross- and up-sell to increase share of wallet
Growth laggards often struggle with cross-selling due to a lack of customer insight and personalized strategies, leading to irrelevant or poorly timed offers. Many prioritize short-term revenue over long-term value, while poorly focused sales teams and cumbersome processes further derail efforts. But the biggest culprit is often opaque data, which leads to overlooked opportunities. Imagine the power of having clear, data-backed insight on the next product to buy, predictive analytics on customer needs, and the tools to deliver personalized, high-margin solutions.
New data capabilities, as well as thoughtful design, now allow companies to develop more accurate and granular insights than was possible even a few years ago. For example, Exhibit 3 shows the possibility of using data to rewire commercial capabilities, enabling frontline sales leaders to easily map customer purchase histories and develop prioritization strategies.
One B2B packaging company provides a compelling example of cross-selling excellence. In the course of just eight weeks of focused effort, its sales team achieved a tenfold increase in cross-sell revenue compared with the prior ten months. They made this leap by taking a more structured approach, which included sizing the full share of wallet for key customers, using advanced analytics to identify and prioritize white space opportunities, and executing hyper-personalized marketing for priority accounts.
3. Scale lead acquisition: Use generative AI to speed up prospecting
B2B companies with below-average market growth often struggle with lead generation, stemming from two core issues: inefficient targeting and generic outreach. Companies frequently waste time and resources pursuing low-value or low-probability prospects, often due to poor identification of key decision-makers. At the same time, broad, undifferentiated messaging fails to address the specific pain points of target customers, leading to disengagement. Misaligned value propositions, weak calls to action, and overly complex lead capture processes further exacerbate the problem.
Sales tactics need a revamp. By using advanced analytics, companies can review their most profitable customers across dozens of attributes such as industry, purchasing patterns, product mix, deal cycle length, and even responsiveness to discounts. This insight helps identify high-potential, look-alike prospects, enabling sales teams to focus their efforts with precision, improving both efficiency and effectiveness. In our experience, organizations executing this skillfully can generate four or five growth bets that increase sales by 100 basis points—equal to 10 percent or more of their annual growth—and double their typical sales pipeline.
An example of a dashboard is below (Exhibit 4). Key features include a serviceable and addressable market by product category, “white space” by region or market segment, and a prioritized list of look-alike prospects.
An industrial materials distributor, for example, unlocked $1 billion in incremental sales opportunities in just six weeks by driving engagement at scale using a gen-AI-enabled tool. It targeted one-quarter of its 500,000-customer base and integrated internal and external data sources to generate viable leads. The models were then employed to generate tailored product recommendations and draft personalized emails, ensuring that outreach resonated with decision-makers.
4. Focus for impact: Scale big-deal support teams to win where it counts
Companies often fall behind market growth not because they lack opportunities to compete for big deals but because they fail to adapt their approach to meet the unique demands of these high-stakes engagements. Data shows big deals typically account for a significant portion of new business opportunities, often 40 to 60 percent of total potential revenue. A relatively modest 10 to 20 percent improvement in win rates may translate into significant 4 to 12 percent topline growth, underscoring the critical importance of getting big-deal support right.
Landing such deals requires a fundamentally different level of engagement, resourcing, and value communication, as the approach needed to win a contract with a global retailer, for example, differs vastly from that required for a local grocer. Organizations need a heightened level of competence and the ability to offer tailored solutions and flexibility in arrangements, all while aligning internally to deliver a seamless experience. This involves sharper qualification of opportunities, value-driven selling, tighter team alignment, and proactive customer success planning.
Building this capability often involves structural changes, such as establishing a big-deal win room, enhancing pricing strategies, and equipping teams with advanced analytics. While these transformations can take three to six months to implement effectively, the payoff can be significant for both topline growth and competitive advantage.
A multi-billion-dollar semiconductor manufacturer facing pricing pressure during a market downturn, for example, sought a transformation to protect margins on its largest deals. A big-deal support desk was established with tools like negotiation worksheets, deal-scoring dashboards (Exhibit 5), and price-volume models to optimize strategies. By shifting to higher-margin products, emphasizing value selling, and using nonprice factors like faster shipping, the company lifted prices 3 percent above market trends, retained premiums on key products, and defended eight major accounts representing 33 percent of revenue. The effort stabilized performance and enabled future growth.
5. Lasso the outliers: Employ analytics to enhance pricing specificity and discipline
We are not suggesting that transitioning from a laggard to a leader is simple or painless. Doing so requires a clear strategy informed by a company’s market position, avoiding common missteps, and embracing acceleration levers to jump-start growth. It also demands investing in sales operations to bring the coordination and discipline needed to succeed. A recent survey revealed that sales operations teams dedicate 73 percent of their time to non-sales functions, up from 39 percent in 20193, highlighting growing underinvestment in specialized sales operations resources.
Establishing this critical infrastructure now, rather than later, lays the foundation for growth that is both immediate and sustainable.
