Commercial Excellence System: How simple measures can have a big impact in just four months
From ad hoc sales to a scalable commercial excellence system at a medium-sized private equity portfolio company.
Table of contents
Introduction
A four-month sprint that got the sales transformation off the ground
At the beginning of 2025, a medium-sized provider of technical infrastructure solutions owned by a private equity company was faced with the task of quickly putting its sales organization on course for growth. Within four months, processes, key figures and roles were realigned – with the aim of acquiring new customers in a predictable manner and securing sales in the existing business. This case study outlines how a lean, practice-oriented approach laid the foundation for data-based sales management and sustainable performance.
Marian Wulz - The expert behind the transformation
Marian Wulz is an expert in the growth and scaling of SMEs. Entrepreneurs seek his support when their growth comes to a standstill despite maximum effort, sales stagnate although marketing and sales expenses increase while their own organization is more of a brake than a tailwind.
They turn to him when there is chaos instead of clarity in processes and teams, when quality fluctuations and people-related processes prevent the establishment of resilient structures. And they bring him on board when they want to get out of the role of permanent firefighter – so that they can lead again without the company faltering at the first vacation.
With practical methods, a clear focus on implementation and a knack for people, Marian Wulz helps medium-sized companies to achieve scalable processes, self-organized teams and profitable, sustainable growth.
Challenges
Growth ambition meets process and transparency gap
The company faced structural challenges in several areas that impaired the effectiveness and efficiency of sales.
For example, the processes were inconsistent, especially when using Hubspot, and KPIs were inconsistently defined. Furthermore, missing mandatory fields and a sales funnel that was not maintained made the processes even more difficult and led to lower accuracy in sales forecasting and unreliable planning.
There were also deficits in the area of leadership and teamwork, which mainly manifested themselves in a lack of a fixed meeting rhythm, the absence of data-based feedback loops and unfilled key roles and responsibilities.
Furthermore, the prevailing market dynamics posed an additional challenge. High tendering pressure in the core business made systematic market observation and the rapid preparation of tailor-made offers essential.
Solution approach & procedure
Three focused workstreams structure the transformation
As part of the strategic realignment, three central workstreams were defined in order to further develop the sales organization in a targeted and effective manner:
1. people & leadership
Recruiting for key positions such as the Head of Sales and Inside Sales roles was launched to strengthen the team and sales management. In addition, the introduction of a clear meeting rhythm – consisting of daily huddles, weekly coordination meetings and monthly strategy sessions – ensures more structure, commitment and transparency within the team.
2. process & playbook
A clearly documented end-to-end sales process forms the basis for consistent action in sales. To support this, a sales playbook was rolled out as a Microsoft Teams wiki, which is structured according to the principle “Search → Learn → Apply” and thus enables quick orientation and continuous further development of sales knowledge.
3. data & tools
In future, a Power BI dashboard will serve as a central “single source of truth” for all sales-relevant data. In addition, mandatory field logics were established in HubSpot to improve data quality and forecasting. A pilot project for an AI-supported tender search was also launched in order to identify market opportunities at an early stage and react more quickly.
Results & successes
Foundation laid, momentum generated
Structure & transparency:
Uniform standards were created through the introduction of a clearly defined playbook and a dashboard. These enable consistent control of the sales process and provide real-time insight into the depth of the pipeline and the individual conversion steps.
Leadership quality:
Regular huddles have been established to clearly define responsibilities, accelerate decision-making processes and at the same time promote a stronger coaching culture within the team. This supports the continuous development of leadership skills in sales.
Talent development:
Candidate shortlists are available for central key positions in sales. Structured onboarding plans have also been developed to integrate new team members into their roles quickly and effectively.
Market development:
A pilot project for AI-supported tender searches was launched. This specifically reduces information gaps (“blind spots”) in market monitoring and enables a significantly shorter response time when preparing tenders.
Structure & transparency
Leadership quality
Talent development
Market development
Why consultingheads
“Thanks to Marian Wulz's expertise, we were able to optimize central processes, strengthen our management culture and establish a data-based sales management system in just four months, which will put us on a sustainable growth path.”
Speed and precision. We know that time is often the decisive factor for the success of a project. That’s why we provide you with tailor-made profiles of independent consultants, freelance experts and interim managers within 36 hours – hand-picked and tailored to your specific requirements.
Expertise and international network on-demand. Thanks to our global network of highly qualified consultants with a deep understanding of the industry and a proven track record, we can find exactly the right experts to understand your challenges and tackle them in a targeted manner. This diversity of international experience enables us to staff even complex projects with the necessary cultural and technical expertise – always available and precisely tailored to your requirements. Marian Wulz is a perfect example of this: a consultant with experience in finding quick and effective solutions.
Project-based staffing with flexible, hybrid team structures. Instead of relying on permanent teams, consultingheads offers the opportunity to deploy experts from a broad network as required. By combining internal and external resources, we create customized solutions that optimally staff each project phase. This flexibility ensures that precisely the expertise required for the success of a program is integrated – without the restrictions of rigid team structures.
Results-oriented instead of overhead-driven. With consultingheads, companies get access to first-class consulting without the high overheads of traditional consulting firms. Our business model is designed to ensure maximum efficiency – so that your budgets flow directly into implementation and not into costly overhead structures.
Value on personal fit. We not only look at the technical aspects, but also attach particular importance to the personality and working methods of our experts. After all, the success of a project depends largely on how well the team works together.
Results that convince. Just as in this case study, the implementation of the Commercial Excellence System brought about lasting changes within four months, we also attach great importance to solutions that deliver immediately measurable results – without detours and with maximum efficiency.
Are you ready?
Does your sales department lack clear processes, binding KPIs and reliable forecasts?
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