Commercial Transformation as a Business System. By Fernando Ventureira
- Stratence Partners
- 12 minutes ago
- 25 min read
How leading enterprises redesign Strategy, Pricing, and Commercial Execution to perform in volatile, complex markets.
Prepared by Fernando Ventureira, CEO Stratence Partners
Executive Summary — Commercial Transformation is how the business decides, not what it installs.
Commercial Transformation is frequently approached as a sequence of initiatives: a new commercial strategy, a pricing program, a sales excellence rollout, or the deployment of new digital tools. Each of these initiatives can deliver local improvements. Very few deliver sustained performance.
The reason is not execution quality. It is structural.
Commercial performance does not emerge from individual initiatives. It emerges from how Strategy, Pricing, and Commercial Execution interact as a system over time. When these elements are designed, governed, and evolved independently, complexity increases, accountability becomes diffused, and value leakage becomes structural rather than accidental.
In most industries today, commercial complexity is no longer episodic. Volatility in costs, demand, regulation, energy, logistics, FX, and competitive behavior is persistent. Portfolios are broader, customers are more heterogeneous, and global strategies must be executed locally under very different market conditions. In this environment, commercial decisions cannot be simplified into linear processes or isolated optimization problems. They must be treated as a continuous decision system.
This paper defines Commercial Transformation as the deliberate redesign of that system.
It argues that:
Commercial Transformation is first and foremost a business design challenge, not a technology program.
Strategy, Pricing, and Commercial Execution must be conceived and governed as one integrated system, not as adjacent functions.
Commercial capability evolves through progressive maturity levels that cannot be skipped without creating fragility.
Data, analytics, and automation accelerate performance only when they serve clear decision ownership, rather than replacing it.
Technology and advanced analytics play a decisive role in modern Commercial Transformation. But they create durable value only when they reinforce clarity of intent, transparency of logic, and accountability of decisions.
This document is written for leaders who want to move beyond initiatives and build a commercial system that performs reliably across volatility, scale, and change.
How to read this document
This document addresses Commercial Transformation as an integrated system spanning:
Strategy — defining where and how the business chooses to compete.
Pricing — translating strategic intent into economic discipline and risk control.
Commercial Execution — ensuring that decisions are consistently applied in the market.
It is intentionally cross-industry. While examples and dynamics differ across Chemicals, Healthcare, Oil & Gas, Industrial, Utilities, Finance, Tech & Telco, and Transport & Logistics, the structural challenges of Commercial Transformation are remarkably consistent.
This document is written for:
CEOs and Executive Committee members
Commercial, Pricing, and Revenue leaders
Finance leaders with accountability for performance and governance.
IT and Data leaders supporting commercial decision systems.
This document is not:
A software selection guide
A digital transformation manifesto
A pricing-only perspective
An AI trend or thought-leadership paper
Its purpose is to provide a clear, business-led reference for designing and sustaining Commercial Transformation as a core enterprise capability.
PART I — WHY COMMERCIAL TRANSFORMATION IS STRUCTURALLY COMPLEX
Chapter 1 — Commercial complexity is structural, not temporary
In many organizations, commercial complexity is still treated as a temporary problem. Volatility is framed as a cycle. Margin pressure is attributed to market conditions. Execution issues are explained through skills, incentives, or discipline. As a result, Commercial Transformation is often positioned as a corrective initiative — something to be done, completed, and moved past.
This framing is no longer valid.
Across industries, commercial complexity has become structural. It is not driven by one factor, but by the interaction of several forces that reinforce each other:
Persistent volatility in input costs, energy, logistics, FX, and financing
Demand fragmentation, with customers buying differently even within the same segment
Portfolio breadth, combining commoditized, differentiated, and solution-based offerings
Regulatory and compliance pressure, affecting pricing freedom and commercial conduct
Global scale with local execution, exposing inconsistencies and decision gaps
Faster competitive response cycles, compressing reaction time
In this environment, commercial decisions are no longer isolated events. They are interdependent choices, made continuously, whose consequences unfold over weeks, months, and sometimes years.
A pricing decision taken today embeds assumptions about future costs, customer behavior, and competitive response. A commercial strategy defined at group level is only as effective as its translation into local execution rules. A sales concession granted under pressure becomes a reference point for future negotiations.
The key implication is that commercial performance is not determined by the quality of any single decision. It is determined by the coherence of the decision system over time.
When that system is weak, organizations experience:
silent margin erosion rather than visible failures
growing exception volumes rather than clear trade-offs
misalignment between strategic intent and economic outcomes
increasing reliance on individual judgment rather than institutional capability
None of these issues are solved by more effort or better tools alone. They require a redesign of how commercial decisions are structured, owned, and connected.
Commercial Transformation, therefore, is not about simplifying complexity away. It is about designing for complexity — accepting it as a permanent condition and building a system that can operate within it reliably.
Chapter 2 — Why fragmented commercial transformation always underperforms
A common response to commercial complexity is to address it function by function.
Strategy teams refine positioning, segment markets, and articulate growth priorities. Pricing teams implement new governance, analytics, or tools. Sales organizations launch execution excellence programs, redefine roles, or adjust incentives. Each initiative is rational. Each often delivers some improvement.
Together, they frequently underperform.
The reason is fragmentation.
When Strategy, Pricing, and Commercial Execution are transformed independently, each optimizes its own logic without full visibility of the others. Over time, this creates structural friction.
Typical patterns include:
Strategy without execution mechanics
Strategic choices are articulated at a high level, but not translated into concrete pricing logic, negotiation rules, or execution guardrails. Strategy remains directionally correct but operationally weak.
Pricing without commercial reality
Pricing models are optimized based on data, cost, or benchmarks, but insufficiently grounded in how customers actually buy or how sales conversations unfold. Guidance exists, but adoption is selective.
Execution without economic coherence
Sales teams optimize locally for volume, relationships, or short-term targets, compensating for gaps elsewhere in the system. Over time, this creates structural leakage that no amount of reporting fully recovers.
In fragmented transformations, problems tend to surface late. By the time financial results reflect erosion, decisions are already embedded in contracts, customer expectations, and internal precedents. Corrective action becomes expensive and politically difficult.
This is why many organizations experience repeated Commercial Transformation cycles: each wave addresses symptoms created by the previous one, without resolving the underlying system design.
The alternative is to treat Strategy, Pricing, and Commercial Execution as one integrated decision system.
In such a system:
Strategy defines not only ambition, but operable choices and trade-offs
Pricing translates those choices into economic rules and risk boundaries
Commercial Execution applies them consistently, with explicit decision rights
Fragmentation is replaced by alignment, not through centralization, but through clarity.
Commercial Transformation succeeds when leaders stop asking “Which function needs fixing?” and start asking “How do our commercial decisions connect — and where do they break?”
PART II — COMMERCIAL MATURITY: HOW ENTERPRISES REALLY EVOLVE
Chapter 3 — The three commercial maturity levels enterprises move through
One of the most persistent misconceptions in Commercial Transformation is the belief that organizations are either “advanced” or “not”. This binary view drives unrealistic expectations, poorly sequenced initiatives, and disappointment with otherwise well-designed programs.
In reality, commercial capability evolves progressively. Maturity is not a destination; it is a trajectory. And critically, different parts of the same organization often sit at different points along that trajectory at the same time.
Across industries, commercial maturity consistently manifests in three distinct levels. These levels are not theoretical constructs. They reflect how organizations actually make decisions, manage risk, and engage with customers.
Level 1 — Smart Cost+
At the Smart Cost+ level, the organization’s primary commercial objective is economic control.
Decisions are anchored in a clear understanding of costs, exposure, and margin mechanics. Pricing and commercial actions are designed to:
absorb volatility rather than react to it belatedly
prevent silent leakage through delays, exceptions, or inconsistency
ensure that economic reality is visible to decision-makers
This level is often underestimated because it is perceived as basic. In practice, Smart Cost+ is anything but trivial. It requires:
reliable cost and FX visibility
disciplined pass-through logic
explicit rules for buffers, corridors, and renegotiation triggers
alignment between commercial decisions and financial outcomes
Without Smart Cost+ discipline, more sophisticated commercial approaches are fragile. Value narratives collapse under pressure when the organisation cannot defend its own economics. Competitive positioning becomes incoherent when margins erode unpredictably.
Smart Cost+ is therefore not a starting phase to be rushed through. It is the foundation upon which all higher maturity levels depend.
Level 2 — Competitive Premium
At the Competitive Premium level, the organization moves beyond internal economics and actively incorporates market reality into its commercial decisions.
Here, pricing and commercial actions are informed by:
competitive positioning
customer alternatives
deal history and win–loss patterns
strategic importance of accounts or segments
The objective is no longer only to protect margin, but to position intelligently within the market. This includes knowing when to:
defend price
selectively concede
invest commercially to protect share or enter new spaces
Crucially, Competitive Premium does not mean chasing volume at any cost. It means making explicit trade-offs, with clear visibility of economic and strategic consequences.
At this level, decision quality depends heavily on interpretation rather than calculation. Market data is rarely precise. Signals are incomplete and often contradictory. Commercial excellence lies in structured judgment, not in false precision.
Many organizations believe they operate at this level. In practice, they often oscillate between Smart Cost+ discipline and ad-hoc competitiveness, because the underlying decision logic is not sufficiently explicit.
Level 3 — Value-Based
At the Value-Based level, commercial decisions are anchored primarily in the value created for the customer, rather than in cost or market averages.
This does not imply ignoring economics or competition. It implies that:
pricing reflects differentiated outcomes, risk reduction, or performance
commercial conversations are framed around customer impact, not just price points
concessions are made deliberately and selectively, based on strategic intent
Value-Based maturity is demanding. It requires:
deep segmentation and customer understanding
strong alignment between strategy, pricing, and execution
high commercial capability in the field
credibility and consistency over time
Importantly, Value-Based maturity cannot be declared. It is earned through repeated, coherent execution. Organizations that attempt to jump directly to Value-Based positioning without mastering Smart Cost+ and Competitive Premium discipline typically experience erosion rather than uplift.
A critical reality: maturity is uneven — and that is normal
In most enterprises, different Business Units, regions, or product lines legitimately operate at different maturity levels. This is not a failure. It reflects differences in:
market structure
customer behavior
data availability
regulatory constraints
historical focus
Commercial Transformation fails when leadership ignores this reality and imposes a single maturity ambition across the organization. It succeeds when maturity is explicitly recognized, managed, and sequenced.
The role of leadership is not to force uniformity, but to ensure coherence: each part of the organization operates at the maturity level that fits its reality, while progressing deliberately over time.
Chapter 4 — Why maturity gaps quietly destroy performance
While uneven maturity is normal, unmanaged maturity gaps are one of the most destructive forces in Commercial Transformation.
These gaps rarely cause visible breakdowns. Instead, they create subtle, compounding effects that are often misdiagnosed until performance deterioration is well advanced.
One common pattern occurs when strategic ambition runs ahead of commercial capability. Leadership articulates a value-based positioning, but pricing discipline remains weak. Sales teams are encouraged to sell value, yet lack the economic confidence or tools to defend it. Under customer pressure, they revert to discounting, and the value narrative becomes rhetorical rather than real.
Another frequent pattern arises when advanced analytical or governance mechanisms are introduced into parts of the organization that have not yet mastered basic commercial discipline. Processes become heavier, approval cycles lengthen, and execution slows. Sales teams perceive the transformation as bureaucratic rather than enabling, and adoption suffers.
A third pattern appears when execution is expected to compensate for upstream ambiguity. Strategy remains deliberately high-level. Pricing rules are loosely defined to preserve flexibility. Sales is then asked to “do the right thing” in the field. In practice, this shifts risk to the front line and produces inconsistency across customers and regions.
What makes maturity gaps particularly dangerous is that they often look like change management issues. Leaders respond with more training, communication, or incentives. These interventions may temporarily improve behavior, but they do not resolve the underlying mismatch between ambition and capability.
Over time, unmanaged maturity gaps lead to:
increasing exception volumes
declining trust in guidance
growing reliance on individual judgment
erosion of institutional learning
Commercial Transformation becomes fragile, dependent on a few experienced individuals rather than on a resilient system.
Managing maturity deliberately requires difficult but necessary leadership choices:
acknowledging where the organization truly is, not where it aspires to be
sequencing capability development rather than compressing it
accepting that not all parts of the business will move at the same speed
When maturity is respected and managed explicitly, Commercial Transformation accelerates. When it is ignored, even the most sophisticated initiatives lose credibility.
PART III — STRATEGY: FROM AMBITION TO OPERABLE CHOICES
Chapter 5 — Commercial Strategy is about choices, not statements
Commercial Strategy is often expressed through statements of intent: growth ambitions, customer-centricity, differentiation, sustainability, and innovation. These statements are directionally sound. On their own, they do not transform commercial performance.
Strategy only becomes real when it forces choices.
Effective Commercial Strategy answers a limited set of demanding questions, explicitly and consistently:
Where do we choose to compete — and where do we choose not to?
Which customers, segments, and use cases deserve priority — and which do not?
What trade-offs are we willing to accept between volume, margin, and risk?
Where must we be consistent globally — and where is local flexibility acceptable?
When these choices are not made explicitly, they are made implicitly in the field, under pressure, deal by deal. Over time, this produces a strategy that exists on paper but is rewritten daily through uncoordinated commercial decisions.
A recurring failure pattern in Commercial Transformation is the belief that clarity at the top automatically translates into clarity in execution. In practice, strategic intent weakens rapidly as it moves downstream unless it is translated into operable decision logic.
For example, stating that a business will “focus on value” does not define:
which customers should receive that value positioning
how much economic risk is acceptable to defend it
when concessions are justified
how conflicts between short-term targets and long-term positioning should be resolved
Without this clarity, Pricing and Commercial Execution are forced to improvise. Strategy becomes symbolic rather than operational.
Commercial Strategy must therefore be designed with execution in mind from the outset. It must be formulated not only in terms of ambition, but in terms of constraints and permissions. These constraints are not a limitation; they are what makes strategy actionable.
In mature commercial organizations, Strategy explicitly defines:
priority segments and non-priority segments
expected commercial behavior by segment
boundaries within which pricing and execution can operate autonomously
escalation points when trade-offs exceed predefined limits
When strategy is framed this way, it ceases to be a document and becomes a decision framework.
This is also where Commercial Strategy distinguishes itself from corporate or portfolio strategy. Corporate strategy may tolerate ambiguity to preserve optionality. Commercial Strategy cannot. It must provide enough clarity to guide thousands of daily decisions without constant escalation.
Commercial Transformation accelerates when leaders accept that the quality of strategy is measured not by how well it is articulated, but by how consistently it is reflected in commercial behavior.
Chapter 6 — Segmentation: where strategy becomes executable
If Commercial Strategy defines choices, segmentation is where those choices become operable.
Segmentation is often misunderstood as a technical or analytical exercise. In practice, it is one of the most strategic acts in Commercial Transformation. It determines which situations are treated as comparable, which rules apply where, and how guidance differs across the business.
Segmentation applies across multiple dimensions:
customers and customer hierarchies
products, offers, and solution bundles
channels and routes to market
commercial motions such as transactional sales, contracts, or tenders
Each segmentation choice implicitly defines how strategy is executed.
When segmentation is weak or inconsistent, strategy fragments. Sales teams are forced to interpret intent locally. Pricing guidance becomes generic. Execution relies on individual judgment rather than institutional logic.
A common failure pattern is static segmentation. Segments are defined during a strategy or system project and then treated as fixed. Over time, markets evolve, customer behavior changes, and competitive dynamics shift — but segmentation does not. Guidance becomes progressively less relevant, even if the underlying data remains accurate.
Another frequent issue is over-segmentation. In an attempt to reflect complexity, organizations create too many segments, each with subtle differences. This overwhelms execution, slows decision-making, and ultimately leads to simplification through informal workarounds.
Effective segmentation balances relevance and usability. It is granular enough to reflect meaningful differences, but simple enough to be applied consistently.
More importantly, effective segmentation is alive. It is reviewed, challenged, and adjusted as conditions change. This does not mean constant redesign. It means having clear ownership and cadence for reassessment.
In mature Commercial Transformation models:
Strategy owns the intent behind segmentation
Pricing translates segmentation into differentiated economic rules
Commercial Execution applies segmentation through distinct behaviors and expectations
Segmentation thus becomes the connective tissue between Strategy, Pricing, and Execution. It ensures that strategic choices are not diluted as they travel through the organization.
When segmentation is designed and governed deliberately, Commercial Transformation gains speed and coherence. When it is neglected, even the best strategy remains aspirational.
PART IV — PRICING: ECONOMIC DISCIPLINE AS A STRATEGIC CAPABILITY
Chapter 7 — Pricing as the economic spine of Commercial Transformation
In many organizations, pricing is still treated as a technical or operational function: a mechanism to calculate prices, manage discounts, or administer approvals. This view materially underestimates its role.
In reality, pricing is the economic spine of Commercial Transformation.
Every commercial strategy ultimately expresses itself through price. Every execution decision carries an implicit pricing choice, whether explicit or hidden. Pricing is where strategic intent is translated into economic outcomes — or where it quietly breaks down.
In volatile and complex markets, pricing is not about finding the “right” number at a point in time. It is about managing economic exposure over time. Cost movements, FX shifts, competitive reactions, and customer negotiations unfold asynchronously. Pricing decisions must therefore absorb uncertainty, not eliminate it.
This is why pricing must be designed as a risk-management discipline rather than as a calculation engine.
When pricing is weakly designed, organizations experience familiar symptoms:
margins erode without a single visible failure
exceptions accumulate and become the norm
sales behavior diverges across regions and accounts
financial results lag behind commercial activity
These outcomes are rarely caused by lack of effort. They are caused by pricing models that are not aligned with strategy or execution reality.
A robust pricing capability performs three critical functions simultaneously:
Economic protection
Pricing defines how volatility is absorbed, when it is passed through, and where risk is accepted deliberately. Without this discipline, strategic positioning is continuously undermined by uncontrolled exposure.
Strategic translation
Pricing operationalizes strategy. It embeds priorities, trade-offs, and segmentation into concrete rules that guide daily decisions. Strategy that is not reflected in pricing behavior does not exist in practice.
Execution guidance
Pricing provides the reference points that commercial teams use under pressure. When guidance is clear and credible, execution is consistent. When it is opaque or disconnected from reality, it is bypassed.
For these reasons, pricing cannot be bolted onto Commercial Transformation as a later phase. It must be designed at the center, in continuous dialogue with Strategy and Commercial Execution.
Commercial Transformation accelerates when leaders stop asking whether pricing is “too strict” or “too flexible” and instead ask whether pricing is doing its job as an economic control system.
Chapter 8 — Pricing models must match commercial reality
One of the most common structural errors in Commercial Transformation is the assumption that pricing can be governed through a single, unified model.
In practice, commercial reality is more diverse.
Across industries, pricing decisions fall into at least three distinct categories, each with different objectives, rhythms, and risk profiles:
Transactional pricing
High-volume, repetitive decisions where speed and consistency matter most. The primary risk is cumulative leakage through small deviations applied at scale.
Contract pricing
Medium- to long-term agreements where economic outcomes depend on how clauses are applied over time. The primary risk is silent erosion through delayed adjustments, untriggered indexation, or unmanaged exposure.
Tender or solution pricing
Low-volume, high-impact decisions where each deal is unique. The primary risk is strategic misalignment rather than arithmetic error.
Each of these pricing situations requires a different operating logic.
Transactional pricing must prioritize simplicity and immediacy. Guidance must be available at the moment of decision, or it will not be used. Excessive complexity slows execution and drives workarounds.
Contract pricing must prioritize visibility over time. The economic life of a contract does not end at signature. Without ongoing discipline, contracts designed to protect economics become vehicles for gradual value loss.
Tender and solution pricing must prioritize judgment. These decisions are inherently contextual. Attempting to automate them through rigid templates or generic optimization models undermines strategic intent.
When organizations force these fundamentally different pricing decisions into a single workflow, they create friction everywhere. Processes become too heavy for transactional use, too shallow for contract management, and too rigid for strategic deals.
The predictable outcome is fragmentation: exceptions, parallel tools, informal approvals, and declining trust in the system.
Effective Commercial Transformation accepts plurality. It designs coordinated pricing models, each optimized for its decision environment, but aligned under common strategic and economic principles.
The goal is not uniformity. It is coherence.
Chapter 9 — Explainability and trust: where pricing lives or dies
No matter how well pricing models are designed on paper, their success is ultimately decided in one place: the commercial conversation with the customer.
If pricing guidance cannot be explained credibly, it will not be used.
This is a point that many transformations underestimate. Resistance from commercial teams is often framed as cultural or behavioral. In reality, it is usually rational.
Sales teams are accountable for relationships, outcomes, and credibility. When they are asked to defend prices they do not understand, they are placed at risk in front of customers. Faced with that risk, they default to tools and approaches they trust — even if those tools are informal or inefficient.
Trust in pricing is therefore built through explainability, not enforcement.
Explainability means that pricing guidance can be decomposed into understandable drivers:
cost movements
market context
segmentation logic
strategic intent
It also means that assumptions are visible rather than hidden, and that scenarios can be explored rather than accepted blindly.
In environments characterized by volatility and negotiation, false precision is particularly damaging. When pricing systems present recommendations as exact or “optimal” in situations that are inherently uncertain, credibility collapses quickly.
Commercial teams do not need certainty. They need defensible logic.
Explainable pricing does not imply simplistic pricing. It implies transparent sophistication: advanced analysis that can be understood, challenged, and contextualized by human decision-makers.
Integration also matters. Pricing guidance that lives outside commercial workflows creates friction. When teams must leave their primary systems to consult pricing tools, usage becomes optional. Under pressure, optional becomes ignored.
For pricing to shape behavior, it must appear naturally within the flow of commercial work and align with how decisions are actually made.
Commercial Transformation succeeds when pricing guidance strengthens commercial conversations rather than complicating them.
PART V — COMMERCIAL EXECUTION: WHERE VALUE IS ACTUALLY REALISED
Chapter 10 — Commercial execution is a system, not individual heroics
In many organizations, commercial performance is still implicitly attributed to individual talent. Strong sales leaders, experienced negotiators, and high-performing account managers are expected to compensate for complexity through personal skill and judgment.
While individual capability always matters, relying on heroics is not a sustainable commercial model.
Commercial execution at scale is not the sum of individual performances. It is the outcome of a system that shapes behavior, supports decisions, and creates consistency across thousands of interactions.
When execution is not designed as a system, predictable patterns emerge:
results vary widely between regions or teams with similar market conditions
best practices remain local rather than institutionalized
performance depends disproportionately on a few individuals
scaling success becomes difficult and risky
In such environments, growth amplifies fragility rather than strength.
A robust commercial execution system provides clarity on three essential dimensions:
Roles and decision rights
Who decides what, under which conditions, and with what degree of autonomy. Ambiguity in decision rights slows execution and encourages defensive behavior.
Commercial cadence
How often decisions are revisited, how exceptions are reviewed, and how learning is captured. Execution that is purely reactive loses coherence over time.
Negotiation and deal frameworks
Shared principles for concessions, trade-offs, and escalation. Without these, negotiation outcomes reflect personal style rather than strategic intent.
Designing execution as a system does not remove flexibility. It removes randomness.
Commercial Transformation succeeds when execution becomes predictably effective, rather than heroically inconsistent.
Chapter 11 — Global–local execution: coherence without paralysis
For global enterprises, one of the most delicate challenges in Commercial Transformation is balancing global coherence with local responsiveness.
This challenge is often framed as a trade-off: either centralize decisions to ensure consistency, or decentralize to preserve speed and relevance. In practice, this framing is misleading.
The real issue is not centralization versus decentralization. It is clarity of ownership.
When decision rights are unclear, both central and local teams hesitate. Decisions are delayed, escalations multiply, and accountability becomes blurred. When decision rights are explicit, execution accelerates — regardless of where decisions are made.
Effective global–local execution relies on a clear separation between:
global principles that must be consistent (strategic positioning, economic boundaries, segmentation logic)
local discretion where adaptation is necessary (customer context, negotiation dynamics, timing)
Problems arise when this separation is implicit rather than explicit.
In poorly designed models, global guidance is perceived as restrictive, while local adaptations are perceived as undisciplined. Over time, this erodes trust on both sides.
In well-designed models:
global teams define the rules of the game
local teams play the game decisively within those rules
deviations are visible, discussed, and learned from — not hidden
Visibility is critical. Without consolidated visibility of local decisions, organizations cannot distinguish between healthy adaptation and structural leakage. Conversely, when visibility exists, local autonomy becomes less risky, not more.
Commercial Transformation is strengthened when global–local execution is framed as a designed partnership, rather than as a power struggle.
Chapter 12 — Adoption and behavior change: why the last mile matters most
Many Commercial Transformation efforts are judged by the quality of their design. Far fewer succeed because of the quality of their adoption.
Adoption is often treated as a downstream activity: training, communication, incentives, and change management programs are layered onto a finished solution. When adoption disappoints, the response is usually to intensify these efforts.
This approach misses a fundamental point.
Commercial teams adopt what helps them do their job better under real conditions.
They do not adopt systems because they are theoretically sound, analytically sophisticated, or strategically aligned. They adopt systems that:
make decisions easier under pressure
improve the quality of customer conversations
reduce personal and commercial risk
consistently reflect reality as they experience it
When adoption is weak, it is rarely because teams resist change in principle. It is because the system does not sufficiently support their reality.
Another common mistake is to confuse compliance with adoption. Teams may follow processes because they are required to, while continuing to rely on parallel tools or informal practices to actually make decisions. This creates the appearance of control without its substance.
Sustainable adoption emerges when:
guidance is credible and explainable
decision logic is consistent across situations
exceptions are treated as learning opportunities rather than failures
feedback loops visibly influence future guidance
Behavior change, in this context, is not about persuasion. It is about earning trust through usefulness.
Commercial Transformation reaches maturity when the system becomes the default way of working — not because it is mandated, but because it is the most effective option available.
PART VI — GOVERNANCE, ECONOMICS, AND SEQUENCING
Chapter 13 — Governance as decision clarity, not bureaucracy
Governance is one of the most misunderstood elements of Commercial Transformation. It is often associated with additional layers of approval, control mechanisms, and compliance checks. As a result, governance is frequently perceived as an obstacle to speed rather than as an enabler of performance.
This perception is understandable — but inaccurate.
Effective governance is not about adding control. It is about clarifying decisions.
In commercial systems, governance answers three fundamental questions:
Who is allowed to decide?
On what basis are decisions made?
What happens when decisions fall outside defined boundaries?
When these questions are answered explicitly, execution accelerates. When they are left implicit, organizations slow down — even when authority is formally decentralized.
Poorly designed governance creates several predictable pathologies. Decisions are escalated unnecessarily because boundaries are unclear. Local teams act defensively to avoid risk. Central teams intervene late, when options are already constrained. Accountability becomes diffuse.
In contrast, good governance is almost invisible. It provides:
clear decision rights by role, deal type, and context
predefined economic and strategic boundaries
explicit escalation paths for exceptional situations
Importantly, governance should distinguish between rules and principles.
Rules are appropriate where consistency is critical and variability adds risk. Principles are appropriate where judgment is required and context matters. Confusing the two leads either to rigidity or to ambiguity.
Governance must also be dynamic. As markets evolve and maturity increases, governance frameworks need to adapt. What requires escalation at one stage of maturity may be safely delegated at another.
Commercial Transformation succeeds when governance is designed as a facilitator of better decisions, not as an enforcement mechanism.
Chapter 14 — Economics and ROI: why Commercial Transformation is often misread
One of the reasons Commercial Transformation initiatives struggle to maintain executive sponsorship is that their economic impact is often misunderstood.
Short-term uplifts are easy to measure. Discount reductions, price increases, or improved compliance can produce visible results within months. These gains are real — but they represent only a fraction of the value at stake.
The deeper economic value of Commercial Transformation lies elsewhere.
First, there is leakage prevention. Many organizations lose value not through dramatic failures, but through thousands of small inconsistencies: delayed pass-throughs, unchallenged concessions, misapplied rules, and unmonitored contracts. Reducing this leakage produces durable benefits that compound over time.
Second, there is decision quality. Better decisions taken earlier are economically more valuable than perfect decisions taken too late. Improving the speed and consistency of commercial decisions often matters more than refining their precision.
Third, there is optionality. A well-designed commercial system preserves flexibility. It allows organizations to respond to volatility, competitive moves, or strategic shifts without rebuilding processes or renegotiating fundamentals. This flexibility has real economic value, even if it does not appear immediately in traditional ROI calculations.
A common mistake is to evaluate Commercial Transformation solely through the lens of short-term financial uplift. This encourages overly aggressive targets, compressed timelines, and premature declarations of success.
A more accurate economic assessment considers:
sustainability of performance
resilience under volatility
reduction in dependency on individual judgment
scalability without proportional cost increase
When leaders align on this broader economic perspective, Commercial Transformation is no longer treated as a cost or a project. It is recognized as an investment in the operating capability of the business.
Chapter 15 — Sequencing Commercial Transformation: order matters more than speed
Commercial Transformation initiatives often fail not because of poor design, but because of poor sequencing.
Under pressure to deliver results, organizations compress phases, run activities in parallel, or introduce tools before foundational choices are made. While this may create early momentum, it also introduces structural risk.
There is a natural sequence to Commercial Transformation, driven by dependency rather than preference.
First, the organization must establish commercial intent and operating logic. Without clarity on strategic priorities, segmentation, and trade-offs, downstream design is unstable.
Second, commercial maturity must be assessed honestly. This is not about benchmarking against peers, but about understanding what the organization can realistically absorb and execute today.
Third, data ownership and coherence must be secured. Fragmented or contested data undermines trust in any guidance built on top of it.
Only then does it make sense to introduce advanced decision support, automation, or execution tools. When these are introduced too early, they are blamed for problems that originate upstream.
Finally, rollout and adoption should be progressive. Pilots, learning loops, and deliberate expansion allow the system to evolve without overwhelming the organization.
Speed matters in Commercial Transformation — but only when it is aligned with readiness. Accelerating the wrong sequence increases rework and erodes credibility.
Leaders who succeed in Commercial Transformation accept a counterintuitive truth: slowing down early often allows the organization to move faster later.
PART VII — FROM TRANSFORMATION TO INSTITUTION
Chapter 16 — Making Commercial Transformation a durable business capability
Many organizations succeed in launching Commercial Transformation initiatives. Far fewer succeed in making Commercial Transformation endure.
The difference lies in whether transformation is treated as a project or as an institutional capability.
Projects have objectives, timelines, and closure criteria. Capabilities have ownership, learning loops, and permanence. Commercial Transformation delivers sustainable value only when it transitions decisively from the former to the latter.
Institutionalizing Commercial Transformation requires three conditions.
First, stable ownership. Commercial Transformation cannot sit permanently in a project office or rotate between functions. It requires a clear home, with senior accountability for the integrity of the commercial system across Strategy, Pricing, and Execution. This ownership does not replace functional leadership; it orchestrates it.
Second, continuous learning. Markets evolve, cost structures change, customer expectations shift, and competitive dynamics reset. A commercial system must therefore be designed to learn. This means capturing decisions, outcomes, and deviations — not to police behavior, but to improve future guidance. Without learning loops, even well-designed systems decay.
Third, permanent linkage between Strategy, Pricing, and Execution. Institutionalization fails when these elements drift apart over time. Strategy refreshes that do not update pricing logic, pricing changes that do not reflect execution reality, or execution adaptations that quietly override strategy all weaken the system.
When Commercial Transformation becomes institutional, it stops being a topic of periodic concern and becomes part of how the business operates. Performance improves not because people try harder, but because the system itself supports better decisions by default.
PART VIII — WHAT DOES IT MEAN IN PRACTICE? BY INDUSTRY
Chapter 17 — Commercial Transformation across industries
While the principles of Commercial Transformation are consistent across sectors, their expression varies meaningfully by industry. Market structure, regulatory constraints, customer behavior, and portfolio characteristics shape where complexity concentrates and how maturity typically evolves.
The following perspectives illustrate what Commercial Transformation means in practice across major industries.
17.1 Chemicals
In Chemicals, commercial complexity is driven by cost volatility, broad portfolios, and a mix of transactional and contract-based business. Margin protection is structurally critical, making Smart Cost+ maturity non-negotiable.
Commercial Transformation typically focuses on:
disciplined cost pass-through and exposure management
clear segmentation between commodity, specialty, and solution-driven products
contract governance over time rather than at signature
As maturity increases, Competitive Premium positioning becomes relevant in specialties, where differentiation and switching costs justify selective price leadership. Execution success depends heavily on consistency across regions and accounts.
17.2 Healthcare
Healthcare combines strong regulation with increasing commercial sophistication. Pricing and access decisions are constrained, but execution complexity is high.
Commercial Transformation in Healthcare often centers on:
aligning strategy across access, pricing, and commercial engagement
managing differentiated value narratives under regulatory scrutiny
ensuring explainability and compliance in all decisions
Competitive Premium and Value-Based maturity are common aspirations, but they are sustainable only when supported by strong governance and disciplined execution.
17.3 Oil & Gas
Oil & Gas operates under extreme volatility, long investment cycles, and significant contractual exposure. Here, Commercial Transformation is inseparable from risk management.
Smart Cost+ discipline dominates:
exposure visibility across contracts
scenario-based commercial planning
disciplined renegotiation mechanisms
Execution excellence lies less in price setting and more in timing, optionality, and adherence to economic logic under pressure.
17.4 Industrial
Industrial businesses typically manage heterogeneous portfolios, combining equipment, services, and lifecycle offerings.
Commercial Transformation must accommodate:
multiple maturity levels within the same organization
segmentation by customer use case and lifecycle stage
alignment between installed base strategy and execution incentives
Value-Based approaches are powerful but must coexist with transactional and contract pricing models without conflict.
17.5 Utilities
Utilities operate under regulatory oversight with limited pricing freedom, but significant exposure to cost, demand, and infrastructure dynamics.
Commercial Transformation focuses on:
transparency and traceability of economic decisions
disciplined pass-through mechanisms
execution consistency under regulatory scrutiny
Here, governance and explainability are as important as commercial ambition.
17.6 Finance
In Financial Services, pricing is inseparable from risk, capital allocation, and customer segmentation.
Commercial Transformation centers on:
consistent risk-based pricing logic
segmentation aligned with lifetime value and risk profiles
disciplined execution across channels
Competitive Premium and Value-Based maturity are common in differentiated offerings, but governance remains paramount.
17.7 Tech & Telco
Tech and Telco markets are characterized by fast cycles, packaging complexity, and aggressive competition.
Commercial Transformation often addresses:
coherence across offers, bundles, and discounts
segmentation by usage, value, and strategic importance
execution discipline in high-velocity sales environments
Here, execution systems must prioritize speed without sacrificing consistency.
17.8 Transport & Logistics
Transport and Logistics face capacity constraints, fuel volatility, and a mix of spot and long-term contracts.
Commercial Transformation focuses on:
exposure management across contracts and spot business
disciplined prioritization under capacity pressure
alignment between network strategy and commercial decisions
Competitive Premium maturity emerges where reliability and service differentiation matter.
PART IX — HOW STRATENCE SUPPORTS COMMERCIAL TRANSFORMATION
Chapter 18 — Partnering to design, implement, and sustain Commercial Transformation
Commercial Transformation is not delivered through frameworks alone. It requires sustained senior involvement, rigorous design, and disciplined execution over time.
Technology accelerates a business-designed system; it does not define it. This would fully lock alignment with Stratence’s stated priority order.
Stratence supports Commercial Transformation as a business-led journey, working alongside leadership teams to:
design commercial strategy that translates into operable choices
define pricing operating models that protect economics and support differentiation
structure commercial execution systems that scale without losing coherence
embed governance, adoption, and capability transfer from the outset
Engagements are deliberately designed for continuity: the same senior team supports diagnosis, design, implementation, and adoption, ensuring accountability and preserving context.
Ready-to-use solutions supporting end-to-end Commercial Transformation
For organizations seeking to accelerate execution, Stratence provides ready-to-use solutions that support Commercial Transformation across the full commercial system.
These solutions are modular and can be deployed progressively, aligned with maturity and ambition.
Data foundations Coherent customer, product, and economic views that create a single commercial truth and enable consistent decision-making.
Insight and decision support Advanced segmentation, scenario analysis, and pattern detection that strengthen strategic and pricing decisions while remaining explainable.
Commercial execution enablement Guidance embedded in commercial workflows, supporting pricing, negotiation, and execution consistency in day-to-day operations.
Together, these solutions complement Stratence’s consulting approach by accelerating impact while preserving business ownership of decisions.
Final synthesis — Designing the commercial system first
Sustainable commercial performance is not achieved by adding tools, initiatives, or controls.
It is achieved by deliberately designing how Strategy, Pricing, and Commercial Execution interact as a system — and by allowing technology to accelerate that system, rather than redefine it.
That is the essence of Commercial Transformation as a business capability.
Design the commercial system.
Then let execution -and technology- accelerate it.
Fernando Ventureira
CEO
Stratence Partners