To combat this pressure, incumbents and attackers alike should build and sustain best-in-class commercial capabilities to gain significant competitive advantages. In many cases, that entails adopting best practices from other industries.
The rewards can be substantial. Based on our assessment of more than 200 commercial capabilities at 200 clients,2 we found that businesses that were top performers—those with superior commercial capabilities—consistently deliver revenue growth about 1.9 points higher and earnings growth about 4.7 points higher than peers in the same sector (Exhibit 1).
