Many commercial leaders are uneasy about their sales engines.
They sense productivity slipping, but struggle to pinpoint why. Quotas are harder to hit despite growing spend on tools and headcount. Reps report being stretched thin, yet customers complain of slow responses and generic engagement.
The underlying issue is more fundamental: the way most salesforces are designed has not kept pace with how customers buy.
This begs the question:
“If you designed your commercial engine from scratch today, would it look anything like the one you have?”
The answer is often a loud “no.” Let us explore how buying has changed, and why salesforce haven’t followed suit.
The professionalisation gap between procurement and sales
Customer buying has been transformed while procurement has professionalized at an unprecedented pace. More companies are forming procurement alliances to consolidate demand – whether related or unrelated businesses – to force suppliers’ hands. Procurement systems automatically pit suppliers against each other, effectively commoditizing products and eroding unique value propositions. Procurement officers now have dedicated analytics teams, category management specialists, and sophisticated scoring systems that track supplier performance across dozens of metrics. Procurement-as-a-service providers offer on-demand expertise for negotiations. Consultancies deploy proven playbooks for cost-out projects, training buyers in advanced tactics like should-cost modelling to create competitive tension and force suppliers into cost-plus pricing. Some procurement teams now use AI to analyse supplier communications, identify negotiation leverage points, and benchmark pricing in real time. At the same time, transparency and digital availability of information on product features and prices has increased rapidly.
It’s a bloodbath in some industries.
Despite all this, most commercial organizations still look much as they did thirty years ago. Accounts are divided across territories. Some customers receive intense attention; others are left on autopilot. E-commerce is bolted on as a silo. Compensation plans, coverage models, and interaction guidelines follow familiar patterns. Meanwhile, salespeople spend less than 30 percent of their time with customers. The rest is consumed by reporting, coordination, and administration. Too many sales reps are sales administrators in disguise – handling invoices and RFP responses. The gap is widening every year. But why do we cling onto an old model built for another era?
The myth of relationship selling and the admin trap
When asked why sales reps are still central, leaders often default to a familiar phrase: “It’s a relationship business.” The line is comforting, but it also serves as a shield, avoiding the harder question of how value is actually created. Customers don’t want relationships for their own sake. They want progress. They want buying jobs completed with less hassle, fewer delays, and clearer outcomes. They want problems solved, risks mitigated, and internal selling made easier. Strong relationships may follow from this, but they are the outcome – not the input.
Even more troubling is how little time salespeople actually spend on what customers value. In many organizations, less than a third of a rep’s time is spent with customers. The majority goes to administrative tasks or reactive order-taking. Technology and AI already perform these jobs faster, cheaper, and with fewer errors. If this is what defines the role, it’s only a matter of time before it’s automated away.
Doubling down on where sales reps create value
This doesn’t mean sales is obsolete. On the contrary, there are contexts where salespeople create enormous value – specifically in high-complexity buying situations where the product is complex, the buying process is complex, and the risks of getting it wrong are high.
In these situations, customers expect salespeople who can:
- Orchestrate the buying process by coordinating stakeholders and maintaining momentum.
- Bring outside-in insights by showing how peers solved comparable challenges.
- Sharpen the business case in financial and operational terms that resonate internally.
- Offer real expertise – technical, commercial, or industry-specific – that cannot be automated.
- Guide transformation by linking the solution to the broader change the customer is driving.
- Act with urgency and professionalism by resolving issues quickly and reducing friction.
- Create demand and open accounts by surfacing needs and reframing opportunities customers had not considered.
This is where salespeople matter. But if the role is reduced to pushing standardized offers, pitching on autopilot, or processing inbound orders, technology and digital channels can do it far more efficiently.
So where does that leave the sales force? So where does that leave your commercial engine?
The sales system of the future
The golden age of sales is still ahead of us. But it will only come to organizations that actively, willingly, and consciouslyredesign their salesforce for a new reality, rather than waiting for procurement solutions to shut down their teams.
The future will not be an incremental extension of the past; it will require bold structural shifts:
- Fewer but better/different reps: Smaller, more skilled teams focused on high-value interactions, while technology absorbs transactional work.
- Compensation on a power curve: Outsized rewards for outsized value creation, not incremental differences across a normal distribution.
- Nuanced engagement models: Many accounts will be digital and self-service, others served by inside sales blending efficiency with personal touch, and only the most strategic covered by high-touch senior reps.
- Verticalization and new role designs: Hybrid profiles that blend commercial acumen with technical or industry expertise.
- Revisited account coverage: Segmentation driven by buying complexity and value potential, not legacy allocation.
- Integration with marketing and product: Sales embedded into a seamless growth engine, not operating in isolation.
- Technology and data proficiency in commercial operations: IT cannot keep pace alone; sales must own and master the systems and data streams critical to growth.
- Administrative load reallocated: Routine tasks automated, digitally delivered, or handed to pure support roles.
Closing note
The question for leaders is not whether they need salespeople. The question is whether their salesforce – or their full commercial engine – is fit for growth. If your organization looks and runs the way it did a decade ago, you’re already behind.
Those who cling to outdated models – defended by tradition, the language of “relationships,” and habit – will see declining productivity, rising costs, and eventual irrelevance. Those who act boldly will secure an advantage laggards cannot catch up to.
Efe help B2B companies turn strategic ambition into commercial reality – whether that’s driving revenue growth, leading organizational transformation, or building the operational backbone that powers GTM excellence.
Mikkel has a functional focus on brand strategy, value propositions, segmentation, organizational design, commercial & marketing strategy, product launches and deal acceleration.
