How a global manufacturer transformed its commercial engine, shifting from volume to value by aligning strategy, capabilities, and execution to unlock +15% in profit growth.
Written by Martino Bissoli
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A Crisis Point: When Market Decline Meets Internal Challenges
In early 2025, a global industrial leader found itself at a crossroads. The company, a vertically integrated manufacturer with operations spanning Europe and North America, was watching its market position erode at an alarming rate. While the broader extrusion market had contracted by 11% annually over the previous two years, this manufacturer’s volumes had plummeted by 17%, signaling not just market pressures but fundamental strategic missteps.
The situation revealed deeper organizational challenges. The commercial team, stretched thin across sprawling territories, had become trapped in a cycle of reactive account management. Less than 5% of their time went toward hunting new business, while precious resources were wasted servicing unprofitable accounts. Pricing power had eroded, and the sales organization lacked the tools and structure to identify – let alone capture – high-margin opportunities.
Facing these existential threats, leadership launched an intensive commercial excellence initiative designed to fundamentally rewire how the company went to market. The mandate was clear: shift from chasing volume at any cost to systematically pursuing profitable growth.
- Analyze the As-Is Situation & Prioritize “where to play” The team conducted a deep dive into customers, products, and margins to establish a baseline. They prioritized industries and segments where the Client capabilities aligned with the most attractive profit pools – focusing on high-value niches that played to their strengths in precision extrusion and finishing services. This became the foundation for a margin-focused growth strategy.
- Identify and Prioritize Growth Opportunities – A fact-based framework was developed to assess customer potential, ability-to-win, and commercial aspiration. This led to a pipeline of 400+ new prospects, a reallocation of sales resources toward hunting, and a restructuring of territories for efficiency.
- Set Up the Organization for Execution – The sales force was reorganized by geography and specialization, with a new Sales Ops team handling inside sales and lower-tier accounts. Salesforce CRM was implemented, integrating 2,700+ new leads and enabling real-time performance tracking. To instill discipline, War Rooms were introduced -weekly high-intensity sessions to review progress, remove roadblocks, and drive accountability.
The transformation yielded tangible results that extended far beyond short-term financial improvements. The organization established a clear trajectory toward achieving a 15% increase in gross margin by 2028 – a target grounded not in wishful thinking but in concrete commercial levers. Pricing discipline, previously absent, became systematic, while a deliberate shift toward higher-value product mixes created immediate margin uplift. The commercial team, once focused solely on preserving existing business, now operated with a dual mandate: protecting core accounts while aggressively pursuing new high-margin opportunities.
This strategic reorientation manifested in several critical achievements. The company developed and executed against targeted customer lists that systematically addressed profitability leaks, either renegotiating unfavorable terms or strategically exiting relationships that dragged down overall margins. Simultaneously, the newly implemented hunting engine generated a robust pipeline of over 400 qualified prospects, marking a fundamental shift in the commercial team’s focus from defensive retention to offensive growth. The sales organization itself underwent a structural transformation, with clearly delineated roles between hunters and farmers, and a new sales operations function that brought discipline to previously chaotic processes.
Perhaps most significantly, the organization developed new capabilities in data-driven decision making. The implementation of CRM dashboards provided real-time visibility into commercial performance, while the regular rhythm of War Rooms ensured that insights translated into action. This created a culture where decisions were based on facts rather than anecdotes, and where accountability became embedded in the commercial team’s daily operations.
What began as a necessary response to market pressures evolved into a fundamental rewiring of the company’s commercial DNA. The initiative succeeded not by simply tweaking existing processes, but by challenging and ultimately replacing a reactive, volume-focused mindset with a structured, margin-driven growth strategy. The transformation proved that in challenging market conditions, survival and success don’t come from working harder at the same approaches, but from working smarter with fundamentally different ones.
The most enduring lesson of this margin revolution was the power of holistic transformation. By seamlessly integrating three critical components—data-driven commercial diagnostics, robust execution mechanisms, and real-time performance tracking—the company achieved results that exceeded mere financial improvement. It developed institutional capabilities that would continue paying dividends long after the initial turnaround:
- Strategic Clarity: A razor-sharp understanding of where and how to compete profitably
- Commercial Discipline: Processes and mindsets that consistently prioritize quality of revenue over quantity
- Organizational Agility: The ability to rapidly adapt commercial approaches to changing market dynamics
The company’s journey demonstrates that true commercial excellence isn’t about making incremental improvements but about having the courage to fundamentally rethink how value is created and captured in an evolving marketplace. Most importantly, it proved that even in the most challenging conditions, disciplined strategy and execution can turn market pressures into catalysts for transformation.
