Commercial Model Redesign

What it is

The commercial model is the strategic layer that sits above execution. It defines what the function is being asked to do, who it is being asked to do it for, through what channels, and against what measures. Without it, every downstream decision — technology selection, hiring, channel allocation, pricing, brand investment — is made against a moving target.

Commercial Model Redesign is the work of rebuilding that layer when it is missing, outdated, or no longer matched to the company the business has become. The deliverable is a defensible operating model, documented and instrumented, that the rest of the front office can run against.

What's in scope

Go-to-market architecture — how the company reaches and converts its customers, across direct, indirect, and partner channels. Segmentation — who the customers are, how they cluster, and which segments are worth concentrated investment. Channel strategy — which channels carry what weight, on what economics, with what governance. KPI framework — what gets measured, how it ladders up to revenue and margin, and where accountability sits.

The output is a written commercial model document, a measurement framework that maps to the model, and a transition plan for moving the existing function from where it is to the new model.

What it's not

The commercial model is not a brand strategy or a positioning document. Brand and positioning are downstream artifacts that follow from the commercial model — they are not the model itself.

The commercial model also does not include pricing strategy at the level of structured price-setting research. Pricing decisions inside the existing model — channel margins, discount governance, package construction — are in scope. New-product pricing structures requiring primary customer research are not.

When companies engage us for commercial model redesign

Three patterns are common.

The company has outgrown its original commercial logic.

The model the founders built worked at the original scale. The current scale has different customer mix, different channels, and different competitive dynamics. The model needs to catch up.

A merger, acquisition, or platform consolidation has scrambled the commercial logic.

Two or more commercial models are running in parallel. They need to be reconciled into one, with clear logic for which legacy elements survive and which are retired.

The numbers no longer ladder.

Channel reports, regional reports, and segment reports do not reconcile to the company-level revenue and margin numbers. The function cannot produce a defensible read on its own performance because the underlying model is incoherent.

Engagement shape

Commercial model engagements are typically scoped at one quarter, with a defined deliverable set and acceptance criteria. Some engagements extend into a second quarter to cover transition work — the first quarter produces the model; the second quarter sequences and supports the move from the old model to the new one.

The staffing model is lean. The work is AI-native: market structure analysis, segmentation modeling, channel economics, and document production are accelerated by AI. The judgment about what the model should be — and the political work of getting an organization aligned around it — is not.