Territory reflecting history
Coverage follows who was there, not where opportunity sits.
Who we helpIndustrial & Manufacturing
The commercial function grew alongside engineering, not as a designed system.
Technical products sold into long relationships, by a commercial organisation that grew around whoever was there. Coverage was set once and has not been reopened since.
Sector read
Coverage set once, never reopened.
Knowledge held by few
Technical judgement concentrated in a small number of people.
Coverage never revisited
Decisions made once and carried forward unexamined.
Distributors reported, not managed
Partner performance appears in a review without an owner behind it.
Quoting absorbs commercial time
Engineering effort is spent before qualification has happened.
Where coverage follows history
The commercial organisation was inherited, not designed.
Coverage follows who was there. What that costs only becomes visible where the opportunity was never reached.
The symptom is reported at the surface. The cause sits underneath it.
Coverage that reflects history
Territory follows who was there, not where the opportunity sits.
Surface · what gets reportedThe commercial function grew alongside engineering
It took shape around available people rather than being designed.
Structure · what produces itJudgement concentrated in a few
Technical assessment sits with a small number of people and does not transfer.
System · where it breaksOpportunity never reached
Coverage decisions made once and carried forward stop matching the market they were drawn for.
Consequence · what it costsCause and consequence rarely surface in the same place.
What it looks for here
Find where technical complexity became commercial dependency.
The dysfunction families do not change here, and none is assumed to matter more before the evidence is read. The diagnostic examines where coverage was decided once and never reconsidered, where technical and commercial ownership separate and where capability lives in people rather than in the operating system.
- Field and applications engineers
- Regional sales managers
- Channel and key-account owners
- Account assignment history
- Distributor handoffs
- Win rates by territory age
Technical products and inherited coverage change how the strain presents.
What tends to break first
Coverage goes first, because it was set once.
A commercial function that grew alongside engineering inherits its shape from history. The mechanisms that strain earliest are the ones that were never designed in the first place.
Territory and account coverage
Coverage reflects how the business grew rather than where value now sits, and revisiting it feels like taking accounts away from people.
Technical-commercial translation
Specification knowledge sits with engineers and buying authority sits elsewhere. The translation between them depends on individuals.
Concentrated judgement
A few people carry the pattern that makes deals work. Their availability becomes the constraint on growth before headcount does.
Opportunity that never arrives
The loss is what was never quoted, never reached or never renewed, which is invisible to a system that only records what happened.
What happens next
Three ways in, depending on what the evidence already says.
Executive Workshop
Three hours with the people who can change the system. One condition named, in writing, before any evidence is gathered.
Explore the Workshop →Diagnosis
Interviews, the records you already produce and your own rates. What is breaking, what it costs, what to change first.
Explore the Diagnosis →Strain Check
Ten questions, two minutes. A first read on which part of your commercial system is carrying the most strain.
Take the Strain Check → FAQ
Before you assume long tenure means no risk.
Our senior reps have decades of relationships, isn't that a strength rather than a risk?
It is a strength until it is the only thing carrying the account. The diagnostic does not question the relationships, it looks at what happens to coverage and knowledge if any one of those people leaves.
Our sales team grew out of engineering, does the method still apply?
Yes. That is one of the more common starting points in this sector, and the diagnostic reads the commercial system as it exists now, whatever function it originally grew out of.
Our cycles run over a year, does a six to eight week diagnostic actually capture that?
The diagnostic reads the system that produces the cycle, not the full length of a single deal. Interviews and pipeline history reveal the pattern well before any one deal reaches its conclusion.
Do you need to understand our specific technical product?
Enough to read how it is sold, not to engineer it. The diagnostic is built on the commercial system around the product, and the technical depth needed for that is established in the interviews.
Get started
History shaped the coverage. A number shows what that history is now costing.
Use 30 minutes to define the operating question, test what evidence exists and decide whether Kihon has a role at all. No scope is proposed before that is clear.
Discuss the operating problem