The commercial function grew alongside engineering, not as a designed system.
Industrial and manufacturing sells technical products into long relationships, and the commercial organisation in this sector often took shape informally, around the people who happened to be there, rather than being built on purpose.
Where the dysfunction usually shows up first.
Long relationships can mask a system that stopped being designed years ago. Three places worth looking closer.
Territory reflecting history, not opportunity
Account coverage that made sense when the company had three regional managers keeps running long after the market has moved, because nobody wants to disturb relationships that still appear to be working.
Knowledge concentrated in a small number of people
Long tenure and technical depth end up living in the one applications engineer who has covered an account for a decade, rather than in the system itself, so the account is only as safe as that person.
Coverage decisions made once, never revisited
Territory and account assignments made years ago are rarely reopened, because reopening them feels riskier than leaving a known gap in place, and the gap compounds quietly at renewal time either way.
Find where technical complexity became commercial dependency.
The dysfunction families do not change for industrial and manufacturing organisations, and none is assumed to matter more before the evidence is read. The diagnostic examines where account coverage was decided once and never reconsidered, where technical and commercial ownership separate, and where capability lives in people rather than in a system that would survive their departure.
Interviews typically include field or applications engineers, regional sales managers, and whoever owns territory design, since coverage gaps here concentrate around long-tenured individual accounts rather than functional handoffs. Account assignment history and win rates by territory age are compared to see how much of current coverage was ever actually decided rather than inherited.
Before you assume long tenure means no risk.
Our senior reps have decades of relationships, isn't that a strength rather than a risk?
Our sales team grew out of engineering, does the method still apply?
Our cycles run over a year, does a six to eight week diagnostic actually capture that?
Do you need to understand our specific technical product?
Three ways to keep going.
See what gets measured
The six families, the signals that reveal them, and how each one turns into cost.
Read where the method comes from
Fifty years of intervention research, and the four stage process behind every engagement.
Find out where you sit
Ten questions, two minutes. A first read on which part of your system is carrying the most strain.
History shaped the coverage. A number shows what that history is now costing.
One call, 30 minutes. We will review what is working, what is stalling, and where the cost is actually sitting. You will leave with a concrete next step, whether that is Kihon Labs or not.
Book a diagnostic call