Mastering B2B sales by closing capability gaps
Workforce transformation, economic volatility, cost increases, and margin pressure continue to reshape B2B sales. At the same time, geopolitical fragmentation and evolving sustainability regulation are changing how and where customers buy.
This year, rapid advances in digitalization and AI are creating new efficiency and growth opportunities but also widening the gap between leaders and laggards.
Our 2025 Global B2B Sales Study conducted across manufacturers, wholesalers, and service providers examines how industrial companies are adapting to this wave of change. Where are they reinvesting for growth? How are they deploying AI? Which commercial capabilities most clearly separate top performers from the rest?
2025 B2B Sales Insights: Key findings and trends shaping the future
Our latest B2B sales study sheds light on the strategies that separate top-performing sales organizations from the rest.
Discover how manufacturers, wholesalers, and service providers are adapting to market shifts, leveraging technology, and outperforming their peers in key areas like strategic planning, talent development, and digitalization.
As the landscape continues to evolve, B2B sales organizations face new hurdles and opportunities. The following insights from our latest B2B sales study explore how top performers are tackling these challenges head-on, from investing in talent to embracing AI and digital transformation. Discover the strategies helping them lead the way in today’s dynamic market.
After a cautious 2024, B2B companies are re-focusing on growth. Relevance and readiness both rose in 2025, with Allstars back at 2023 capability levels and other cohorts improving but still lagging.
Allstars invest over-proportionally in sales early in their lifecycle, creating a gap that widens over time. The same dynamic shows up across segments. Among Service Providers, Offense come closest to Allstars, but the early-investment edge remains decisive.
AI is becoming a critical enabler in B2B sales, but adoption remains uneven. Most companies are using it for predictive analytics and lead qualification, while far fewer have applied it to more complex tasks like pricing or contract analysis.
The difference shows up in performance. Companies that deploy AI more broadly report significantly stronger margins, even if the revenue impact is still emerging. In other words, the next big opportunity lies in moving from narrow pilots to wider AI deployment across the sales cycle.
Automation has taken hold in pre-sales, with over 50% of service providers now using tools for qualification and proposals. Yet, post-sales applications remain a white space. Fewer than a third use automation in service and fulfilment. Just over one in ten have automated upselling and expansion, despite many acknowledging the value.
Leaders are beginning to shift attention here, recognizing that the next efficiency and margin gains will come after the deal closes, not before.
Manufacturers are confident in legacy capabilities like customer acquisition but admit to being under-prepared on AI adoption and sales talent. Many even rated their AI readiness lower this year than in 2024, reflecting the complexity of real implementation. | Wholesalers see cross-selling, customer acquisition, and sales talent recruitment as critical growth levers but score themselves lowest on preparedness in exactly these areas. By contrast, digital and AI tools are the only levers where they feel adequately ready. | Service providers stand out for their strength in AI and sales excellence, but they fall behind in M&A, localization, and field-sales enablement. Focusing on these capabilities is essential for scaling growth over the next two years. |
Stage-specific recommendations for the value chain
It might be challenging to elevate a business from Spectator to Allstar, but there is ROI in even taking the first step. To help with this undertaking, we have a few recommendations based on our 2025 Global B2B Sales Study.
- Manufacturers
- Wholesalers
- Service Providers
Strategies for growth in B2B manufacturing
Invest early in sales: Allstar manufacturers stand apart by investing heavily from the outset. They spend significantly more of revenue on sales in early lifecycle stages than Offense, Defense, or Spectators. This gap widens over time and becomes hard to close.
Use AI to drive margin improvement: AI adoption is strongest in predictive analytics at 24% and lead qualification at 21% but still limited in contract analysis or churn prediction. Expanding into these areas is where the margin upside lies.
Tighten sales steering: Many manufacturers admit gaps in talent acquisition and team performance, while dashboards and KPIs remain under-optimized. Revising incentive systems and steering tools will align sales behavior with value creation.
Shift from products to solutions: Allstars are increasingly moving from product selling to cross- and upsell recommendations powered by AI and dynamic pricing optimization; strategies that help them outpace less prepared peers. Invest in value articulation training for sales resources.
Advancing sales in B2B wholesaling
Don’t stop at pre-sales automation: Most wholesalers have automated lead scoring and forecasting, with over 60% using digital tools in these early stages. But post-sales is still neglected. Only ~11% automate upselling and expansion, leaving a major opportunity to capture both revenue and margin gains. Map processes in detail with RACI assignments to support this transformation.
Balance enablement portfolios: Digital and AI tools are the only lever wholesalers feel adequately prepared for. However, they are under-prepared when it comes to cross-selling, customer acquisition, and sales talent acquisition. Leaders are taking care not to over-index on AI at the expense of these foundational growth drivers. Redesign cluttered sales roles, benchmark compensation against industry peers, and align processes, goals & incentives.
Strengthen digital commercial execution: Top wholesalers report strong adoption of SEO/SEA, webinars, and contact-form channels, with Allstars rating webinars as 90% more important for lead generation than Spectators. Building analytics and sales-ops backbones is critical to scale such engagement consistently. Spend the time to strengthen and focus the relationship between Marketing and Sales.
Optimizing B2B service provider sales
Focus enablement on AI, M&A, localization, and field sales: Service providers show strong readiness on AI and sales excellence, but remain under-prepared for M&A, footprint localization, and field-sales enablement, which risks slowing scale-up. There are winners and losers in this new economy, and valuable talent to be acquired and integrated from the losers.
Move beyond pre-sales: Pre-sales automation is already mainstream, with 53% using tools for qualification and 51% for CPQ (configuring, pricing, and quoting), but post-sales automation remains a challenge. Only 30% automate service/fulfilment and just 12% automate expansion/upsell despite high perceived benefit.
Accelerate deal velocity: More than half of Allstar service providers already use CPQ and proposal-automation tools, helping them close deals faster and standardize offers. These tools are a proven lever for improving sales productivity. Improve dashboards for all levels of the organization: C-suite, mid-level management, and the front line.
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