As CEOs move through 2025, understanding how to drive sustainable revenue growth while navigating declining go-to-market (GTM) efficiency remains a critical challenge. CEOs are tasked with delivering consistent revenue growth while facing unpredictable demand cycle and increasing costs of operation. Many CEOs are grappling with sales cycles increasing, mounting inefficiencies, and unoptimized commercial teams.
SBI’s latest CEO Value Creation Pulse Report reveals an increased realization among CEOs that commercial productivity is the key to success. Leaders are prioritizing strategies that enhance seller effectiveness, streamline deal execution, and maximize pipeline conversion.
CEOs entered 2025 with a cautious optimism, bolstered by, what was for many, a strong 2024, yet still keenly aware of the continued strain on commercial efficiency. While nearly 70% of CEOs met or exceeded their revenue targets last year, demand signals have slowed, with CEOs reporting accelerating demand has declined to 43%, down from 52% at the start of 2024. This is further reflected in their shifting priorities, with a greater emphasis being placed on commercial efficiency over revenue expansion.
For CEOs, this mean balancing two competing forces:
A striking trend from the research is the ongoing struggle with commercial execution and efficiency. While seller productivity is improving, pipeline quality has reverted to Q1 2024 levels and deal velocity continues to slow. CEOs recognize that maintaining commercial investments is not enough to drive a great yield from existing teams and processes.
Growth is no longer a function of adding more sellers. Instead, CEOs must uncover ways to amplify the productivity of existing teams by addressing bottlenecks and aligning commercial resources with growth opportunities.
AI is becoming a practical necessity for CEOs looking to enhance commercial productivity. While AI adoption has been slow, 2025 marks a turning point where organizations are treating AI as a strategic imperative.
CEO’s increasingly view AI as a tool to increase productivity rather than cut costs. This allows commercial teams to work smarter and reduce wasted effort on low-priority tasks. AI-powered insights help GTM leaders refine pipeline prioritization, shorten sales cycles, and improve deal velocity.
1. Align Time with High-Value Opportunities
CEOs must ensure their sales reps are spending time where it matters the most. Today’s buying environment and process is increasingly complex and high-value opportunities require strategic engagement.
Action: Deploy data-driven segmentation models to focus sellers on accounts with the highest conversion potential.
2. Invest in Data Hygiene and Cleaning
GTM inefficiencies are a primary barrier to sales rep success. Our research reveals that CEOs believe in their growth strategies, however they lack confidence in the data that built them. This gap presents a major opportunity for improvement.
Action: Invest in AI tools that perform data cleaning, hygiene, and maintenance to alleviate problems caused by bad data.
3. AI as a Force Multiplier for Seller Effectiveness
CEOs are shifting from AI experimentation to strategic deployment in 2025. AI’s potential lies in increasing productivity rather than cost efficiency, with the most advance companies integrating AI driven insights into their GTM motions.
Action: Implement AI-driven pipeline analysis and deal coaching to optimize engagement strategies.
For all organizations, commercial productivity is a strategic growth imperative. A path forward requires:
For another look at these insights, and strategic priorities for CEOs in 2025 review SBI’s latest CEO Value Creation Pulse Report.