The sales organisation is designed for a buying journey that no longer exists

How should we organise sales when customers increasingly research the market, assess alternatives and form their preferences before they even want to speak to a salesperson? That is the starting point for this article series on modern B2B sales, Go-to-Market and the future role of people in the commercial organisation.

Many companies have modernised their sales tools without truly modernising their sales model. They have implemented CRM, marketing automation, digital campaigns and, most recently, AI. Yet the commercial organisation still works according to a relatively traditional logic: Marketing creates leads. Sales Development qualifies them. The salesperson takes over the contact, presents the solution and tries to move the customer through the funnel.

The problem is that the customer does not necessarily follow along. The customer has their own process. And it often begins long before the company registers a sales opportunity.

The customer has taken over a larger part of the buying journey

Gartner's survey, published in March 2026, showed that 67% of the B2B buyers surveyed preferred a buying experience without direct involvement from a salesperson.

In its global Buyer Experience Report 2025, 6sense concluded that 95% of winning vendors were already on the customer's original shortlist. Around four out of five purchases went to the vendor the customer preferred before direct dialogue began.

The results must of course be understood within the respective populations of the studies. But they point to a commercially important development: a significant part of the competition for the customer takes place before the traditional sales process begins. That challenges the whole notion that the sales organisation owns the customer journey.

Modern B2B is not only digital

A common reaction is that the company should therefore digitalise even more and reduce direct customer interaction. That is too simple a conclusion.

McKinsey's B2B Pulse 2024 shows that customers use an average of ten different channels throughout the buying journey. Preferences are broadly split between in-person meetings, remote digital communication and self-service.

What is interesting is not that one channel replaces another. It is that customers expect to be able to switch between them without starting over. They want to research the solution themselves, read about others' experiences, compare alternatives, talk to a specialist and return to digital information.

This places new demands on how the company's commercial activities fit together. A good digital buying experience cannot compensate for a salesperson who does not know the customer's situation. Conversely, a skilled salesperson cannot compensate for missing information, unclear positioning or an inaccessible company.

From the seller's process to the customer's decision

I believe the modern sales organisation should be designed around three questions:

1. How do we become relevant before the customer contacts us?

That requires clear positioning, insight into customers' problems, strong expert content and documented credibility.

2. How do we help the customer research us without unnecessary friction?

That requires a useful website, transparent information, relevant cases and the opportunity for customers to learn on their own.

3. When does direct human involvement actually create value?

It may be when the customer needs to understand a complex problem, involve several stakeholders, assess risk or make a strategic decision.

In other words, the salesperson's role should not be defined by how early the company can establish contact, but by where and when it can contribute meaningfully.

It is a leadership task

The consequences reach further than the choice of sales channels. They affect how we divide responsibility between marketing and sales, how we measure pipeline, how we develop people and what we expect from our sales leadership.

If management continues to steer by activity targets that reward the largest possible number of outreach attempts, it risks optimising a sales model that customers increasingly try to avoid.

That does not mean outbound selling is obsolete. But outbound selling must be relevant, well-informed and grounded in likely customer value.

The modern sales organisation should not primarily make it easier for the company to sell. It should make it easier for the customer to buy. Those are two different starting points.

Next article: We still need people in sales. But not for the same things as before. Because if customers increasingly prefer self-service, where does the real value of the human salesperson lie?

The sources document changing buying behaviour, channel preferences and independent information gathering. The recommendations on how the sales organisation should be set up are a commercial interpretation of these findings.