Home of the Commercial Transformation Index
The Commercial Transformation Index (CTI) is a research and benchmarking methodology for measuring how organisations build, connect and operate the commercial systems behind customer and commercial value. CTIndex.org publishes the methodology, benchmarks and intelligence behind the index.
Use CTI to understand where commercial capability is strong, where value is being constrained and which level of assessment can establish what to address next.
Find your commercial starting point
Answer four questions to identify the CTI assessment most likely to answer your commercial question. No contact details required.
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The Commercial Transformation Index (CTI) is an ongoing research and benchmarking methodology for measuring the maturity, integration and performance of an organisation’s commercial system. It assesses ten commercial domains individually and in relationship, because commercial value is created, converted, delivered and grown across connected systems rather than within one function alone.
CTIndex.org is the public research and intelligence platform for CTI, publishing the methodology, benchmark intelligence, findings and analysis generated through the index.
Research thesis
Commercial performance is a system property. Organisations underperform not only because individual functions are weak, but because the systems responsible for creating, capturing, converting, fulfilling and growing customer value can be fragmented, misaligned or poorly connected.
Strong marketing cannot compensate for weak qualification. A well-configured CRM cannot compensate for unclear positioning. Sales cannot protect margin if pricing is inconsistent, and acquisition cannot create durable growth if retention evidence never informs who the business targets next. CTI examines these connections so visible symptoms can be understood in the context of the wider commercial system.
How commercial value moves, and where it is lost
Market clarity ICP
Who the customer is, and why they should choose you.
Demand Marketing
Interest from the customers that definition actually described.
Commercial record CRM
A record of that interest a decision can be taken on.
Sales Sales
A commitment the business can meet at the price it agreed.
Operations Operations
Delivery of the thing that was actually promised.
Customer growth Retention & Customer Success
Evidence of which customers were worth winning.
The last stage holds the clearest evidence about the first. Where that evidence does not travel back, the business keeps buying the customers it should have stopped buying.
The model
CTI evaluates ten interconnected commercial domains: ICP, Positioning, Pricing, Website, CRM, Marketing, Sales, Operations, Retention and Automation. Each domain is assessed on its own terms and then in relationship to the domains it depends on and influences.
Ten commercial domains arranged as a connected system, with Automation at the centre because it amplifies every other domain rather than occupying a position in the sequence. Lines connect domains that depend on or directly affect one another. Every domain below is a link to its full description.
Automation sits at the centre because it acts across the whole system rather than occupying a position in the sequence. A constraint in any one domain propagates to the domains that depend on it, which is why a domain reading and a system reading are different answers.
Measurement
CTI evaluates each signal according to its source, relevance and evidential strength before it contributes to a finding. Signals can be observed, derived, contextual or relational, and multiple signals may inform one criterion. This allows CTI to distinguish a visible indicator from evidence strong enough to support a commercial conclusion.
The CTI architecture can evaluate more than 5,000 signals across the ten domains. The number and type of signals available varies by domain, because some commercial capabilities are observable externally while others require internal or validated evidence.
A commercial finding is only worth acting on if you know how it was obtained. CTI labels the class of evidence behind every reading, so you can tell what was observed, what was reported and what somebody reviewed, before you decide how much weight to put on it. Evidence class describes how something is known, not how good it is.
Commercial maturity
Commercial maturity is assessed across six Commercial Maturity Bands, from Critical to Optimised. A band describes how deliberately the commercial system is designed, how reliably it operates and how effectively its domains inform one another. It is a description of current commercial capability, not a judgement of effort or ambition.
Material commercial weakness, fragmentation or lack of control is likely to be constraining performance. Core foundations require attention before optimisation.
Some capability exists but execution remains inconsistent, person-dependent or weakly connected across the commercial system.
Repeatable structures are taking shape. Several systems operate adequately but material gaps, handoffs or evidence weaknesses remain.
The commercial system is broadly structured and reliable, with clear opportunities to improve integration, decision quality and performance consistency.
Commercial systems are strongly governed, connected and evidence-led. Improvement increasingly shifts from fixing fundamentals to optimisation.
The commercial system is highly connected, measurable and adaptive, with learning loops that continuously improve decisions and execution.
Research and intelligence
CTIndex.org is the public research and intelligence platform for the Commercial Transformation Index. It publishes the methodology behind CTI, explains how evidence is evaluated and makes CTI research, benchmark intelligence and commercial analysis available in a form that can be understood, compared and cited.
As the CTI evidence base grows, CTIndex.org will provide a clearer view of how commercial capability differs across domains, organisation types, sectors, markets and stages of maturity.
Applying the index
CTI can be applied through four assessment routes, from a fast external view of a website to a validated assessment of the whole commercial system. The right route depends on the evidence you need, how broad the commercial question is and how confident the decision needs to be. Start with the question you need answered, not simply the largest assessment available.
Full commercial system assessment
A Full CTI Audit provides a validated view of all ten commercial domains, the relationships between them and the constraints limiting the wider system. It combines broader evidence and review to show where capability is strong, where commercial value is being constrained and which priorities should be addressed first.
The output includes a CTI Score, Commercial Maturity Band, ten-domain profile, cross-domain findings and a prioritised sequence of change, giving leadership a clearer evidence base for investment, transformation and commercial decisions.
Website intelligence
Your website already tells buyers, search engines and AI systems who you serve, how clearly you position the business, what evidence supports your claims and how easy it is to take the next step. The Free Website Audit turns those externally visible signals into an initial commercial view of what is helping, what is creating friction and what deserves deeper investigation.
The Free Website Audit analyses externally observable evidence; deeper internal capability is assessed through the broader CTI routes.
What CTI can observe
Free Website Audit
The audit runs on CTIScore.com and takes minutes. No account and no card.
In-Depth Website Audit
A deeper automated diagnosis of what is limiting performance, why it matters and what should change first.
Entity architecture
CTI provides the measurement model. CTIndex.org publishes the methodology, research and intelligence. CTIScore.com provides the assessment and analysis environment through which organisations are evaluated against CTI.
Together, they connect the public methodology and research layer with the environment used to assess commercial performance.
Commercial Transformation Index
Research and benchmarking methodology
Measures
The measurement model itself: domains, criteria, evidence rules, maturity bands and the relationships between commercial systems.
Public research and intelligence platform
Publishes
Methodology, benchmark findings, research notes and commercial intelligence, published openly so any finding can be checked against the rules that produced it.
Assessment and intelligence infrastructure
Analyses
The environment where organisations are analysed, scored, benchmarked and monitored against the methodology.
Frequently asked questions
Direct answers to the questions that decide whether CTI is the right instrument for the question you have.
The Commercial Transformation Index (CTI) is an ongoing research and benchmarking methodology for measuring how organisations build, connect and operate the commercial systems through which customer and commercial value is created, converted and grown. It assesses ten commercial domains individually and the relationships between them. CTIndex.org is its public research and intelligence platform.
CTI measures the maturity, integration and performance of a commercial system. That means capability within each of the ten domains, the strength of the dependencies between them, the quality of evidence available in each area, and the whole-system maturity those produce. The output identifies where capability in one system is limiting the value produced in another.
ICP, Positioning, Pricing, Website, CRM, Marketing, Sales, Operations, Retention and Customer Success, and Automation. Nine of them occupy a position in the commercial system. Automation is assessed across the whole of it, because it changes what every other domain can do rather than sitting between two of them.
A CTI Score is the numerical result an organisation receives under a defined assessment mode and methodology version. It is a signal of commercial condition, not a prediction of financial performance, and it is only comparable with another score produced under the same mode. The validated score comes from the Full CTI Audit, on a 250 point scale.
Commercial maturity describes how a commercial system operates: how deliberately it is designed, how reliably it repeats, and how well its parts inform each other. It is a property of the system rather than a measure of effort or ambition, which is why two businesses with similar revenue can sit in very different bands.
Assessed capability is expressed as one of six Commercial Maturity Bands, from Critical to Optimised. A band describes how a commercial system currently operates rather than scoring the business as good or bad. The Full CTI Audit places that assessment on a validated 250 point scale.
Critical, Developing, Emerging, Capable, Advanced and Optimised. Each describes a different operating state, from material weakness that constrains performance through to a connected, measurable system with learning loops that keep improving it. The bands page sets out what each one means and what tends to move an organisation between them.
By four routes that differ in the evidence they rest on and how far into the commercial system they reach: the Free Website Audit, the In-Depth Website Audit, the Commercial Maturity Assessment and the Full CTI Audit. Start from the question you have rather than from the largest assessment available.
Both cover all ten domains. The Commercial Maturity Assessment combines observed website evidence with what you report about the business, and returns an indicative band in under half an hour. The Full CTI Audit rests on evidence an assessor has reviewed, returns a validated band and CTI score on the 250 point scale, and takes weeks.
It reads what your website already makes public: how clearly it explains what you do, who it says it is for, how it positions itself, what evidence it offers a buyer, how it converts, and how accurately an AI system can read and quote you. It needs nothing from you except a URL, and it takes minutes.
Four classes, and every reading states which it rests on. Observed evidence is gathered externally through scans and public sources. Self-reported evidence is what participants declare. Validated CTI evidence has been reviewed in a Full CTI Audit. Source-specific evidence comes from external market and sector sources. Evidence class describes how something is known, not how good it is.
Validation means an assessor has reviewed the underlying evidence rather than accepting what the organisation reports about itself. Only the Full CTI Audit produces validated findings. Other routes are labelled observed or indicative, and no reading is presented as more certain than the evidence behind it supports.
CTIndex.org is the public research and intelligence platform: it publishes the methodology, the findings and the commercial intelligence produced through CTI. CTIScore.com is the assessment and analysis infrastructure where organisations are analysed, scored, benchmarked and monitored. An assessment starts on CTIndex.org and runs on CTIScore.com.
CTI was developed by b10, a commercial transformation company. The methodology, the evidence rules and the publication thresholds are stated openly so any finding can be checked against them independently of the services sold around it.
b10 developed CTI and applies the resulting intelligence to commercial transformation. CTIndex.org publishes the research, CTIScore.com runs the assessments, and b10 is where organisations go to act on what either of them finds.