About
CTINDEX.org is the public research and intelligence platform for the Commercial Transformation Index (CTI). It publishes the framework, the methodology, the evidence rules and the commercial intelligence produced from them, so the model can be examined, checked and applied by anybody rather than only by the organisations that commission an assessment.
The Commercial Transformation Index was developed by b10, a commercial transformation company, which publishes CTINDEX.org.
Why CTI was created
CTI came out of commercial transformation work across sales, marketing, operations, technology and customer systems. The same pattern kept recurring: an organisation asked for help with the function where the symptom had appeared, and the cause was somewhere else entirely.
Marketing was asked to fix lead quality that a customer definition had already determined. Sales was asked to fix conversion that a positioning problem had already capped. Operations was asked to absorb commitments made without a mechanism to carry them. In each case the function under pressure was the one least able to change the outcome, and no functional review could show why, because the cause was in the relationship rather than in either function.
What CTI was built to measure
Frameworks that assess a single function assess it well. Digital capability models, operational process maturity and functional benchmarks each answer a real question. What none of them is designed to produce is evidence about the relationships between commercial systems, which is where a constraint most often sits and where it is hardest to see.
CTI was built for that specific gap: ten commercial domains, assessed individually and in relationship, with the class of evidence behind every reading recorded, and the method published so a finding can be checked against the rules that produced it.
The Commercial Transformation Index
A research and benchmarking methodology for measuring the maturity, integration and performance of a commercial system, across ten connected domains and the dependencies between them.
How it fits together
One measures, one publishes, one built it. The three are frequently confused, and the difference matters when you are deciding what a finding is worth, who produced it and who stands behind it.
Measurement
The measurement model itself: the ten commercial domains, the evidence rules, the maturity bands, the scale and the relationships between commercial systems. It is a methodology rather than a company or a product, and every assessment is an application of it.
Publication
The public research and intelligence platform for the Commercial Transformation Index. It publishes the framework, the methodology at a level anybody can examine, the evidence classes and publication rules, and the commercial intelligence produced from CTI research.
Developer and publisher
A commercial transformation company. b10 developed the Commercial Transformation Index out of transformation work across commercial systems, publishes CTINDEX.org, and provides advisory, implementation, transformation and managed services to organisations that decide to change something. That delivery is a separate commercial decision from an assessment result, and it does not determine a finding: the method is published, the evidence class is recorded against every reading, and publication thresholds are fixed before a result is known.
The research programme
Commercial Transformation Index research is produced from three sources: evidence from completed assessments where research use has been separately agreed, observed public evidence, and external contextual sources. An assessment does not become research data by being completed.
Evidence gathered in a CTI assessment belongs to the organisation that was assessed and is private by default. Research use is a recorded consent of its own rather than a condition of being assessed. Where it has been given, the evidence joins an aggregate alongside other organisations that share a sector, a size band or a market. No individual organisation, result or score is ever published, and a figure appears only where the cohort behind it clears CTI cohort suppression rules, with the population stated beside it.
Why the method is public
A framework that keeps its method private asks to be trusted. One that publishes what it assesses, what evidence it accepts, how a population is defined and what it declines to claim can be argued with, which is a stronger position to be in.
Published: the framework and the ten commercial domains, the methodology at the level a reader needs to judge it, the four evidence classes, the provenance and publication rules, the maturity model, and the research itself. Proprietary: the criterion architecture, the scoring anchors, the weighting and aggregation, and the analytical logic behind a finding. Publishing the arithmetic would let a result be engineered rather than earned.
Principles
Each of these is checkable against something already published on this site rather than asserted, which is the only form a commitment of this kind is worth making in.
Every CTI reading carries the class of evidence behind it: observed, self-reported, validated or source-specific. A conclusion that hides how it was reached cannot be relied on for a decision that matters.
What CTI assesses, what evidence it accepts and what it declines to claim are public, so the framework can be examined and argued with without commissioning anything.
A published figure carries the population it describes, the period it covers and what it cannot establish. Those are part of the finding rather than an appendix to it.
CTI exists to change a commercial decision. A finding that is methodologically immaculate and commercially useless has failed at its actual job.
Publication and cohort suppression thresholds are set before a result is known. That is what stops a threshold becoming an argument after the fact.
A figure found to be wrong is corrected against the publication, and a finding that can no longer be supported is withdrawn with the reason stated.
Ownership and funding
The framework is published, the evidence rules are published, and so is the commercial relationship behind them. Transparency about who owns and funds the work is part of what makes a finding readable.
The Commercial Transformation Index was developed by b10, which owns the framework and publishes CTINDEX.org. The methodology, the evidence classes, the maturity model and the publication rules are all published, so what is owned is visible rather than asserted.
Through commercial activity: assessments and audits, research and cohort work, and programmes commissioned by organisations, membership bodies and public bodies. That is stated because it is relevant to how a finding should be read.
The organisation that publishes the framework also sells assessments against it, and sells the delivery work an assessment might point toward. Pretending otherwise would be less credible than saying it. The safeguards are the ones published on this site: the method is public, the class of evidence is recorded against every finding, and publication thresholds are fixed before a result is known.
What the evidence establishes. Who commissions a piece of work does not change the published methodology, the evidence rules, or the requirement that a finding follows the evidence. A reading that was not supported cannot quietly become one that was, every assessment route publishes what it cannot establish, and the routing tools on this site recommend the free route whenever the free route is the right answer.
Read the methodology and the evidence rules, and hold any published CTI figure against them. Every publication states its methodology version, the population it describes and the period it covers, and corrections are recorded against the publication rather than applied silently. That is what publishing them is for.
Where the safeguards are written down
Who works with CTI
A programme funding commercial capability across a cohort, a research body studying a population, an industry body reporting on its membership and a business assessing itself are asking different questions of the same commercial methodology. Each has a different starting point, and each gets a different kind of evidence out of it.
Departments, agencies, economic development programmes and publicly funded business support commission CTI across a cohort: one commercial methodology applied to every participant, producing a comparable commercial baseline, the constraints that recur across the group, evidence for where support should be targeted, and reassessment that shows what actually moved. Aggregate reporting describes the cohort rather than any named participant.
The methodology, the evidence classes and the publication rules are published, so a research team can examine and apply the framework without commissioning anything, and can state in its own work exactly what a CTI figure does and does not establish. CTI analysis of an external public source is published as source-specific evidence attributed to that source, and collaboration is normally built around a defined population and a defined commercial research question.
Cohort research across a defined membership produces commercial intelligence about that population by one consistent method, with the cohort, the period and the evidence classes published beside every finding. It gives a membership body something few can offer: evidence about commercial capability among its members rather than sentiment about it, and a baseline that later research can be measured against.
From owner-managed companies through to mid-market groups, using the four assessment routes to answer a commercial question about themselves rather than to buy the largest assessment available. The free route reads what a website already makes public; the validated route examines all ten domains, the relationships between them and the evidence behind every finding, and produces the order in which to act.
Commercial diligence normally examines financial performance and market position. A CTI assessment examines whether the commercial system producing that performance is structured to keep producing it, across all ten domains and the dependencies between them, with the evidence behind each finding stated so the position can be tested rather than accepted. It is also a baseline a funder can measure a portfolio against later.
A diagnostic baseline before recommending or delivering anything, so the work is aimed at the actual constraint rather than at the symptom that was reported. CTI is the measurement layer and implementation is a separate decision, which is frequently the reason an advisor already working with an organisation uses it: an independent reading of the commercial system is easier to act on than one produced by the party proposing the work.
How organisations commission CTI across a population Contact CTI about an enquiry
Work with CTI
Programmes, organisations, investors, partners and research bodies each need a different starting point, so this routes you to one rather than presenting a contact form and hoping.
Answered in the page. Nothing is sent, and no contact details are requested.
Work with CTI
Organisations, investors, partners, researchers and media each need a different path.
Progress: Question 1 of 2
Questions and answers
Who created it, who publishes it, how it is funded, what is public and what stays proprietary, what happens to assessment information, and who can work with it.
A methodology. 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. The assessments commissioned against it are applications of the methodology rather than the thing itself.
CTINDEX.org is the public research and intelligence platform for the Commercial Transformation Index. It publishes the framework, the methodology at a level anybody can examine, the evidence classes and provenance rules, the maturity model, and the commercial intelligence produced from CTI research.
CTI was developed by b10, a commercial transformation company, out of transformation work across sales, marketing, operations, technology and customer systems. The same pattern kept recurring: the constraint sat between functions rather than inside the one showing the symptom, and no single functional view could evidence it.
b10 publishes CTINDEX.org, and CTI research is attributed to the Commercial Transformation Index as a research programme. Every publication states its methodology version, the population it describes, the period it covers and what it does not establish.
b10 developed the framework and provides commercial transformation and systems implementation services. Those services are a separate commercial decision from an assessment result. What a paying organisation cannot change is the method, which is published, the evidence class recorded against every finding, or the publication thresholds, which are fixed before a result is known.
By what is published rather than by what is asserted. The method is public, the class of evidence is recorded against every finding, publication and cohort suppression thresholds are fixed before a result is known, and corrections are recorded against the publication rather than applied silently. Every one of those is checkable against this site without commissioning anything.
Through commercial activity: assessments and audits, research and cohort work, and programmes commissioned by organisations, membership bodies and public bodies. That is stated because it is relevant to how a finding should be read. Who commissions a piece of work does not change the published methodology, the evidence rules, or the requirement that a finding follows the evidence.
Published: the framework, the ten domains, the methodology at a public-safe level, the four evidence classes, provenance and publication rules, the maturity model, and the research itself. Proprietary: the criterion architecture, scoring anchors, weighting, aggregation and the analytical logic behind a finding. Publishing the arithmetic would let a result be engineered rather than earned.
Evidence from completed assessments where research use has been separately agreed, observed public evidence, and external contextual sources. An individual assessment does not automatically become research data. Nothing published identifies a participant, and a figure is published only where the cohort behind it clears CTI cohort suppression rules, with the population stated beside it.
It belongs to that organisation and is private by default. No individual organisation, result or score is ever published. Research use is a separate recorded consent rather than a condition of being assessed, and what reaches publication is an aggregate that has cleared CTI cohort suppression rules.
Yes. One consistent methodology applied across participating organisations produces a comparable commercial baseline, identifies the constraints that recur across a cohort, supports targeting intervention, and allows movement to be measured by reassessment rather than reported from activity. Aggregate reporting describes the cohort, never a named participant.
Yes. Applying CTI across a defined membership produces intelligence about that population by one consistent method, with the cohort, the period and the evidence classes published alongside the finding. That is the route that also produces source-specific intelligence about a named body of evidence.
Yes. The methodology is published so it can be examined and applied without commissioning anything, and CTI analysis of an external public source is published as source-specific evidence attributed to that source. Collaboration is normally about a defined population and a defined question.
Yes. A Full CTI Audit examines whether the commercial system producing an organisation’s numbers is structured to keep producing them, with the evidence behind each finding stated so the position can be tested rather than accepted.
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. CTI measures it across ten connected commercial domains and the dependencies between them, and expresses the result as one of six Commercial Maturity Bands, from Critical to Optimised.
Yes. Applying one commercial methodology across a defined cohort, whether that is a region, a sector, a membership or a programme intake, produces a comparable baseline for that population and shows which commercial constraints recur across it. Published findings describe the population, carry the cohort and the period beside the figure, and never identify a participant.
Yes. Every publication states its methodology version, population and period so it can be quoted accurately. Corrections are recorded against the publication rather than applied silently, and a finding that can no longer be supported is withdrawn with the reason stated.