Commercial Maturity Assessment
The Commercial Maturity Assessment is a self-paced assessment of how your whole commercial system operates, across all ten domains of the Commercial Transformation Index (CTI). It combines observed evidence from your public website with what you report about the systems that cannot be seen from outside, and returns an indicative Commercial Maturity Band with a ten-domain profile: where capability is strongest, where the system is constrained, and which evidence each conclusion rests on.
It combines observed and self-reported evidence, so the result is indicative rather than validated. It is not the Full CTI Audit and does not convert into one.
How a commercial maturity profile is formed
The model
Commercial maturity describes how reliably an organisation's commercial system operates as a whole: how deliberately it is designed, how consistently it repeats without depending on individuals, how well its parts connect and inform each other, and how much of it can be evidenced. It is a property of the system rather than a measure of size, revenue or effort, which is why two organisations of similar size can sit in different bands.
The Commercial Transformation Index (CTI) measures commercial maturity across ten commercial domains, individually and in the relationships between them, and expresses the result as one of six Commercial Maturity Bands. It is the same model whether the evidence is self-reported or reviewed; what changes is the confidence the result can carry. A Commercial Maturity Assessment is the self-paced route to that result: broad enough to cover the whole system, precise about which evidence class each conclusion rests on, and indicative rather than validated. Where organisations search for a business maturity assessment, this is the commercial-system form of it: it measures how the system that creates, converts and grows customer value operates, not the maturity of the business as a whole.
Why a whole-system view
Assessed one at a time, commercial functions tend to report themselves as performing. Marketing delivers volume. Sales works the pipeline it is given. Operations delivers what it receives. Each can be telling the truth about itself.
The constraint often sits in what passes between them: a handoff that drops context, an incentive that rewards the wrong customer, evidence that never returns to the system that needs it, a dependency nobody owns. A function is rarely positioned to see that on its own, and a function-by-function review tends to confirm what each already believes. A whole-system assessment reads the ten domains together and the relationships between them, which is why this one covers all ten rather than the two or three you already suspect.
Evidence classes
CTI classifies every piece of evidence as one of four classes: Observed, Self-reported, Validated CTI evidence or Source-specific. The Commercial Maturity Assessment uses two of them. Three of the ten domains make themselves visible from outside, as far as public evidence allows; the other seven can only be accounted for by someone inside the organisation. The assessment holds both classes, labels each, and combines them into a broader picture than either could give alone.
Evidence classes used in this assessment Observed Self-reported
Coverage
Nine describe stages and systems in the commercial cycle. Automation is assessed as a layer acting across all of them, because automating an unreliable process multiplies the unreliability. Each domain is assessed on its own terms and read alongside the others, and each carries the evidence class it rests on: Website, ICP and Positioning combine what the website makes visible with what you report; the other seven rest on what you report.
How precisely the organisation defines the customers most likely to buy, create value and remain valuable.
Observed + Self-reportedHow clearly and consistently the business communicates who it serves, what problem it solves and why it is meaningfully different.
Observed + Self-reportedHow deliberately pricing, packaging, discounting and value capture are governed.
Self-reportedHow effectively the website creates commercial clarity, visibility, trust, conversion and machine-readable evidence.
Observed + Self-reportedHow reliably commercial data, customer context, opportunities and next actions are managed.
Self-reportedHow consistently the organisation creates, captures, qualifies and measures commercially relevant demand.
Self-reportedHow consistently opportunities are qualified, progressed, followed up and converted.
Self-reportedHow reliably work, commitments, ownership and exceptions move after commercial agreement.
Self-reportedHow systematically customers are onboarded, supported, retained, expanded and learned from.
Self-reportedHow intelligently repetitive movement, triggers and system connections reduce manual dependency.
Self-reportedWhat it asks
Nothing here requires you to look anything up. The assessment asks how systems behave, because commercial maturity is established from operating behaviour, repeatability, handoffs, decision-making, system connection and evidence rather than from the figures a business reports about itself. Figures still matter; they are what a mature system produces, not what defines it, and a figure reported without the behaviour behind it says little about whether it will repeat.
The criterion wording, anchors and weighting used inside CTI remain proprietary. What is described here is the shape of the enquiry. Move across an area, or focus it, to see the kind of behaviour it asks about.
How precisely the right customer is defined, how consistently that definition governs targeting and qualification, and whether won and lost business is compared back against it.
What it asks about Repeatability and evidence: does one definition govern every team, and is it corrected by what actually converts and stays?
How consistently the proposition is stated, whether the claimed difference can be checked, and how price is set, defended and governed.
What it asks about Consistency and decision-making: would three people give the same reason to choose you, and who decides a discount?
What the website establishes without help, how marketing activity connects to commercial outcome, and whether the two are measured against the same definition of value.
What it asks about Connection: does demand generation know what a good customer is, and does the website carry the same argument?
Whether the record reflects reality, whether the process repeats without the individual, and whether the pipeline can be trusted enough to make decisions from.
What it asks about Repeatability and evidence: what happens after an opportunity qualifies, and would the forecast survive the departure of one person?
How commitments made commercially reach delivery, how reliably they are met, and whether the evidence returns to the systems that made them.
What it asks about Handoffs: does information move between sales, delivery and customer teams without chasing or re-keying?
Where automation acts across the system, and whether the processes underneath it are reliable enough to be worth multiplying.
What it asks about System connection: which processes are integrated, which are monitored, and which still depend on a person noticing?
How maturity is established
Four rules govern every result, and they are the same rules the Full CTI Audit applies to reviewed evidence. They are what make an indicative profile from a self-paced assessment worth planning from, and what keep it honest about its limits.
Maturity is established from how systems behave: whether a process repeats without the person who built it, whether handoffs hold, whether decisions rest on evidence. Owning a tool is not evidence of maturity; operating a system reliably is.
Every input is observed or self-reported, and the label travels with the finding it supports. Self-reported evidence is self-reported; never presented as audited fact.
Each domain is assessed on its own and read alongside the others, so a strong average cannot hide a single domain constraining the value produced elsewhere.
The six Commercial Maturity Bands, from Critical to Optimised, are the same states the Full CTI Audit uses. An indicative band and a validated band describe the same state; they differ in what stands behind them.
How it works
Observed evidence is gathered before you start, so part of the picture is independent of what you report about the business. The rest is completed at your own pace, and each stage carries the evidence class or result class it produces.
Your website is read first
Observed evidence is gathered from your public website before you answer anything, so part of the picture exists independently of what you report.
Observed
You answer across ten domains
Questions about how systems behave, not about figures you would need to look up. Your answers are labelled as self-reported wherever a finding rests on them.
Self-reported
You set the pace
The assessment can be paused and resumed, and it is designed for one person who can see across commercial functions rather than for a survey of every team.
Self-paced
You receive the profile
An indicative band, a ten-domain profile, your strongest capability, your clearest constraint and the appropriate next route.
Indicative
What you receive
A single maturity figure would tell you very little. What changes a commercial decision is knowing where the system is strongest, where it is most constrained, and which evidence each of those rests on. Each result below carries the evidence class or result class it belongs to.
Which of the six bands your commercial system currently behaves like, labelled indicative because it rests on observed and self-reported evidence rather than reviewed evidence.
Indicative resultHow capability varies across the ten domains, so a strong average does not conceal a single domain constraining everything downstream of it.
Observed + Self-reportedThe domain carrying the most commercial capability, named specifically enough to protect during whatever changes next.
Observed + Self-reportedThe domain most likely limiting value produced elsewhere, with the relationship that carries the limitation made explicit.
Observed + Self-reportedThe points at which what your website establishes and what you report about the business diverge. A difference is a signal worth examining, and it is often the most useful line in the result.
Observed against Self-reportedWhether the answer you need is already in this result, or whether the question you are asking requires reviewed evidence and a validated position.
Indicative resultThe most useful signal
Most organisations describe a commercial system that is more coherent than the one their website presents. That is not dishonesty. It is the ordinary distance between how a business understands itself and how it currently expresses that understanding.
The assessment can show that distance because it holds both classes of evidence at once. A difference is not automatically a fault: it is a discrepancy signal, and which way it runs changes what it means. Open each case below.
The organisation reports capability the market cannot yet see. Frequently the fastest improvement available: the capability exists and the website has not caught up with it.
The public argument runs ahead of what the organisation says it can operate. Worth examining before demand is added, because the site is making a promise the system may not keep.
What is visible matches what is reported. Agreement is not proof, and the result says so, but it means the profile can be read with more confidence than either class alone would give.
The result
Your result names the band your commercial system currently behaves like. There are 6, from Critical to Optimised, and each describes how a commercial system operates rather than how good the business is. The same six states are used by the Full CTI Audit.
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.
Lower assessed capability Higher assessed capability
This assessment returns an indicative band. A validated band comes from a Full CTI Audit, where the evidence behind it has been reviewed. The band descriptions above are the canonical CTI definitions, unchanged across every route that uses them. Read what each band describes.
Indicative and validated
Both results describe the same six states. What separates them is what stands behind each one, and therefore what each result can legitimately be used to support.
This assessment
Covers all ten domains using observed website evidence and your own account of the systems that cannot be seen from outside. The result is meaningful, it is labelled indicative, and it is enough to plan from and to decide where to look next.
Full CTI Audit
Covers the same ten domains and the relationships between them against evidence an assessor has reviewed. It returns a validated band and a CTI score on the 250 point scale, with cross-domain constraint analysis.
An indicative result is enough to plan from and to decide where to look. A decision that will be examined by somebody else, an investor, a board, an acquirer or a leadership team that does not yet agree, needs the reviewed evidence behind a validated one. Many organisations complete the assessment first and progress to the audit when the decision requires it. See the Full CTI Audit.
Who should complete it
A founder, managing director, commercial director or head of revenue. It does not require input from every team, and it is not a survey circulated internally. It asks about behaviour, which is what an operator can answer accurately.
Your information
Individual results are not published. Responses contribute to CTI intelligence only in aggregate, within cohorts large enough that no organisation can be identified from a figure, and only under the consent you give for research use, which is separate from any marketing consent. This is how self-reported evidence becomes part of the CTI evidence base without any organisation being exposed.
Before you start
If your question is about what a validated result would add, the Full CTI Audit page sets out exactly what evidence review changes.
A Commercial Maturity Assessment is a self-paced Commercial Transformation Index (CTI) assessment of how a whole commercial system operates across all ten CTI domains. It combines what can be observed about your organisation from outside with what you report about the systems that cannot be seen, and returns an indicative Commercial Maturity Band, a ten-domain profile, your strongest capability and your clearest constraint.
Commercial maturity describes how deliberately a commercial system is designed, how reliably it repeats without depending on individuals, how well its parts connect and inform each other, and how much of it can be evidenced. It is a property of the system rather than a measure of size, revenue or effort, which is why two businesses of similar size can sit in different bands.
ICP, Positioning, Pricing, Website, CRM, Marketing, Sales, Operations, Retention and Customer Success, and Automation. Nine of them describe a stage or system in the commercial cycle. Automation is assessed as a layer acting across all of them, because automating an unreliable process multiplies the unreliability.
By how systems behave rather than by whether tools exist. In each domain the assessment asks about maturity state, operating behaviour, consistency, coverage and confidence in outcomes: whether a process repeats without the person who built it, whether handoffs hold, whether decisions rest on evidence. Answers are combined with observed website evidence into a profile across the ten domains and an indicative band.
Yes. It is completed at your own speed, can be saved and resumed, and is designed for one person who can see across commercial functions rather than for a survey circulated to every team.
No fixed time is promised because it is self-paced. It asks a bounded set of questions across the ten domains about how systems behave, none of which require you to look figures up, and it can be paused and resumed. Most people can answer a domain in a few minutes.
Two classes. Observed evidence is gathered from your public website before you answer anything: the Website domain, and the ICP and Positioning signals it makes public. Self-reported evidence is what you report about the domains that cannot be seen from outside. Each is labelled as such wherever a finding rests on it.
Observed evidence is gathered from public sources without your input: what a buyer, a search engine or an AI system can establish from your website. It is externally verifiable, carries an automated confidence measure and exists in the assessment independently of what you report. Self-reported evidence is your own account of how your commercial system operates: how it behaves, how consistently it repeats and how connected it is. It is never presented as audited fact, it is labelled wherever a finding rests on it, and it is held against observed evidence where the two overlap. CTI recognises two further classes, Validated CTI Evidence and Source-specific evidence, and this assessment uses neither.
It is the commercial-system form of one. A business maturity assessment usually grades an organisation as a whole. The Commercial Maturity Assessment measures one system inside it: the ten commercial domains through which customer and commercial value is created, converted and grown, and the relationships between them. That narrower scope is what makes the result specific enough to act on, because it names where in the system capability is strongest and where the constraint sits.
No. The result is indicative because it rests on observed and self-reported evidence rather than evidence an assessor has reviewed. Combining the two classes widens the picture; it does not validate it. A validated band and a CTI score come from a Full CTI Audit.
It means the result is meaningful enough to plan from and to decide where to look, and is labelled so nobody presents it as reviewed evidence. Indicative and validated results use the same six Commercial Maturity Bands, and they differ in what stands behind them rather than in the vocabulary.
Yes, an indicative one. Your result names which of the six Commercial Maturity Bands, from Critical to Optimised, your commercial system currently behaves like, together with a profile across the ten domains showing where capability is strongest and where it is most constrained.
No. A CTI score is produced from reviewed evidence on the 250 point scale in a Full CTI Audit. The Commercial Maturity Assessment returns an indicative band and a profile, and neither converts into a CTI score.
Yes, and it is designed that way. A founder, managing director, commercial director or head of revenue who can see across functions can complete it. It asks about behaviour rather than figures, so it does not require input from every team.
Your result is yours and is not published. Your responses contribute to CTI intelligence only in aggregate, within cohorts large enough that no organisation can be identified, and only under the consent you give for research use, which is separate from any marketing consent. The privacy notice and the data and sources page set this out in full.
Same ten domains, different evidence and different use. The Commercial Maturity Assessment is self-paced and rests on observed and self-reported evidence, so its result is indicative and suited to planning and prioritisation. The Full CTI Audit is assessor-led, reviews the supporting evidence across all ten domains and their dependencies, and returns a validated Commercial Maturity Band and a CTI score on the 250 point scale, for decisions that will be examined by others. Many organisations complete the assessment first and progress to the audit when a decision needs a validated position.