Equity story
The owners' view, prepared continuously rather than a week before the supervisory board. Its purpose is to evidence control, not only results.
Forecast track record
The headline equity-story metric: it proves the business is under control, not lucky.
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| KPI | The diligence question this answers | Cadence | Owner | Actual | Status |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Forecast Accuracy (rolling 8 quarters) | Demonstrates that the plan is predictive. A leading indicator that contradicts the trailing one is the honest disclosure a buyer pays for | Quarterly | Comm. Excellence | — | Not measurable |
| Pipeline Coverage (consolidated) | Substantiates the forward revenue claim with named opportunities, not extrapolation | Quarterly | Sales VP | 2.4x | Amber |
| DSO and Inventory Cover | Cash discipline. Overdue exposure in NAM and Asia is currently material | Quarterly | Finance | 9 d | Amber |
| Published Service Level | Operational reliability, benchmarked against competition rather than reported in isolation | Quarterly | Supply Chain | 97.9% | Green |
| Critical Talent & Succession Coverage | Answers the direct diligence question: what happens if a key person leaves | Semi-annual | HR / Sales VP | 2 | Red |
| Commercial Maturity Level | Beginner / Intermediate / Expert per playbook workstream, with the roadmap to the next level. The credible version of the story is a journey with evidence, not a claim of excellence everywhere | Semi-annual | Sales VP | — | Not measurable |
0 Expert · 5 Intermediate · 5 Beginner
Is there a credible journey, with evidence, or only a claim?
- 1. Commercial governance & execution disciplineIntermediate
Retire the two remaining overlapping forums; pre-reads mandatory for every review; action tracker closed monthly at ExCom.
- 2. Profitable growth, pricing & margin managementBeginner
Dedicated pricing/revenue-management lead; price history extract to make stickiness measurable; deal desk and approval policy with a documented challenge step.
- 3. Market/customer centricity & value sellingBeginner
Value-selling curriculum with certification; recurring competitor profiles from field input rather than trade-show impressions.
- 4. Commercial operating model & organizational clarityBeginner
Approved operating model and RACI; account ownership transferred where it prevents directors from leading; spans of control published.
- 5. Commercial Excellence, data & digital enablementBeginner
Close the opportunity-to-order data break; publish win rate per rep; one prioritised roadmap for pricing, CRM and analytics under named business owners.
- 6. Portfolio & product-launch governanceIntermediate
Launch-to-revenue tracking per product; portfolio pruning decision on the long tail of references.
- 7. Strategic accounts, partners & geographic growth platformsIntermediate
Top-5 penetration probes with customer-side evidence in every region; top-to-top cadence recorded; resource decision on the single-point-of-failure OEM lead.
- 8. Planning, forecasting & performance managementBeginner
Forecast accuracy measured from S&OP history and accumulated over eight rolling quarters; assumptions, risks and opportunities attached to every forecast.
- 9. Operational reliability, service & risk managementIntermediate
Publish the service level internally, then benchmark it against competition; DSO ownership per region with a monthly overdue review.
- 10. Talent, leadership & commercial capabilitiesIntermediate
Named ready successor for every critical role; coaching cadence between director and rep operating from CRM data; onboarding programme for new hires.