Pietsch and POWERING Receive Brandon Hall Group Excellence Award for Commercial Excellence Academy
The Commercial Excellence Academy developed by Pietsch Group in collaboration with POWERING has been recognized with a Brandon Hall Group Excellence Award. The award acknowledges a comprehensive transformation initiative that combined leadership development, sales capability building, CRM-enabled execution, and structured performance management to accelerate growth within high-potential customer accounts.
Turning Growth Potential into a Structured Commercial Approach
The initiative originated from a clear business challenge. Pietsch identified significant untapped growth opportunities within its existing customer base and sought a more systematic approach to developing high-potential accounts.
To establish a fact-based understanding of improvement opportunities, Pietsch and POWERING conducted a comprehensive assessment that included interviews with sales leaders and sales representatives, field observations during customer visits, and workshops with key stakeholders across the organization.
The assessment revealed several capability areas that would be critical to unlocking sustainable growth:
- Customer prioritization
- Needs discovery
- Value-based selling
- Account planning
- Consistent follow-up and execution
At the same time, it became evident that long-term success would depend heavily on sales leadership. Managers needed structured coaching routines, common ways of working, and practical management tools to support execution and reinforce behavioral change in the field.
Building a Commercial Excellence Academy
Based on these insights, Pietsch and POWERING designed a Commercial Excellence Academy consisting of two interconnected learning journeys: one for field sales teams and one for sales leaders.
The Academy was embedded within the broader Commercial Excellence transformation roadmap and closely linked to CRM-supported processes, performance management practices, and customer development workflows. This integration ensured that newly acquired capabilities could be applied immediately in daily sales activities rather than remaining isolated training concepts.
A particular emphasis was placed on leadership enablement. Sales leaders were equipped to conduct structured cadence meetings, review account opportunities, provide targeted coaching, and establish greater transparency around customer development efforts.
At the same time, field sales teams worked directly on their own customers, opportunities, and account plans throughout the learning journey. Regular coaching sessions and follow-up activities ensured continuous application and reinforcement of new skills.
Creating Sustainable Commercial Impact
The initiative resulted in a more systematic approach to identifying customer needs, broader adoption of account planning practices, and improved execution within high-potential accounts. Equally important, it established leadership and coaching structures designed to support sustained performance improvement beyond the duration of the program.
For both Pietsch and POWERING, the project demonstrates the impact that can be achieved when capability development, leadership engagement, sales processes, and technology are aligned within a unified Commercial Excellence framework.
The Brandon Hall Group Excellence Award serves as external recognition of this integrated approach and highlights the value of combining organizational development with practical execution to drive sustainable commercial growth.
