Article
Automatic Corporate Hierarchy Mapping Across Systems for B2B Sales Efficiency
In recent blogs, we’ve looked at several ways your sales and marketing teams can win by mapping B2B hierarchies across CRM and marketing automation systems. From optimizing your ABM strategy to actually identifying buying groups, B2B hierarchy mapping is a critical tool for ascertaining the insights necessary to maximizing the fruits of your GTM efforts. In this blog, let’s explore how B2B hierarchy mapping can be highly advantageous to sales teams in particular, and consider the numerous hurdles that stop sales teams encounter as a result of not having hierarchies mapped across their Total Addressable Market (TAM) within their existing customer and prospecting systems. So, how exactly does hierarchy mapping increase the productivity of B2B sales teams?
A B2B sales team can significantly enhance productivity with hierarchy mapping by gaining a complete view of organizational relationships. Many large companies operate through complex structures involving parent organizations, subsidiaries, and various divisions. By mapping these hierarchies, sales teams can identify the key decision-makers and influencers within the broader company network. This enables them to engage the right stakeholders, coordinate outreach efforts, and prioritize high-value opportunities that might otherwise be overlooked. A unified understanding of how entities are interconnected helps sales reps avoid duplicating efforts and ensures they focus on the most impactful accounts.
Improved account prioritization is another major benefit of hierarchy mapping. There are nearly 9M companies with multiple subsidiaries, headquarters or sites – representing 36M sites overall. The U.S. government for example has over 66K separate entities. With a clear view of organizational structures, sales teams can accurately attribute opportunities to the right accounts and assess their potential value. For example, rather than treating multiple subsidiaries as separate opportunities, reps can approach the parent company with a strategic, consolidated proposal. This reduces the time spent chasing low-impact leads and allows sales reps to focus on larger, multi-faceted deals. Additionally, understanding how smaller accounts fit into the larger hierarchy ensures that no opportunity is missed within the broader ecosystem.
Hierarchy mapping also enables tighter alignment between sales and marketing teams. Marketing efforts, such as campaigns or Account-Based Marketing (ABM), can be better targeted and personalized when hierarchies are well-defined. For instance, if a marketing campaign generates a lead from a subsidiary, sales can immediately trace it back to the parent organization and leverage existing relationships to accelerate the deal. This seamless handoff between marketing and sales eliminates redundancies, ensures consistent messaging, and boosts conversion rates. Such alignment reduces friction and allows both teams to work toward shared goals more efficiently.
Finally, hierarchy mapping supports data-driven decision-making and planning. Sales managers can use this data to identify cross-selling and upselling opportunities across different entities within the hierarchy. For example, if one division of a company is a satisfied customer, sales teams can more confidently pursue other divisions or subsidiaries. Additionally, hierarchy mapping improves sales forecasting and territory planning by providing a clearer picture of how revenue streams are connected. This leads to more accurate resource allocation, better sales strategies, and a streamlined sales process. By eliminating guesswork, hierarchy mapping empowers sales teams to work smarter, not harder.
While the benefits of hierarchy mapping are extremely significant and sought after, most organizations in the B2B world still haven’t achieved a comprehensive solution to mapping hierarchies across their existing systems. When B2B sales teams lack properly mapped hierarchies between their Customer Relationship Management (CRM) and Marketing Automation platforms, they should expect to face several challenges that can greatly hinder (or completely halt) their efficiency, effectiveness, and alignment. Let’s consider some of the problems those B2B sales teams are facing as a direct, or indirect, result of not having hierarchies mapped across their CRM and Marketing Automation platforms:
Misaligned Sales and Marketing Efforts
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