In cross-border projects, the most frequent cause of a stall is not technical. It is organisational. A single accountable point of contact makes a measurable difference.
When an international opportunity cools, the instinct is to look for the cause in the market, the pricing or the competitor. In most real cases, however, the cause is more mundane and more fixable: too many people involved without clear ownership. It is the moment when the client receives emails from four different people at the same supplier, each with partial information and a slightly different agenda. It is the moment when a proposal is reviewed by three departments without anyone owning the responsibility of taking it to the client. It is the moment when the local partner waits for an answer that never comes, because internally it is not clear who should give it.
Fragmentation costs more than it appears
The cost of fragmentation is rarely measured directly, though it can be framed with reasonable precision. Three typical items:
- Longer sales cycles. Ebsta’s analysis of 4.2 million opportunities puts B2B sales cycles roughly 38% longer than in 2021; in cross-border projects, where the number of counterparts multiplies, the effect compounds.
- Opportunities lost to stalling. Research by Dixon and McKenna, published in Harvard Business Review, finds that between 40% and 60% of qualified B2B deals end in no decision rather than a competitive loss: no explicit refusal, simply the absence of a next step.
- Erosion of trust with local partners. Partners who do not get answers start investing their attention elsewhere, with a cumulative effect that is difficult to reverse.
What a Commercial SPOC is
A Commercial SPOC — single point of contact — is a single access point for the client and for local partners on everything concerning the account: account management, business development, proposals, delivery, after-sales support. Internally the SPOC involves whichever specialists are needed; externally, the voice is one. The client never has to wonder who to write to.
Accountability
The SPOC is responsible for the progress of the deal, not only for managing the relationship. That means having the authority — and the responsibility — to force internal decisions when necessary, to revise proposals, to request additional resources, to escalate when the deal requires it.
Continuity
The SPOC is the same person from the opening of the opportunity to its close, and ideally remains the reference point through delivery. That continuity is what spares the client from rebuilding the context for every new counterpart. It is also what allows the SPOC to develop a deep knowledge of the client that becomes, over time, a competitive asset.
Why the classic split between relationship and delivery fails across borders
Many mature B2B organisations are structured with a clean separation between the commercial phase and the delivery phase: account manager or sales lead for the first, project manager or operations for the second. The model works reasonably well domestically, where proximity and a shared language absorb the handover.
Across borders, the same handover becomes a structural fault line. A client accustomed to dealing with one person during the sale suddenly finds themselves facing two or three other counterparts during delivery, often in different time zones and with different levels of familiarity with the project. The result is a perception of discontinuity that weakens the relationship precisely when it should be consolidating.
The SPOC model closes that fault line by keeping the external voice single while preserving internal specialisation.
When the SPOC model is overkill
Not every situation requires a dedicated Commercial SPOC. For very small, transactional projects with a single client contact and no intermediate partner, the organisational complexity it introduces is not justified. The practical threshold is reasonably clear: a SPOC makes sense when the deal involves more than two internal functions, at least one local partner, or a sales cycle longer than three months. Below those thresholds, lighter models work just as well.
How to build it in practice
Implementing a SPOC model requires three concrete steps. First, define explicitly which deals or accounts receive a dedicated SPOC — the rule has to be clear, not discretionary. Second, give the SPOC coordination authority, not merely communication responsibility: without real authority the role hollows out within months. Third, build an internal cadence that lets the SPOC keep the functions involved aligned — typically a weekly thirty-minute call with the relevant specialists.
These steps look simple. The reason many organisations do not adopt them is not technical but political. Concentrating authority in a single figure means accepting that internal functions lose a degree of direct control over key clients. Organisations that overcome that resistance see measurable benefits. Those that do not keep paying the cost of fragmentation, often without noticing.
The underlying principle: clarity is speed
The whole SPOC model rests on a simple idea: in an international context, organisational clarity is a form of competitive speed. Every email routed to the wrong recipient, every proposal waiting on an unassigned approval, every partner unsure who to contact is an opportunity slowing down. Concentrating the point of contact gives that speed back.
It is not an organisational revolution. It is a choice of discipline, with measurable effects on time to close, conversion rate and the quality of long-term relationships.
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