Guiding Your Business to Growth: RGA’s AI-Centric Operating Model for Sales

Introducing the Expedition Operating Model and Big Brain Architecture

Executive Summary

• Traditional approaches to sales transformation are failing because they layer AI onto flawed foundations rather than reimagining how enterprises connect products and services to customers.
• Revenue Growth Associates’ Expedition Operating Model and Big Brain (AI-Centric) Architecture offer a revolutionary paradigm: an AI-first approach that transforms, how revenue teams work while naturally reducing complexity and costs.
• Early adopters who embrace this transformation will set new standards for sales excellence and operational efficiency that others will struggle to match.

Does this sound familiar? Your enterprise has spent millions on the latest sales tools, training programs, and enablement initiatives.  You’ve invested heavily in sales and revenue operations.  Your CRM centric tech stack has all the latest features. You’ve rolled out a formal sales methodology. Your processes are documented. And yet… Annual planning is a nightmare. Your sellers still struggle with what to sell, where to sell it, and how to sell it – especially when you release new offerings or make a strategic acquisition.  Your forecasts are still unreliable.  Your quota-per-rep modeling assumptions haven’t improved.  Your sellers are frustrated by endless non-selling tasks and organizational bottlenecks that prevent them from delivering the value, experience and outcomes customers expect. Your cost of sales is too high, and you can’t wrap your head around who’s doing what sometimes.  You struggle to distinguish between great sellers and ‘fortunate’ sellers.  Your revenue engine still feels like it’s dependent upon the heroic efforts of a few versus enabling everyone for success.  And of course, despite all this, you’re still expected to make your number and grow revenue!

Why is this more the norm than the exception? It’s because we’ve been solving the wrong problem. The fundamental challenge isn’t about adding more tools, training, processes or people—it’s about fundamentally reimagining how enterprises connect what they make to customers who see value and will pay for it in an AI-first world.

“The fundamental challenge isn’t about adding more tools, training, processes or people —it’s about fundamentally reimagining how enterprises connect what they make to customers who see value and will pay for it in an AI-first world.”

Starting from First Principles

If you’re a revenue leader today, ask yourself this question: If you were designing your operating model and technology stack from scratch, knowing what you know now about AI’s potential, would you build what you have today?

The answer, for most, is a resounding “No.”

This reality demands we return to first principles. Instead of asking how to enhance or automate existing processes with AI, we must ask more fundamental questions: What are we really trying to achieve? What’s the most direct path between what we make and customers who will pay for it? How would we design these connections if we were starting with a clean sheet of paper in an AI-first world?

The Hairball of Today: Why Incremental Fixes Won’t Work

The current enterprise approach to sales technology and processes has created what we call the “enterprise hairball”—a tangled patchwork of legacy systems, SaaS tools, and methodologies that’s becoming increasingly difficult to manage. While vendors rush to add AI features to existing tools and new AI point solutions proliferate daily, these incremental fixes just add complexity to an already overburdened system. 

Consider this: The average organization today uses 112+ different SaaS applications, up dramatically over the last decade. Yet despite these investments, critical pain points persist:

“Each new tool or process added to address one problem often creates new complications elsewhere. It’s time for a fundamentally different approach.”

Why Now: AI as the Catalyst for Change

We have a unique moment of opportunity. Recent breakthroughs in AI capabilities—from large language models to sophisticated agent architectures—have created possibilities that were not possible (or even imaginable) just a few years ago. These advances aren’t just incremental improvements; they represent a fundamental shift in what’s possible.

Many of your customers are already embracing AI — using tools like ChatGPT and Perplexity to research solutions, draft detailed RFPs, and evaluate vendors before your sellers even know there’s an opportunity. This convergence of technological capability and market readiness creates a stark choice for sales organizations: change the status quo or be left behind.

This imperative for change demands more than just incremental improvements—it requires a comprehensive framework designed specifically for an AI-first era. This is where Revenue Growth Associates’ Expedition Operating Model comes in, offering a blueprint for enterprises ready to embrace this transformational opportunity.

The Power of the Expedition Operating Model

Just as explorers need a well-planned approach to navigate challenging terrain, enterprises require a robust framework to tackle the complexities of modern sales. The Expedition Operating Model is RGA’s thought-leading framework for an enterprises’ revenue-generating function(s). It demonstrates how things should and can work in an AI-first world. This isn’t about layering another tool onto your tech stack—it’s about reimagining how you can achieve sales and growth objectives when you’re no longer constrained by the limitations of traditional processes, organizational structures, and systems.

A Practical Path Forward

Historically speaking, making changes to an enterprise-wide operating model was viewed as a daunting and disruptive thing to do, often requiring extensive time to plan, enable, deploy, teach, and reinforce.  And it often required bringing in an army of expensive consultants to help manage the change.   This is yet another legacy paradigm that AI allows you to rethink. And it’s why we have designed the deployment approach for the Expedition Operating Model to work differently.  Our approach is to start off by ‘leveraging’ what you have in place and what you are using and doing today – which helps ensure business continuity while minimizing disruption to your in-progress execution against your current plan of record.   However, and this is key, all new development will be aligned with the design of your future-state operating model.  The benefit of this approach is that the new ways of working you start to roll out to sellers or others in the revenue performance ecosystem will allow you to address real-world pain points from a root-cause perspective.  Which means people won’t have to learn yet another band-aid solution or one-off tool intended to address a symptom that shouldn’t exist in the first place!  As time progresses, you will start to find that much – maybe most – of what you have in place today doesn’t really make sense anymore – at least in the form of a standalone applications or tools.  Why?  Because AI allows you to do things differently, and much more effectively.  Here are just a few of the benefits associated with the approach we recommend:

• Start with Clarity and Vision:
  Our Strategic Visual Blueprint methodology, AI-Centric Reference Architecture, and Expedition Operating Model ensure you start on the right foot. These tools provide a clear roadmap—ensuring everyone knows where you’re headed, why it matters, and the exciting opportunities ahead. This level of clarity is essential for achieving buy-in, alignment, and effective change management.
• Deliver Quick Wins to Build Momentum:
  Confidence and momentum are critical to success, which is why we recommend the Expedition Daily Briefing as the first key deliverable. This tool not only provides immediate value to sellers but also acts as a UI/UX shield, protecting them (and other roles) from the complexities of underlying changes to the tech stack and operating model. By isolating users from operational complexity, you ensure a smoother transition while demonstrating early success.
• Develop and Elevate the Team:
  Every skilled guide shares a common goal: helping their team reach the desired destination safely while teaching valuable skills along the way. In an enterprise setting, this means that as you advance toward an AI-first future, it’s critical to bring others along, foster team development, and promote cohesion and problem-solving. While AI is transformative, it will not eliminate the need for humans in enterprise sales. Instead, it will redefine what humans need to do and the skills they need to succeed. Our approach ensures your teams are prepared for these changes, making human development a core part of AI-driven transformation.

Agentic AI: The Engine of Transformation

As previously mentioned, the Big Brain reference architecture – and the Expedition Operating Model – are powered and enabled by Agentic AI—intelligent agents that don’t just respond to queries but actively work toward goals, make decisions, and take initiative. In an AI-first landscape, instead of relying on monolithic SaaS applications or a host of other disconnected tools, you’ll define and create desired business outcomes by assembling an ecosystem of intelligent agents and agent networks under a unified orchestration layer in alignment with your future-state operating model.

While some may be telling you to not take a DIY (do it yourself) approach to AI – we feel differently.  Sure, you don’t want to build things like LLMs, or vector database software, or orchestration software – which are essential and foundational building block components – but most if not all the hyperscale players as well as many other tech firms are the ones driving innovating in these areas.  They also offer robust and relatively easy to use AI-centric development environments that make the actual ‘agentic assembly’ process relatively straightforward when aligned with a reference architecture like our Big Brain framework.  In fact, we have already inventoried the different architecturally aligned components you might need depending on your preferred hyperscale or tech provider(s) – so you can use our recommendations as a starting point. 

This new paradigm will also foster – or really, continue to foster – an ecosystem of ‘plug-and-play’ intelligent agents and LLM enhancement modules, designed to be seamlessly assembled, integrated, upgraded, or replaced as better options emerge. Additionally, LLMs will continue to evolve in ways that expand their reasoning and workflow management capabilities, and perhaps one day soon, we will start hearing about AGI.  All this innovation is incredibly exciting, however, the sheer abundance within this ecosystem presents a unique challenge: it’s easy to get lost or distracted by ‘shiny objects’ without a clear vision of where you’re headed, your desired future operating model, and the outcomes you aim to deliver.

“The shift to AI-first operations doesn’t just transform how work gets done—it fundamentally simplifies your technology landscape while reducing costs.”

Three Critical Insights for the AI Age

1. Simply Adding AI to Existing Tools Won’t Work: Most have heard the expression that talks about the folly of “putting lipstick on a pig”.  While it might make the pig look incrementally better, it’s still a pig.  The same holds true when thinking about AI enhancements to your legacy tech stack.  For the subset of legacy systems or tools you can’t live without for a while – upgrading to an AI-enhanced version might make sense if it allows them to be integrated with your AI-centric operating model.  However, many other legacy tools that are now being incrementally upgraded by adding a gen-AI wrapper – ‘lipstick’ – might not make sense long term if all they do is address a need or pain point your future AI architecture and operating model will eliminate.  This principle underpins the Expedition Operating Model’s fundamental approach—rather than layering AI onto existing processes, it reimagines the entire revenue generation framework from the ground up, ensuring every component is designed for an AI-first world.
2. Re-Imagining the Future Requires Knowing How We Got Here: At first glance, re-imagining how things work might seem straightforward. However, rethinking the end-to-end operating model and ecosystem for a global enterprise’s revenue-generating functions under an AI-centric framework is anything but simple. To approach this successfully, you need a team with diverse expertise—individuals who combine curiosity with practical insights. What some refer to as renaissance humans. Just as important is access to deep domain knowledge, forward-thinking leadership, technical expertise, and an understanding of how today’s processes came to be. Why does this matter? Because as you work to untangle the enterprise “hairball,” making the wrong change at the wrong time can disrupt essential structures—an outcome no organization can afford. The Expedition Operating Model addresses this challenge by enabling a thoughtful balance: driving meaningful change while building on a clear understanding of the current environment. It ensures that the journey is both ambitious and achievable.
3. Advantages Will Compound for Those Who Move First: When it comes to technology, falling into the innovator’s dilemma trap has been a strategic mistake made by many formerly great companies.  Those who failed to proactively change and disrupt themselves were ultimately disrupted by others.  The same will hold true for the Sales and Revenue Generating functions of a modern enterprise.  Those who leverage AI in a way that enables them to better connect their offerings to customers, and in a way that delivers better business outcomes, will win.  For every enterprise, there is a competitor sitting somewhere in the world who might be working furiously to re-design THEIR revenue generating operating model under an AI-centric approach and in a way that allows them to deliver a better experience and better outcome for their customers.  And, for YOUR customers!   Once their new AI-enabled channels and approach are operationalized and working, their operational performance will rapidly improve.  And guess where some of the savings will be re-invested?  And where any newly gained market and customer insight and feedback will be sent?  Right back to their product, service, and offering innovation engine!  Once this happens, it may be too late to catch up.  So, for anyone taking a wait and see approach to AI, or for those who delay in starting their expedition to the future, hesitation might be the biggest disruptor of all.  This is precisely why the Expedition Operating Model is designed for incremental deployment—allowing organizations to begin their transformation immediately while maintaining business continuity, ensuring they don’t fall behind more aggressive competitors.

Are You Ready to Start Your Expedition?

Every expedition is marked by critical milestones, and the journey to an AI-first sales operating model is no different. At RGA, we guide enterprises through a series of Waypoints designed to simplify complexity, enable smarter selling, and drive revenue growth. The first three Waypoints lay the foundation for transformation, with additional waypoints and milestones revealed as your expedition progresses.

• Waypoint 1: Strategic Visual Blueprint
  Define the destination and map the journey. This first stage focuses on creating a clear vision for the future, aligning stakeholders, and outlining the high-level steps to achieve your goals.
• Waypoint 2: Reference Architecture Framework
  Establish the structural foundation for an AI-first operating model. The Big Brain architecture serves as a modular, adaptable guide to integrate AI into your sales ecosystem.
• Waypoint 3: Expedition Daily Briefing
  Put the framework into action with an AI-powered, role-specific use case. The Expedition Daily Briefing leverages internal and external data, synthesizing insights across silos to deliver actionable, personalized guidance for sellers. Designed to be intuitive and low-risk, this first step establishes a seamless role-based UI that becomes the foundation for future functionality. By introducing Agentic AI to support sellers through proactive recommendations and streamlined workflows, the Expedition Daily Briefing sets the stage for enterprise-wide transformation, all within tools and workflows sellers already know and trust.     the structural foundation for an AI-first operating model. The Big Brain architecture serves as a modular, adaptable guide to integrate AI into your sales ecosystem.
• Waypoint 4 and beyond: The Journey Continues….
  More Waypoints will be available on our website, so check back frequently for the latest in navigational guidance!

These Waypoints provide a practical, actionable framework for enterprises to navigate their AI-first journey. Each stage builds upon the last, ensuring you’re always moving toward a future where sales ecosystems are smarter, simpler, and more effective.

Key Takeaways

• Fundamental Reimagining Required: Adding AI features to existing systems won’t deliver transformative results—success requires rethinking your entire operating model.
• Build While You Transform: You can begin this journey without disrupting current operations, gradually reducing complexity and costs as you build toward your future state.
• Agentic AI Changes Everything: The shift from passive tools to proactive AI agents enables new levels of sales excellence while simplifying your technology landscape.
• Time to Act is Now: The gap between AI-enabled organizations and traditional sales teams will widen rapidly, creating sustainable competitive advantages for those who set off first.
• Practical Path Forward: While the vision is transformative, the journey can begin with concrete steps that deliver immediate value while building toward the broader vision.

Ready to begin your expedition? Now is the time to start thinking differently about your revenue operating model, and RGA is uniquely positioned to help you navigate this journey. At Revenue Growth Associates (RGA), we combine deep operational leadership experience with expertise in revenue strategy and operations, enterprise AI, strategic transformation, and change management. Our frameworks and guidance serve as a compass, shaped by decades of navigating large-scale revenue operating model transformations. They reflect not just our ability to envision the summit of what’s possible, but also to guide enterprises step by step toward that destination and celebrate the achievements along the way.

Want to learn more?  Follow our Managing Partner, Steve King on LinkedIn or sign up for Expedition content release notifications on our website at Revenue Growth Associates.

As has been the case with many great adventurers over the course of time, those who discover treasure are those who possess the courage to leave their comfort zone and travel beyond their known horizon.  At RGA, we’re guiding enterprise sales organizations to their exciting future now – and we’d love for you to join us!