New research offers a good snapshot into how value management is actually being practiced inside B2B organizations today.
The research (from Mainstay) reveals an important crossroads: value is widely recognized as critical, investment is growing, but execution and adoption still lag far behind intent.
For leaders focused on building durable, outcome-driven go-to-market motions, the findings highlight where progress is real, where friction remains, and where the next wave of value transformation must focus.
Below are the most relevant insights from this value research, and why they matter.
Value Management Has Crossed the Strategic Threshold
One of the most important signals in the research is structural. Value management is no longer peripheral.
Nearly 70 percent of value programs now sit within sales organizations, and many are directly tied to substantial revenue influence. The data shows that value teams are no longer confined to internal analysis or late-stage justification. They are increasingly embedded in deal strategy, executive alignment, and commercial decision-making.
This confirms something many practitioners have felt for years: value is no longer a “nice-to-have” capability. It has become a core commercial function, expected to influence win rates, deal velocity, and deal size.
What is striking, however, is that this strategic recognition has not yet translated into universal execution.
The Value Adoption Gap Is Still Wide
Despite growing investment and executive support, the report exposes a significant value execution gap.
Most organizations still produce formal business cases for less than half of their deals, and seller adoption of value tools remains too low, hovering around one-third for most.
This matters because it reveals the real constraint on value impact is no longer awareness or belief. It is operational friction and adoption. Sellers may talk about value, but they struggle to integrate it into daily workflows, discovery motions, and customer conversations at scale.
The implication is clear: the next phase of value maturity is not about more templates or bigger ROI numbers. It is about making value easier to use than to skip.
AI Is Already Changing How Value Work Gets Done
One of the more pragmatic insights from the research is how extensively AI is already being used.
The majority of value programs report using AI for research and insight generation, more than half use it for content creation, and a smaller but growing segment is experimenting with AI to support business case development itself.
This is not theoretical experimentation. It reflects a real shift in how value practitioners and GTM teams operate. AI is helping move faster, personalize insights more effectively, and reduce the manual effort historically associated with value work.
What the data suggests, however, is that AI is currently being applied more to enable the value team than to fundamentally change seller behavior. The next challenge is translating AI-powered insights into consistent frontline adoption.
Scaling Value Is Driving New Resourcing Models
Another revealing finding is the rapid rise of offshoring within value management programs.
Nearly half of surveyed organizations now use offshore resources to support value work, a dramatic increase from prior years. This indicates growing pressure to scale value without proportional increases in cost.
While offshoring can expand capacity, it also highlights an underlying tension: value demand is increasing faster than most organizations’ ability to operationalize it efficiently.
This reinforces the need for clearer value workflows, better enablement, and stronger integration between value teams and revenue roles, not just more people producing more artifacts.
Value Maturity Remains Uneven and Fragmented
Perhaps the most sobering takeaway from the research is how uneven value maturity remains.
Very few organizations have achieved end-to-end value consistency across marketing, sales, and customer success. Most programs operate in pockets of excellence rather than as a unified system.
This fragmentation explains why value impact often feels episodic. A strong business case here, a great executive presentation there, but limited continuity across the customer lifecycle.
The data suggests that value management is still evolving from a function into a system. Until that transition happens, most organizations will continue to under-realize the full potential of their value investments.
Value Thinking Is Expanding Beyond the Deal
A more encouraging signal in the research is a growing emphasis on lifecycle value, not just deal-stage ROI.
More teams are beginning to connect value narratives to adoption, outcomes, and long-term customer success. This reflects buyer expectations as well as internal pressure to justify investments beyond initial purchase decisions.
While this shift is still early, it points toward a future where value is measured continuously, reinforced post-sale, and used to strengthen renewal and expansion conversations.
The Bottom-Line: Progress With Purpose Still Ahead
Value is clearly strategic. AI is already reshaping how work gets done. Investment is holding strong even amid uncertainty. And yet, the biggest barriers are no longer conceptual. They are operational, behavioral, and organizational.
The research suggests that the next leap forward in value management will not come from louder value claims or more sophisticated spreadsheets. It will come from making value repeatable, adoptable, and embedded into how revenue teams actually work.
For organizations committed to value as a competitive advantage, the opportunity is not to ask whether value matters. The research makes that answer clear. The real question is how effectively value can be turned from intention into execution.
Check out the research report here from value solution provider Mainstay: https://go.mainstaycompany.com/vm_survey_report-2025
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