Case Study: Building a resilient commercial engine for Ontinue’s next stage of growth

RevenueShift worked with cybersecurity specialists, Ontinue, to hit ambitious growth targets by reshaping their sales operation from top to bottom – rethinking org design, roles, sales motions, incentives, and capacity planning as one connected commercial engine that the business could confidently execute.

When Ontinue’s leadership team looked at their new growth target, it was both exciting and challenging. The opportunity was there – a strong product story in cybersecurity, real momentum in the market – but the way the commercial team was set up didn’t match the scale of the target.

Ontinue wasn’t running a single, linear sales motion – they had the upside of two powerful but very different engines for growth:

● A Managed Detection and Response (MDR) service, built on long-term relationships and ongoing delivery.

● A SASE product, with different buyers, sales cycles, and proof points.

Having a diverse offering portfolio is a strong position to be in, but it raises a crucial design question for any revenue leader: how do you build one commercial model that does justice to different motions, keeps things simple for the team, and still gives you a clear view of performance and headcount needs?

Over time, the sales organization had grown around this complexity, rather than being designed for it. At the heart of the brief were three areas: clarity on how MDR and SASE should be sold and by whom; a clear, credible compensation model for complex, multi-touch deals; and a numbers-backed capacity plan to show how many people, in which roles, and by when, would be needed to meet expectations.

RevenueShift’s role in the partnership was to turn that gap between ambition and how the organization was set up into a tangible commercial model – and a hiring roadmap – that Ontinue could execute with confidence.

Designing a commercial model that reflects how Ontinue really sells

Rather than treating org design, compensation, and capacity planning as separate exercises, the work started with a clear view of how Ontinue actually sold MDR and SASE – and then used that as the foundation for every design choice.

Together, we ran detailed deal reviews across regions and segments, mapping who touched which opportunities, when, and why. Deals that appeared to sit with a single account owner often involved eight to ten contributors across presales, delivery and partner teams. That real workflow – not the theoretical one – became the blueprint for the new model.

Together, the teams:

● Standardized the sales motions for MDR and SASE

Documenting how opportunities move from first conversation to close in each motion, and defining clean hand-offs between roles so every deal followed a consistent, repeatable path.

● Redesigned roles and accountabilities

Clarifying who owns which parts of the journey – from SDRs and account executives to sales engineers and customer success – so there was no ambiguity about who leads, who supports, and how success is shared.

● Built incentives on top of the true deal team

With roles clear, the partnership designed compensation plans that recognized multi-person deal teams without becoming unwieldy. The plans were simple enough for people to understand, aligned with how value is really created, and flexible enough to support both MDR and SASE.

● Created practical deployment options

Instead of a single “one-size-fits-all” structure, Ontinue’s leadership could choose from a small set of org and coverage blueprints, each with clear trade-offs in focus, cost, and growth potential. That made it easier to land on a design that reflected where the business was today and where it wanted to go next.

The result was a commercial model that treated MDR and SASE as distinct, but connected, motions – giving each the focus it needed without fragmenting the team.

Turning top-down targets into a living capacity plan

Redesigning structure and incentives answered the question of how Ontinue should sell. The next challenge was how to resource that model in a way that would give the board and investors confidence in the plan.

To do that, RevenueShift built a capacity and quota planning engine that combined:

● Historic performance data – win rates, cycle lengths, average deal sizes, and ramp profiles by role, region, and motion

● Forward-looking assumptions agreed with the leadership team – growth expectations, mix between MDR and SASE, and expansion plans

● External compensation benchmarks – to ensure plans were competitive and sustainable in each key geography

The model translated top-down revenue targets into a numbers-backed view of headcount and productivity, showing:

● How many sellers and supporting roles would be needed, by region and by motion

● When they would need to be hired, given realistic ramp times

● What different scenarios – improved win rates, faster ramp, higher or lower growth – would mean for headcount and cost

One of the most valuable insights was around timing. The model showed that adding sales capacity partway through the year would leave many new joiners still ramping as the most important quarters arrived, materially reducing the chances of hitting the target. With that visibility, Ontinue could make earlier, more confident decisions about where and when to invest.

Instead of relying on averages and gut feel, the leadership team gained a living “what-if” calculator to test decisions before committing to them.

Results: a commercial engine ready for what’s next

Every aspect of Ontinue’s commercial setup was rebuilt around a clearer view of how the company wins and grows revenue.

Within 18 months of completing the work, Ontinue had grown revenue by around 75%, with a sales organization designed to support that scale of ambition.

Leadership now has:

● A single, coherent commercial model for both MDR and SASE

● Incentive plans that reinforce how value is really created in complex, multi-touch deals

● A capacity engine that links revenue targets directly to hiring, ramp, and investment decisions

As Chief Revenue Officer Chris Raniere put it:

“As the Chief Revenue Officer of Open Systems, partnering with RevenueShift proved instrumental. Their adept guidance in strategically reorganizing our sales force not only facilitated our growth trajectory but also positioned us to seize new market opportunities with confidence.”

For growth-stage businesses facing ambitious targets across multiple sales motions, Ontinue’s experience shows what becomes possible when you treat your commercial organization as a design challenge – and build the engine to match.

If your business wants to take a strategic approach to commercial design and revenue planning, get in touch to find out how we can help: George Lagone [george.lagone@revenueshift.com]