Commercial growth and innovation consulting. We help businesses find where growth can come from, strengthen their offers and turn opportunities into business.
Start a conversation20+ years in innovation consulting, product and commercial leadership—including P&L, regional businesses and global accounts.
What is really driving performance, and where should the next growth come from?
Is the problem demand, the proposition, the price or how it reaches the market?
Which customer, market or route deserves commitment, and what needs proving first?
How can the leadership team decide faster and with more confidence?
We turn reporting, customer insight and market signals into a few clear choices. From reporting to decisions
We work with owner-led and mid-sized companies in consumer goods, software and professional services, often where a technical product is ready before its market is. From Berlin, on site or remotely.
Most businesses have more growth ideas than capacity. We find what is really driving performance, then decide with you where money and people go, and what stops.
Many offers answer a question customers are not asking. We start from the progress buyers want to make, then shape the offer, its price and the case for backing it.
A product can be technically ready long before it is commercially ready. We choose the first market, customer and route with you, and build the proof that turns interest into first sales.
Some decisions cannot be settled from a view of the present. We use foresight to test changing needs, market conditions and assumptions before a heavy commitment, and design thinking to make possible responses tangible enough to try.
“Nic engaged deeply with the CFAR program and translated futures thinking into practical application, particularly in strategy, leadership, and coaching.”
We start with the question at hand. We bring together what the business knows, what customers are signalling and what the market may be changing, to establish where to invest, what to develop and how to move it into market.
What job must this initiative or investment play in the wider business?
The evidence should match the size, uncertainty and reversibility of the next move.
The move must work for customers, partners and the organisation.
AI shortens the analysis. It does not make the choice: every recommendation we give is reviewed, sourced and owned by a person. How we think
Global preferred supplier
three-year appointment after the account recovery
A major international client was centralising its purchasing while still being served market by market. The work established a new account structure, common working standards and one coordinated relationship. The client went on to make the business its global preferred supplier for three years.
Read the account-recovery storyUS$5.5–6m
revenue in the launch year
A lower-cost service was losing money and drawing customers from a premium offer. The work led to its withdrawal and the development of a software-based replacement around the same customer need.
Read the investment-case storyRoom for early ideas
the focus shifted from polishing a funding story
A confidential cultural institution initially needed a clearer story for external funding. The work revealed a more fundamental issue: people were reluctant to put forward ideas before they had perfect answers.
Design Thinking shifted the focus from polishing a message to creating the conditions for early ideas, discussion and experimentation.
The work draws on experience of advising businesses on growth and carrying responsibility for products, customers and commercial results.
Sightline is led by Nic Kaftan, who brings more than twenty years across consulting, innovation and analytics, global accounts and international commercial leadership. Specialists join when the question needs them, and senior people stay with the work throughout.
“He excels at simplifying complex concepts, ensuring ideas not only resonate but also drive action.”
A higher sales target assumes the problem is effort. Often it is something else, and more effort makes it harder to see.
Your largest accounts write the roadmap. The people who declined can show where the next growth is.
A forecast shows what an offer could sell. It rarely shows how much stronger the business becomes.
You do not need a finished brief. We start with your situation, what you want to achieve and whether Sightline is the right help.