The Maturity Gap Is Killing Tech Services Firms. Here’s How to Fix It
By Nathan Elsberry, CEO, Revenue Office Innovations
I work with custom software development companies every day. Most of them think they are fine and just need a few new logos. The truth? They are one client ramp-down or market downturn away from irrelevance.
From late 2020 through mid-2022, the market was on fire. Demand was everywhere. If you got a meeting and had capacity, you got work. No one cared about go-to-market strategy or account growth. All that mattered was keeping up with the flood of projects.
Then mid-2022 hit. The market slowed. AI became a serious conversation. Suddenly, the easy work disappeared. Leaders who thought they had strong businesses are now trying to find a magic solution to get back to 2021 numbers.
This is what I call the maturity gap.
What the Maturity Gap Looks Like
Here’s what I see over and over:
Little or no ability to expand in existing accounts.
No packaged offerings. Just “we do custom software” pitches.
No marketing. No outbound strategy.
Rudimentary forecasting and analytics.
Weak hiring because the company lacks budget, credibility, or both.
When the market slows, these weaknesses are exposed fast. Leaders panic. They start chasing “silver bullets.” A big new CRO hire. A marketing campaign. A sales push.
Quick fixes do not build companies. Foundations do.
Why This Is a Critical Moment
The tech services market has shifted. The boom is over. 75+ percent of companies I talk to now realize they skipped key steps in their growth. They never built a revenue engine. They never defined a strategy to grow accounts or stand out in the market.
Some are still doing “okay” today. They will not be okay tomorrow. Blockbuster thought it was okay, too, right before Netflix wiped it out.
If you are not maturing, you are decaying.
What Needs to Happen Now
This starts with redefining the revenue office. Too many CROs think their job is to forecast, review the CRM, and hit a number. That is only part of it. A true revenue leader shapes everything tied to revenue:
Sales
Marketing
Relationship and account growth
Delivery relevance and packaging
Go-to-market messaging
At ROI, we help tech services companies build a foundation for real growth:
Grow existing accounts. Get the right people in place for relationship expansion, not just account management, and enforce growth behavior.
Package your offerings. Stop being a generic CSD shop. Create solutions that are easy for customers to understand and buy.
Take your solutions to market. Push content and outbound efforts to create demand.
Align your teams to support growth. Reorganize if needed.
This is not theory. This is what we do every day.
How ROI Helps
We do not hand over a slide deck and walk away. We roll up our sleeves and help you execute. Whether it is due diligence for private equity, support with complex deals, or designing a revenue office from scratch, we get it done.
If your existing accounts aren’t growing beyond your original stakeholders, revenue is flat or declining, margins are low, new logos aren’t coming in, etc., let’s talk. The companies that act now will be the ones still standing in three years.
