A founder I know once ran a six month POC with a large manufacturing client. The product worked, the pilot team loved it, everyone was "very positive." Then procurement got involved, and the deal died in a budget cycle nobody had mapped. Nothing was wrong with the product. Nobody had asked who actually signs the check.

That's the pattern across most Indian B2B teams. Not a product problem. A sales maturity problem. A few places it consistently shows up:

We Sell to the Fan, Not the Buying Committee

Every enterprise deal has a champion who's excited, a technical evaluator who's skeptical, and a procurement person who's never heard of you. Teams pour energy into the champion and assume they'll fight the internal battle alone. They usually can't, or won't. Map the committee in week one, not month three.

POCs Run Without an Exit

A pilot without a pre-agreed definition of success and a clear next step is just free consulting with good vibes. I have watched teams run three month POCs with no scorecard, so when it ends, there's nothing to point to and no reason for the client to move to a contract.

Pricing Follows Effort, Not Value

Quote based on hours and headcount, and your upside is capped at your own cost. One team I know priced a compliance automation deal on days spent building it, then found out later the client would have paid three times as much because the alternative was a manual process costing them a full time hire. Nobody had asked what the problem was actually costing the client.

Forecasts Are Vibes, Not Stages

"This one feels good" is not a forecast. Define what has to be true for a deal to move from pipeline to committed, procurement sign off started, budget confirmed, technical eval passed, and forecast off that. Otherwise every board update is a guess dressed up as a number.

Sales and Delivery Don't Talk

Deal closes, gets handed off with a two line email, and delivery finds the real requirements a month in. Renewal risk starts here, not at renewal time.

None of this needs a Silicon Valley playbook. India's procurement cycles and relationship norms are genuinely different, and that's fine. But mapping the committee, running POCs with a scorecard, pricing on value, forecasting on stages, and handing off properly aren't cultural. They're just discipline, and most of the deals lost to weaker competitors are lost here, not on product.