The Hidden Time Drains Burdening GTM Teams and What Leaders Can Do About Them

By Cara Pepper Day & Lauren Magee

Go-to-market teams in the beverage alcohol industry face more pressure than ever. Expectations for execution, visibility, compliance, and growth keep rising. Yet the tools and processes meant to support those goals often slow teams down.

This is not just a technology issue. It is a leadership issue. Leaders need to understand where time leaks inside GTM organizations and what they can do to stop it.

During a recent discussion at WSWA Access Live, Andavi Solutions asked industry leaders a simple but important question: Where does your GTM team lose the most time today? Their answers revealed both a challenge and an opportunity.

Some core truths still shape the industry:

Teams need a place to retain institutional knowledge
The 80/20 rule still matters for account segmentation and targeting
Leaders must do more with less time, energy, and fewer people

Time Is Money for GTM Teams

In an industry poll, GTM leaders identified manual data entry and cleanup as the biggest barrier to efficiency. Tool friction ranked next, followed by the challenge of reconciling scattered data across systems.

These are not minor inconveniences. They cost teams hours every week. That lost time should go toward selling, coaching, and building stronger retail relationships. Over time, these hidden drains chip away at both performance and morale.

Five Common Time Drains Holding GTM Teams Back

1. Manual Data Management (46%)

The Admin Tax No One Budgeted For

Many teams still enter data twice, correct errors, and manage siloed information across tools that were never built to work together. As a result, reps spend less time in the field and more time on administrative work.

Leaders should start by deciding what data actually matters. What gets measured often improves, but measuring everything causes teams to lose focus and waste time. Leaders should also track administrative time itself and cut “nice-to-have” fields that do not drive action.

A shift in perspective matters just as much. Today, technology can capture data as a byproduct of selling instead of making it an extra task. With image recognition, a rep can take a photo in an account and turn it into actionable data in real time. That change reshapes the economics of data collection.

2. Tool Friction and Workarounds (29%)

When teams juggle multiple apps that do not match real-world GTM motion, they create workarounds, delays, and frustration. Over time, people stop using tools as intended. That breakdown weakens visibility and erodes trust in the data.

This is not a delegation problem. It is a leadership responsibility. Leaders must choose tools and processes that fit how their teams actually sell. That means gathering feedback from reps in the market, not only from administrators or IT teams, and asking a simple question: What slows you down today?

The best systems prioritize speed, mobile usability, simplicity, and integrated back-end workflows. If a tool creates friction in the field, reps will eventually bypass it.

3. Reconciling Disparate Data (13%)

Sales execution data often lives everywhere at once: mobile apps, browser tools, distributor portals, emails, and spreadsheets. Without a single source of truth, teams waste valuable time reconciling numbers instead of acting on them.

Leaders can address this by creating a central home for institutional knowledge, a unified place where execution, pricing, promotions, and performance data come together. They should also automate data sharing across teams and align sales, finance, marketing, and operations around the same data foundation. When organizations do that, they move from reactive reporting to proactive decision-making.

4. Store-Level Execution and Compliance Gaps (8%)

This percentage may seem surprisingly low, given how important national and chain accounts are. After a team secures an authorization or mandate, it should make sure every active placement reaches full compliance.

When teams fail to validate pricing, displays, shelf standards, or menu placements consistently, they often discover gaps too late to fix them. Image recognition technology that converts images into actionable data helps teams verify store-level sales execution in real time. Surveys tied to clear KPIs also help leaders monitor back bar, menu, shelf, and planogram compliance over time.

Many organizations aim for a “perfect store” standard. Leaders should remember that perfection does not stay static. Teams must measure it, review it, and refine it continuously to support long-term growth.

5. Lagging In-Market Insights (4%)

Many GTM organizations still rely on lagging indicators such as shipments and depletions to evaluate performance and incentives. When teams deliver feedback too late, managers miss coaching moments, adjustment windows close, and friction grows.

High-performing teams often drive stronger revenue because they focus on leading indicators and connect sales execution directly to outcomes. Do you know which selling activities drive the most case sales? Leadership teams should keep asking that question as consumer buying trends shift. The goal is not more pressure. The goal is less friction. Data should support better conversations, not slow them down.

Where Leaders Should Go From Here

The takeaway is simple: Your GTM team’s time is your most valuable asset. Protect it.

Leaders can start by auditing where teams lose time today. They can reduce administrative burden before adding new expectations and simplify GTM strategies so execution connects clearly to outcomes. Investing in tools that give time back is not just a technology upgrade. It is a leadership decision.

Turning Hidden Time Drains Into Visible Wins

Andavi Solutions built its platform with a clear mission: empower beverage and CPG suppliers, distributors, and retailers with an AI-driven platform that unifies data and images into actionable insights.

The Andavi platform brings together sales execution, pricing, promotions, planograms, and shelf insights in one intelligent hub. AI and image recognition help transform those inputs into action. From image recognition for menu and shelf compliance to invoice matching for trade spend audits to planogram validation, the platform helps teams turn complexity into clarity.

Why does that matter? Because disconnected tools create disconnected teams. When companies remove friction between sales, strategy, and systems, everyone can work from the same source of truth. They also reduce vendor sprawl and build stronger partnerships around one trusted platform.

When GTM teams escape unnecessary friction, they can focus on what matters most: executing in the market, strengthening relationships, and driving results.