Most GTM stacks have too many tools and not enough connection between them
Five well-connected tools outperform fifteen poorly integrated ones. GTM engineers know the difference between a tool that adds capability and one that adds complexity.
Most GTM stacks grow by addition. A new use case appears, someone evaluates vendors, a tool gets purchased. Twelve months later the stack has fifteen platforms, four of which do overlapping things, three of which nobody configured properly, and two of which the team has quietly stopped using but is still paying for.
The result is not more capability. It is more complexity with the same output.
A useful benchmark: five well-connected tools cover most B2B go-to-market requirements. An enrichment layer, a CRM, a sequencing tool, an orchestration layer, and an intent or signal source. Everything else is either a specialised addition for a specific use case or a duplicate of something already in the stack.
GTM engineers evaluate tools on a different basis than most buyers. The question is not “what does this tool do” but “what does this tool connect to, and what does that connection enable that we cannot do today.” A tool that adds a new data type but does not integrate with the CRM produces data nobody acts on. A tool that overlaps with an existing provider but connects more cleanly to the workflow layer is worth the switch.
The consolidation pressure in GTM software is real. Vendors are adding features that step into adjacent categories. The practical consequence is that a stack built two years ago probably has redundancy that wasn’t there when each tool was purchased. Auditing the stack is GTM engineering work: mapping which tools actually feed data to which other tools, which integrations are live versus theoretical, and which platforms the team is paying for but not using.
Stack minimalism is not about using fewer tools for its own sake. It is about maintaining a stack where every tool earns its connection to every other tool, and where the data flowing between platforms is reliable enough to build activation workflows on top of.
The test: if you removed this tool from the stack today, what would break? If the answer is nothing, the tool is occupying budget and attention without adding capability.