Is your company using RevOps? Maybe.
If you’ve introduced initiatives for sharing data and goals, implemented digital transformation and team collaboration, and designed data-driven, revenue-focused go-to-market strategies, it’s RevOps, right?
Almost.
True RevOps is more than sharing access to Excel sheets or inviting marketing to your sales planning. Effective RevOps begins with end-to-end visibility, a RevOps-focused operating model, collaborative buy-in from the executive team, and qualified leadership.
Did you know poorly aligned sales and marketing can lead to a 4% annual revenue decline? Although RevOps is a relatively new term, the idea of uniting teams that functioned within silos to work together on shared revenue-focused goals stormed onto the business scene during a challenging and uncertain economic period.
Thirty percent of companies reporting unsatisfied customers blame low alignment, while 97% of high-alignment organizations report satisfied customers.
The timely arrival of RevOps that guided organizations during and through the pandemic now requires a new type of operations leader—a strategic executive with a seat at the table who manages multiple priorities and will shepherd an organization into a new phase of growth.
How RevOps Got Started
Most companies in the 90s and 2000s used a traditional funnel model where teams operated as separate units with specific goals to drive success from lead generation to customer acquisition. Even now, companies admit this model fails to address the growing need for cohesive strategies that prioritize customer retention and revenue growth.
Though the concept of aligning teams to focus on revenue originated in the early 2000s, LeanData CEO Evan Liang coined the term RevOps from “Revenue Operations” in 2016.
The key to revenue operations is that it allows companies to achieve more predictable growth and revenue by offering precise metrics across all revenue-impacting teams. As businesses expand into new markets, revenue operations are essential for ensuring a seamless transition.
Although this new approach to operations was gaining traction, the pandemic turbocharged the evolution of RevOps from a strategic advantage into an essential business function.
As companies scrambled to adapt to remote work and shifting market dynamics, the need for seamless alignment across sales, marketing, and customer success became more critical than ever. RevOps emerged as the secret sauce for breaking down silos and streamlining processes to ensure that every department was working cohesively towards shared revenue goals.
Although revenue operations is a relatively new term, the idea of uniting teams that presently functioned within silos to work together on shared revenue-focused goals stormed onto the business scene during a most challenging economic time.
The Pandemic Effect
The pandemic didn’t just accelerate RevOps—it cemented its role as the backbone of resilient, forward-thinking organizations.
With lockdowns and social distancing measures, traditional in-person sales and marketing efforts were ineffective. This disruption and economic uncertainty forced businesses to manage operations from a new perspective.
- Shifted focus to efficiency and cost reduction.
- Implemented CRM systems, marketing automation, and customer analytics tools.
- Recognized a need for agility and flexibility.
- Customers’ expectations for seamless and personalized experiences grew as more interactions moved online.
- Leveraged unprecedented amounts of data.
- Remote work highlighted the need for better collaboration and communication tools.
In the wake of the pandemic, companies turned to RevOps as a critical strategy to achieve more with less. Recognizing the need for agility and flexibility, RevOps teams broke down silos and fostered cross-functional collaboration, which allowed companies to swiftly adapt their strategies and tactics in response to new information and market shifts.
As customer expectations evolved, RevOps ensured all customer-facing teams were aligned and working from the same playbook, and its transformative potential was slated to change business models across all industries.
Seemingly overnight, RevOps changed the go-to-market game with promising results. In 2021, a landmark Gartner study predicted that by 2026, 75% of the world’s highest-growth companies will launch a RevOps model.
During the supply chain challenges of the pandemic, I was given a real-world view of the need for end-to-end RevOps. Due to the critical need to support people working, learning, and communicating from home, there was an immense demand for digital infrastructure—customers and partners were buying and placing orders at a feverish pace.
While this was great for sales, the customer support organization was under immense pressure and stress compounded by supply chain issues and implementation delays.
The good thing was that most organizations were experiencing these challenges. Customers and partners understood the situation; they just needed better visibility and communication regarding the status of their orders so that they could convey the information to their customers and set expectations properly. They didn’t want to hear from our sales teams saying it was a customer support issue, and they didn’t want to hear from the customer support teams that sales was just “booking orders and throwing them over the fence.”
Fortunately, we had recently invested in and delivered a common analytics platform and data set for an Account 360 view for the customer. Sales could now see the status of the orders, and customer success could see the pipeline and booking progression by account. The customer teams were working together and sharing the same information with customers, giving them confidence and building trust during a difficult time for everyone.
We then began working with the finance department after they noticed a decline in billings, which didn’t logically correspond to the increase in bookings. The questions kept coming from the executive team: What was causing this? What was the issue along the E2E Book to Bill cycle? Could we direct the teams to sort it out? How could we forecast revenue correctly? These were all valid questions that needed correct answers quickly, as time was of the essence.
This is where I learned the TRUE value of RevOps in leveraging technology, processes, people, and data to solve an E2E challenge. We extended the Account 360 data set to include billing by customer size, segment, and product line to analyze where the drop-offs occurred.
We formed a Book-to-Bill Tiger Team with our partners in IT, Operations, Product and Finance and set up regular calls to review and assess the dashboard data. We executed numerous changes in processes, policies, and auto-approval mechanisms to remove bottlenecks and fix errors.
We ultimately solved the book-to-bill problem and exited from the crisis without a drop in revenue AND increased E2E process flow and operational efficiency. This challenge also further cemented the need within the CRO organization for an enhanced RevOps operating model and cleared the way for additional investment in leadership, technology and automation.
Fast Forward to 2024. What has changed?
Despite the ambitious predictions in 2021 pointing to RevOps growth, recent studies show that only 35% of companies currently have a revenue operations team or are building one, and almost half (48%) don’t have one at all.
People leading RevOps initiatives have been locked in the engine room for much of their careers. Now the rising pressure for personalized customer experiences and the constant need for cost-effective, revenue-building processes require automation and AI technology to compete.
Companies with RevOps models are beginning to understand why the revenue operations role requires a seat at the table of the command center. As they navigate the complexities of the new normal, the synergy between AI and RevOps promises to unlock new levels of growth and customer satisfaction, solidifying the RevOps leader’s role as an unsung hero in the journey to success.
Partnering AI with professional experience to analyze data that supports practical insights creates a powerful duo. Think of AI as the computer that keeps the ship on course. The CRO/CEO is Captain and therefore steers the ship and makes decisions about the course while RevOps is keeping the GTM Engine working and optimized.
As this technology handles the repetitive heavy lifting, RevOps leaders can leverage their time to focus on the strategic, communicative, and very human side of leadership. For example, what strategies does this information support? Do we have the available resources? Which team should drive it? What are the concerns and advantages?
There’s no doubt that the potential for artificial intelligence is mind-boggling. GenAI capabilities will transform the customer experience in ways that were unimaginable just a decade ago. But as experts continue to learn how AI behaves, it performs best in a supportive role.
Ninety-seven percent of business owners think using ChatGPT will help their business, and 54% of consumers think AI could improve the customer experience. Eighty-two percent of revenue leaders see the long-term benefits of AI, but only half have deployed it for more than one use, according to a recent State of RevOps 2024 report.
There is plenty of work to do.
As markets become more saturated and competition rises, the importance of working together as a unified team has never been more critical. Almost every executive (97%) believes silos have a negative impact on their organizations. Eighty-three percent of executives admit that silos exist. If leaders need an incentive to smash those silos, consider this:
Companies with a collaborative work culture are five times more likely to be high-performing. Further research shows that just by breaking down silos and engaging in cross-functional collaboration among teams, companies see a 15% improvement in efficiency and a 20% jump in innovation.
“As startups have grown, many have realized that one of the biggest killers of growth was the walls built around departments within a company. When sales, marketing, and customer success had different goals and KPIs, disagreements and miscommunication were inevitable,” Adam Ballai, co-founder and CEO of Revops, Inc., explained.
For companies pursuing successful RevOps, it’s not for a lack of desire for revenue growth or even design. What’s missing is strategic RevOps decision making at the executive level.
By fostering a culture of informed and visionary RevOps leadership, companies can unlock their full potential, driving sustained growth and competitive advantage in an ever-evolving marketplace. The path to RevOps excellence is paved with strategic foresight, and it starts at the top.
If you’re ready to go where few RevOps journeys have gone before, come back here every week for new RevOps insights!
