If your company still relies solely on sales Ops, you’re leaving revenue on the table. Sales Ops does a great job of optimizing sales processes, but it’s just one piece of the puzzle. Without a full RevOps function, you’re missing out on the bigger picture—seamless alignment between marketing, sales, and customer success, a unified data strategy, and the ability to maximize revenue at every stage of the customer journey.
Read more: Your Sales Team Needs a Territory Management Solution
Sales teams have always relied on a strong operational backbone to keep things running smoothly. For years, Sales Operations (Sales Ops) made sure team members had clean data to support sales-specific activities, create territories, and provide the right sales tools to close deals efficiently.
But as businesses evolve, so do the challenges of driving revenue. Growth is not just about selling products and services. Creating a loyal customer base with personalized customer service that elevates customer satisfaction also helps profits.
That’s where Revenue Operations (RevOps) takes center stage.
Business insights shows almost half (48%) of companies are adopting a RevOps function.
Think of RevOps as Sales Ops 2.0, with a broader mission that supports sales strategy. It also aims to break down barriers between Sales, Marketing, and Customer Success to reinforce team alignment and collaboration.
Read more: Corporate Planning Tools Don’t Work For Sales Territories
RevOps improves sales processes by linking go-to-market (GTM) strategies with territory management. This includes key metrics that match sales territory plans and support sales goals and sales pipeline. It also builds awareness of products and services and improves the customer experience.
Both functions focus on efficiency and growth, but their scope, alignment, and impact are worlds apart. Let’s explore the evolution of old-school sales operations compared to modern revenue operations models.
Old-School Sales Ops: The Sales Team’s Best Friend
Sales Ops usually focuses on helping sales teams. They manage CRM data, improve workflows, and handle forecasting and reporting. This means sales reps can focus on selling instead of administrative tasks.
Key responsibilities of Sales Ops include:
- CRM and pipeline management
- Sales forecasting and reporting
- Territory planning and quota setting
- Process automation to improve efficiency
- Sales enablement and tool optimization
Sales Ops is important for keeping sales teams productive. However, it usually works alone, separate from marketing, customer success, and other teams that generate revenue. This limited scope can create misalignment in the customer journey and lead to inefficient departments.
RevOps: A Full-Funnel, Revenue-Driving Machine
RevOps takes a broader, more strategic approach. Instead of focusing solely on sales, it unifies Sales, Marketing, and Customer Success under a single revenue strategy. “As companies increasingly pivot toward data-driven strategies, the need for accuracy of their insights has grown multifold,” Sarwat Batool at Data Ladder, explained. “A single source of truth eliminates the risk caused by inaccuracies or limited data access by ensuring that all decisions are based on the same reliable, up-to-date database.”
RevOps helps all teams work together to boost revenue. It does this by breaking down silos and improving the customer lifecycle. The core functions of RevOps include:
- Centralized data management for better decision-making
- Cross-team alignment to streamline the entire GTM motion
- End-to-end revenue forecasting and analytics
- Customer lifecycle optimization to improve retention and expansion
- Technology stack integration to ensure seamless operations
Where Sales Ops is about making sales more efficient, RevOps is about maximizing revenue across the entire customer journey. This means not only acquiring customers but also ensuring they stay and grow with the company.
Why RevOps is the Future
Did you know employees spend an average of 2.4 hours daily searching for the right data and information to do their jobs? This research shows that more than a quarter of an employee’s workday is inefficient.
Sales Ops plays a crucial role in optimizing sales team performance, ensuring smooth processes, accurate forecasting, and efficient deal management. However, sales alone isn’t responsible for driving revenue—marketing, customer success, and post-sales teams all play a vital role.
That’s where RevOps comes in. RevOps isn’t here to replace Sales Ops; it’s here to expand on it, aligning every revenue-generating function under a unified strategy. While Sales Ops is a key piece of the puzzle, RevOps ensures the entire revenue engine is working in sync to maximize growth, efficiency, and customer satisfaction.
The move from traditional Sales Ops to RevOps is not just a trend. Today’s go-to market models are essential for companies that want to compete. If you still use a traditional sales mindset, it might be time to change your strategy to include the advantages of RevOps. Have questions? Let’s chat.
