Revenue Operations: A Growth Driver

Revenue Operations: A Growth Driver

Revenue operations is an increasingly popular department for B2B teams, so what is it? Revenue Operations (or RevOps) is aligning all revenue-generating teams under one leader. This leader is not only responsible for the sales, marketing, and customer service teams, but also the success metrics for these teams and the systems that support these functions. Large organizations may have a dedicated resource who leads this team. Small to medium-size businesses (SMBs) may not have the luxury of a dedicated position, but the CEO or COO can play this role.

In practice, sales, marketing, and customer service too often operate in silos that don’t necessarily work well together. This leads to a suboptimal experience for the customer, and it compromises the potential success of the business. Data has proven that companies that align these commercial functions experience accelerated business growth. Boston Consulting Group and Forrester research have studied the benefits of revenue operations. They include:

  • 10-20% increase in sales productivity
  • 15-20% increase in internal customer satisfaction
  • 30% reduction in go-to-market (GTM) expenses
  • 19% faster growth
  • 15% more profits

In fact, publicly traded companies with a RevOps function saw a 71% better stock performance than companies that do not.

So how do revenue operations work in practice? Sales operations and revenue operations are not the same things. Sales operations are about reducing friction for the sales team, so they can spend more time selling. RevOps is about making the entire revenue-generating side of the business more effective at what they do.

The goal of a RevOps leader is to deliver visibility across the entire revenue team, improve efficiency across the revenue process, drive revenue predictability, and achieve revenue growth. This means focusing on:

  • People – Aligning teams around shared revenue targets
  • Data – Connecting business and activity data across organizational silos and systems
  • Processes – Increasing operational rigor through systematic reviews of sales pipelines and forecasts, win rates, cost of customer acquisition, renewals, an improved understanding of customer lifetime value (LTV), and more.

How does RevOps help the sales team? A good RevOps team will have insight into all the stages of the sales funnel, so they should have the knowledge and skills to address issues as they arise. This will allow the sales team to focus on selling – engaging new prospects and closing new business.

For marketing, a good RevOps function will ensure they have access to the data they need across all revenue-generating departments. These insights will empower the marketing team to make better decisions, such as which investments bring higher returns for the business and improved productivity across functions.

For customer service, the benefits of a RevOps focus include better standards of customer communication, which will likely improve the opportunity for upselling and renewals.

Clearly one of the most important tools for a revenue operations team is the company CRM (customer relationship management) system. A good CRM can provide:

  • Account and contact management
  • Activity tracking
  • Sales pipeline management and forecasting
  • Customer service analytics
  • Marketing ROI
  • Integration with other 3rd party tools
  • Artificial intelligence analytics and insights

Common incentives and shared success metrics are key when it comes to building a unified revenue operations team and combatting misalignment. Clear success metrics will help all teams prioritize and plan work that makes the most impact for your business.

If you are intrigued about revenue operations and wish to start putting the building blocks in place to align your commercial teams, please reach out to TopLine Results. We have been helping sales, marketing, and customer service teams work together for years. Our expertise in CRM, process consulting, and digital marketing operations put us in a unique position to assist you on this journey. Give us a call at 1-800-880-1960 or email info@toplineresults.com for a free consultation.

 

Resources:


Leave a comment!

You must be logged in to post a comment.