Revenue Operations, also known as RevOps, is an automated business process that aligns the sales, marketing, and customer service organizations to make decisions that drive predictable revenue and promote growth.
While the goals and tactics of a revenue operations organization could vary depending on the company’s objectives, these are some of the key metrics that measure revenue operations’ success:
- Annual Recurring Revenue: a metric that shows how much recurring revenue you can expect, based on yearly subscriptions.
- Customer Lifetime Value: the total worth to a business of a customer over the whole period of their relationship.
- Customer Turnover Rate: the percentage of an organization’s customer base lost during a given period of time
- Sales Cycle Time: the total number of days it takes for a deal to close, divided by the total number of closed deals
- Win Rate: the amount of success that a sales team generates over a certain period.
So now that we’ve established that revenue operations are becoming increasingly popular. Let’s take a look at why that is.
How does the RevOps process work?
Through better collaboration and visibility, RevOps looks to close the numerous and various gaps across people, data, processes, technology, and team accountability through improved operational efficiency. This will drive a more cohesive business by unifying teams through shared goals and by sharing information.
Growth of RevOps in businesses
Revenue operations is a fairly new concept, but many companies are catching on fast. Since 2019, there’s been a 300% increase in RevOps-related roles on LinkedIn and a 57% increase in companies implementing RevOps strategies or building RevOps teams.
According to a recent HubSpot blog, companies that implement RevOps have seen the following impact:
- 10-20% increase in sales productivity
- 15% increase in profitability
- 19% increase in speed of growth
- 71% improvement in stock performance
- 100-200% increase in digital marketing ROI
Impressive, right? But what if the system is working well and delivering the results we hear you say? Well, if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. Right?
Not quite. According to HubSpot, 60% of current operations professionals end up repeating or double handling business tasks due to a lack of team alignment. This means targets get missed, goals aren’t reached and stakeholders across the board get frustrated. It’s a lose/lose for everybody.
But once you get the orchestra all playing the same song, your business will thrive.
How to break down silos for go-to-market teams
Before RevOps
| Marketing Ops | Sales Ops | Customer Service Ops |
|---|---|---|
| Data | Data | Data |
| Technology | Technology | Technology |
| Process | Process | Process |
Historically, most organizations separate their marketing, sales and customer success departments as per the diagram above. But as you can see, this often leads to siloed data sets, tech stacks and processes.
And the issue isn’t just the siloing of data. It also creates at least three clear friction points for the customer as they pass from one function to the other as they move through the sales process.
Now let’s explore the same journey from a RevOps position:
After RevOps
| Marketing Ops | Sales Ops | Customer Service Ops |
|---|---|---|
| RevOps | ||
| Data | ||
| Technology | ||
| Process |
As you can see, once RevOps is at play in the go-to-market arm of a business, it’s easier to recognize sales, marketing, and customer success as a single function with a clear alignment between data, technology, and processes.
Five main benefits of RevOps
| From | To |
|---|---|
| Time wasted comparing info | Data-driven decision-making and better collaboration |
| Tension created in hand-offs with “it’s not me, it’s them” attitude | Complete visibility and accountability across all teams |
| Individual reports and processes | Single source of truth shared by everyone |
| Subjective forecasting and many “make or break” months | More consistent and predictable pipeline and business growth |
| Everyone working for themselves in isolation | Better customer experience leading to higher win rates and faster sales cycles |
In short, think of these benefits as:
- Making better decisions faster
- Getting the right data in hand to make those decisions
- Building trust and predictable pipeline
But selling a fresh idea as bold as RevOps to skeptical colleagues or a resistant board isn’t easy. Change can be hard work and a ‘No’ is always easier to get than a ‘Yes’ when it comes to asking for extra budgets for fundamental business change.
With is in mind, there are two key points you should try and remember to communicate when approaching your go-to-market teams with the idea of RevOps:
- How having a codified, replicable process will help deals close faster
- How RevOps will help the organization build a consistent approach to scaling
Getting started with RevOps
RevOps is a powerful way to drive more revenue through your business, But as a relatively new operational concept, there are a few potential difficulties you need to keep in mind:
- Lack of buy-in from business leaders
- Lack of alignment on the customer journey
- Lack of internal expertise or ownership
- Lack of budget
- Too much technology
- Lack of process/resources
- Papering over the cracks
Once your RevOps strategy and practical applications are up and running, you’ll start to see the fruits of your labor. But, don’t be surprised or discouraged if you don’t see results right away. It’s going to take time for people on your team to adjust to this new way of operating. The sooner you start, the sooner you can improve your processes, and then sooner you can see results.
New Perspective can help you get started on your RevOps journey. Reach out to one of our growth specialists and start your business transformation today.
