Honing Your Ops Chops: Revenue Operations Explained

With our long list of niche terminology and acronyms, it’s easy to see why people view revenue operations as complex. While we may have an ever-increasing list of new software we’re using, and while we may love to talk about our tech tools (I had to fight back against this recurring column being titled “Kenn Loves Tools”), sales ops itself is a relatively simple concept.

WHAT IS “REVENUE OPERATIONS”?

At its core, revenue operations is the insane concept that all the revenue-generating teams within an organization best serve the organization when they work together. A revenue operations team integrates marketing, sales, and customer success, breaking down the siloed nature that has become the norm for these internal groups.

Revenue operations focuses on the people, data, and processes within these teams, with the goals of improving transparency, efficiency, predictability, and growth. Sales, marketing, and customer service usually rely on separate technology stacks and systems to operate. While technology has divided these internal groups, it’s also what will unify them once a revenue operations model is adopted. Rev ops technology deployed across these departments uses analytics and AI to look for trends and opportunities across all revenue streams.

WHY DO WE NEED REV OPS?

In today’s B2B and B2C markets, customer experience isn’t just a factor in revenue generation; it has largely become the basis of competition. Clients and customers expect personalization, easy access, and quick results.  What’s more, they expect all of this as part of a seamless experience. How can you deliver a seamless experience from siloed departments? You can’t.

Managers have found that using 20^th century organizational systems for today’s more advanced digital model simply isn’t working. This helps explain the rapid adoption of the revenue operations model, as well as the recent growth in revenue operations positions. In addition, it’s common for companies to use several sales channels (e.g., ecommerce, channel partners, retail) and several revenue models (one-time sale, subscription). Organizational models that built processes around channels and models simply don’t work anymore. 

Maestro Group has recently shared blogposts focused on the metaphors of sales, so here’s my attempt at a rev ops metaphor: revenue operations is the glue that holds your revenue-generating teams together. Or maybe a simile would work better: commercial organizations are like complex organisms. If your heart operated separately from your kidneys, which operated separately from your liver without a shared overall goal of homeostasis, you’d be in serious medical trouble. (Did you know I majored in biology before discovering my love of ops tools?) Revenue operations promotes growth and homeostasis for your entire organization.

THE FUNCTIONS OF REVENUE OPERATIONS

Now that you understand what revenue operations is, let’s talk about the functions carried out by a revenue operations team.

1. Tools (my favorite!) and CRM management: Your revenue operations team is responsible for the sales, marketing, and customer service technology tools your organization uses, your customer relationship manager (CRM), and how these integrate with each other.
2. Data cleanliness and process controls: Data is only as useful if it’s inputted correctly and can be reported on accurately. 
3. Reporting and forecasting: Once numbers one and two are in place, key performance indicators need to be set for each component of revenue generation.
4. Revenue lifecycle cohesion: The rev ops team’s role is to ensure the marketing, sales, and customer success teams are cohesive in their efforts. They may do this through unified tool selection, fostering open communication, and working with the CRO.

The rev ops team’s role is to ensure the marketing, sales, and customer success teams are cohesive in their efforts. They may do this through unified tool selection, fostering open communication, and working with the CRO.

The adoption of revenue operations continues to increase, and it’s no wonder why. B2B companies that have adopted rev ops have seen a 10 to 20 percent increase in sales productivity and a 15 to 20 percent increase in internal customer satisfaction. I’m a big fan—it makes sense, it works, and the tools are A-MAZ-ING.I hope you enjoyed “Honing Your Ops Chops.” See you next time!

Did the mention of data cleanliness strike a nerve? Contact us at mastery@maestrogroup.co and have Kenn do a sales operations audit for your team.