What Is Revenue Operations?

What is Revenue Operations? 

We are hearing more and more about Revenue Operations, and positions such as "Director Revenue Operations" or "VP Revenue Operations" are also being mentioned with increasing frequency. New positions are being filled, modern companies are reorganizing their structures. But what exactly do these (for many companies still) new developments mean? I'll tell you why it's by no means a short-lived trend and how Revenue Operations can be absolutely valuable for your company in this article. 

What exactly do you mean by revenue operations? Or why moving from "each to their own" to "all in one pot" is essential. 

Before we clarify what added value Revenue Operations deliver to your company, we should clearly define what we are actually talking about here. First of all, the overall goal of RevOps is to connect (formerly) isolated departments, data, and processes in a way that benefits the entire company. In other words, you could say it is a tool that tucks into the seams of previously separate areas, creating one big whole - across the entire company. company-wide. In this interdisciplinary role, revenue operation teams work along the customer journey on processes, enablement, data analysis, and internal training. What used to "simmer in their own pots" is now put on one table. The equation for this looks like this:  

Revenue Operations = Marketing Operations + Sales Operations + Closing & Post-Sales Operations (Customer Success).

By acting as the "connecting link," companies are able (either for the first time or many times more easily/structured if this challenge has already been tackled differently) to unite cross-departmental goals, priorities, and strategies of the entire company with people, processes, and systems.  

Ideally, then, a revenue operations team is a neutral role that works closely with individual departments to drive key business initiatives and realize planned outcomes. To do this, it manages and executes special projects from start to finish, including analysis (data collection), modeling, purchases, project management, and reporting. Additionally, this provides insights into developing business trends that allow data-driven decisions to be made in the first place, because: Revenue Operations has unparalleled depth when it comes to assessing and overseeing the performance of a business. 

What is the difference between Revenue Operations and Sales Operations? 

Sales Operations focus entirely on sales, i.e. on the sales organization, its processes, analyses, and the training of employees, and can therefore be classified as a kind of sub-discipline of Revenue Operations. 

Revenue Operations, on the other hand, takes care of the collection and processing of data "behind the scenes" while the sales team concentrates on selling, thereby establishing a dialog between Sales and other departments. By understanding and integrating data and processes from both marketing and customer service with sales data and processes, the revenue operations team is able to provide optimal support to the business through these activities. 

How can my business benefit from Revenue Operations?

Is it even worth all the fuss? This question can only be answered with a maximally convinced "YES". Those who decide to extend Sales Operations to Revenue Operations enable their company to benefit from a whole range of advantages: 

• Eliminates the division into different fragments/ segments within an organization 
• Enables better and more transparent communication between and within teams
• Creates a complete funnel understanding
• Reporting, metrics, and analytics across the pipeline are now possible

Here we go - getting started with Sales Operations!

It all sounds good. So do you. But how? In order to make the switch as smooth as possible, you should think in advance about a strategy for exactly what the first steps look like when you want to start with Revenue Operations. 

The key to success lies in linking data and processes. 

I recommend that the top priority is to close the gap between marketing and sales. Specifically, a member of the sales operations team can be assigned to address marketing operations issues and thus connect the two teams. By connecting the departments via Pardot + Salesforce or Hubspot Marketing + Sales Hubs, for example, a big step has been taken in the right direction, namely by both benefiting from a single source of truth. 

In addition, it makes sense to establish short feedback loops between sales and marketing right at the beginning in order to constantly push the exchange. 

Once these areas have been coordinated, the second step should be to bring Sales and Customer Success "together". It is advisable to focus first and foremost on ensuring that accounts are transferred between the departments clearly and cleanly, i.e. without any loss of data. 

After these system integrations, the goal of Revenue Operations should be to create a dialogue between those teams through process optimization, internal training, and reporting. In this way, it is possible to foster growth across functions.

Do you have questions about this topic or want to learn more about it? Write me on LinkedIn and we can do a session together