Revenue is the lifeblood and ultimate focus for all organizations.
Ask any enterprise CEO about what’s top of mind for them and their responses will range from growth, revenue, or an upcoming earnings report. It’s really the common thread that binds all businesses together – revenue. And when you look at the primary stewards of this mission you typically think of growth marketers and sellers. But there’s one other group that does vast amounts of heavy lifting – pumping out the data, managing the tech, and building out processes – which often goes unnoticed. It’s sales and marketing ops.
Ops is the unsung hero of the go-to-market organization – and that’s not a fun fact that your operations professionals relish – it’s a problem. And it’s one that I expect will be solved as the role is elevated by the demand of customer obsession.
Allison Snow, Senior Analyst at Forrester
Allison is right, and we’re already seeing why strong operational resources is a necessity. The proliferation of data, rise in technology capabilities & complexities, and digitization of information led to some major benefits – mostly around businesses better equipping themselves to drive revenue and impact their top line and bottom line in a measurable way. But these factors also brought to light major skill gaps across GTM teams, particularly when it comes to making use of the data and tech available in B2B. Scott Brinker began the discussion in 2013:
“The world got wired. Geek became chic. Customers were being won (or lost) by the experiences they had with companies on the web, with email, and via mobile devices. Data and software were moving from the back office to the front office. And the center of gravity in marketing started to shift to those who could make that machinery work.”
With increased complexity, operations, a historically tactical role that focused on delivering business activities and processes to facilitate organizational efficiencies, has become much more. Ops is being chartered with evolving its capabilities from simply executing tasks to informing the data and technology strategy that will support the mission of the C-suite and every shareholder – drive more revenue.
The evolution of sales and marketing ops has up-leveled to create a new paradigm – one where ops is a direct contributor to an organization’s top-line and a major stakeholder for an organization’s revenue strategy.
It’s called Revenue Ops.
We, alongside industry leaders such as Heinz Marketing, Engagio, Allocadia, Bizible, and Forrester just launched a groundbreaking eBook to establish the importance, function, and tools supporting Revenue Ops – The Rise of Revenue Ops: Why Marketing & Sales Operations Make Growth Possible.
The 4 Pillars of Revenue Ops
Put simply, Revenue Ops can be defined as a set of operations responsibilities that are the linchpin to scalable growth.
Revenue Ops sits at the intersection of marketing & sales ops – taking the best of both worlds and combining them with a strong focus on supporting the entire customer lifecycle.
An organizational change which creates a centralized operations team has great potential cross-functional alignment, however such advancements may not appear for some time. Even with today’s separate marketing and sales ops roles, the new Revenue Ops framework allows for tighter clarity and coordination that will impact revenue efficiency.
The Revenue Ops framework consists of four pillars – a model that structures ops teams around core, revenue-focused responsibilities:
- Management & Strategy: Formulating the overall GTM strategy and executing on the company vision
- Process Optimization: Optimizing key marketing and sales processes
- Technology & Project Management: Implementing the right technologies and managing process workflows
- Data & Analytics: Delivering the right data and translating them into actionable insights
A detailed visual breakdown of all responsibilities is available in the eBook.
In addition to a more streamlined approach, businesses can see multiple benefits from reimagining traditional ops roles with a Revenue Ops model. From more alignment and process optimization, all the way through establishing better customer experiences – Revenue Ops builds a foundation for go-to-market to unleash the full potential of their key activities. This hyper cross-functional model also cements ops teams as key revenue drivers & stakeholders.
Wrapping It Up
Data and technology will continue to expand at a rapid rate. The world we live in tomorrow will look vastly different from what we see today. And in order for businesses to stay relevant and find success, they need to set revenue as their true north star.
The winners will be defined by teams that take a more comprehensive and integrated approach – relying on Revenue Ops as the key to unlocking true growth potential.
Download The Rise of Revenue Ops: Why Marketing & Sales Operations Make Growth Possible to learn more.
