Kyle Hamer • February 12, 2020

evenue operations (RevOps) is a tactful merger of sales, service and marketing departments in order to deliver a superior end-to-end perspective to management and administration, at the same time leaving everyday operations within the administration. The comprehensive approach of revenue operations is formulated to break down the data silos between departments. The digital customer experience is constantly changing and therefore, it is necessary for the various departments to share data. RevOps is the game plan to integrate all the departments and to calculate the return on investment.

The team responsible for revenue operation functions is at the epicenter of customer data on behalf of the whole organization, with attention to the acquisition of customers, recurring revenue, bookings, customer satisfaction, and other customer-oriented measures. IT facilitates RevOps with tools such as artificial intelligence and analytics enabling it to uncover the right set of circumstances and trends for driving the flow of revenue.

The difference between revenue operations and other operations’ plan of action; like sales operation and business operation, is that RevOps is concerned with the growth of revenue. This may also incorporate sales operations at the same time as having a liaison with other departments like service and marketing. However, RevOps does not involve the more internal departments like the legal department or human resource (HR). Revenue operations expedite joint effort between departments that impact the revenue of a company directly.

Framework of RevOps

Firms are increasingly adopting revenue operations to assist in administering the calculated merger of various departments. Companies are setting up RevOps departments headed by an executive who answers to the chief financial officer (CFO) of the company. Other firms have an administrative team that incorporates organization from marketing, sales, and service. Some organizations are recruiting a chief revenue officer who answers either to the chief financial officer (CFO) or the chief executive officer (CEO).

Sellers of software are designing tools and technology to facilitate institutions in the breakdown of customer information within diverse agencies and also to better allocate data across the various departments.

Revenue operations assist in consolidating the departments in charge of marketing, sales, and service. But they differ from company to company relating to the per-eminent focus of the team responsible for revenue operations. The major focus of a given company might be marketing operations to push revenue, while another will give priority to sales operation and another will give prominence to service operation to refine its up sell or cross-sell capacity.

Reasons for Increase in Revenue Operations

The method that clients are using to buy products has evolved. Clients are doing their own research about a product way before they meet up with a salesperson. Moreover, business models that require one to subscribe, what occurs after making a sale is as important as what occurs prior to making a sale. This indicates that the departments responsible for marketing, sales and the success of customers must be synchronized in order to make the entire process successful.

In the past, working together was difficult and complicated. But things are evolving. Factors that are facilitating the surge in revenue operations at the moment are:

1. The never-ending detachment between marketing data and sales.
2. Presence of artificial intelligence and automation to propel awareness.
3. The presumption by customers of a homogeneous buyer’s experience.
4. Ineffectiveness in sharing information between teams.

Previously marketing, sales and service teams have depended on different systems and tech stacks resulting in big disparity in data. This difference has made teams bring disconnected information to the table, resulting in a wastage of time trying to compare information and consequently affecting their ability to make an accurate and informed decision.

RevOps has come to solve this problem. Teams no longer waste precious time, point fingers at each other, give wrong predictions and operate as lone wolves. Instead, they are working together for a common goal by working together in collecting data. They are fully accountable. This results in a foreseeable growth of business and faster cycles of sales.

Importance of Revenue Operations

As a phrase and a tactic revenue, operation is quite new but it is connected to a transforming environment of the way organizations are selling, marketing and serving their clients. The clients can now look forward to a positive experience online. They also suppose that the company is aware of past inquiries and interactions and therefore, do not have to do a rerun of the details after the first interaction. Therefore, merging the sales, marketing and service teams is a way of ensuring that the customers are appeased.

Having multiple sources of information on the customer, the revenue operation teams are responsible for ensuring that the collection of data and information is efficient and straightforward – with the aid of organizational strategy and technology

Revenue operations are directly connected with the data of a company, which is increasingly becoming more and more important. The objective of revenue operations is to link data with sales, service and marketing departments to assist in portraying a 360-degree perspective to the customer before, during and after a sale.

Benefits of Revenue Operations

Over and above surge in revenues for an organization, RevOps has other additional benefits:

1. Order: merging the customer-facing department’s guarantees that each customer initiative and campaign has a quantifiable net result of the customer experience from the beginning to the end.
2. Having a focal point: by consolidating the departments of sales, marketing, and service, companies are able to focus on objectives and get everybody on the same page with the same outcome in mind, for instance, closing deals, generating deals and inflating the existing accounts.
3. Simplicity: by setting up a revenue operations proposition, firms are able to obliterate barriers and stockpiling of customer information within departments, this dramatically improves the efficiency of an organization as well as the customer experience.

Determining if your Organization Needs Revenue Operations

Revenue operation is a relatively new concept. There are several ways of determining if your organization requires this type of alignment:

1. When goals across the departments are not in alignment.

When your sales, service and marketing teams are not on the same page you will be speaking different languages. For instance, in teams that are not in alignment, the marketing department may be achieving one objective but if the sales department isn’t achieving its revenue goals, achieving those objectives will mean very little in the grand scheme. On the other hand, if the marketing department is conveying eligible leads as per the plan but sales fail to work on it, the whole revenue sector is in peril.

2. When Crucial Business Metrics Don’t Match Up

For a long time, sales, marketing, and service departments concentrated on hitting their own departmental objectives. This resulted in disconnected information, siloed data and exploits that do not match up. With revenue operation, however, parties utilize one source of information to calculate and examine the whole system and commit to achieving the same objective.

3. If there is an unabating inter-organizational wrangle

Dis articulate information and fragmented priorities will lead to mistrust and pointing of fingers, resulting in internal bickering and dismay. Putting your revenue operation team in alignment not only makes your numbers but also creates a flourishing working environment that is based on trust and accountability.

Companies can no longer afford to run their businesses in harmoniously passing their customers from sales to marketing to services. Today the best organizations use a homogeneous revenue operation that enables them to consolidate and optimize the activities that power revenue growth.

Revenue operation is concerned with developing shared truth and working together to achieve revenue objectives. It links program makers, revenue stewards, and producers for successful results.

Revenue Operations More Than Sales and Marketing Alignment

About 35% of businesses have a revenue operation team or are actively building one. Revenue operations are swiftly increasing jobs and it is slowly becoming an integral part of the business. At first, some firms had described revenue operation as alignment in sales and marketing, others thought it was synonymous with sales operations. But it is way more than that. It is a calculated and holistic process of looking at the generation of revenue in an organization and the people it affects.

For a long time, companies have understood the importance of aligning sales and marketing. Besides, you don’t want your marketing team to spend time and resources only to hand it over to the sales team who will be forced to go in cold; everyone loses in that scenario. This lack of harmony makes for bad customer experience.

The traditional method of aligning marketing and sales was shallow and limited. Marketing and sales were operating in a disconnected way with each having their own data, technology, and objectives. For a long time, this lack of connection was normal and was good enough. Teams worked in isolation, each bringing different reports to the table and would spend a considerable amount of time trying to match numbers. But things are evolving and the way consumers are buying products has radically transformed.

Consumers are looking forward to a seamless buying experience from inquiry to the final sale. They dislike constantly repeating themselves or share business objectives every time they interact with customer service.

This is an unchartered terrain that has given rise to challenges that need a new intensity of accountability and coordination. This means that information and data must be consolidated and allocated to the various teams to ensure that everybody is on the same page and is aligned towards a similar revenue objective.

Revenue operation is the way out. Rather than focusing on just one department, companies utilize data and technology to amalgamate, measure and analyze revenue streams. With revenue operation you are able to:

1. Be on the same page with regards to processes, goals, people, and data making partnership simpler and allowing for better decision making.
2. Enhances delivery of results by refining the visibility of the business, hence closing deals faster and saving time.
3. Confidence in investment and growth because of a culture of accountability, predictability, and transparency.
4. Connecting the signals from sales activity data and systems for engaging customers for improved visibility, more precise forecasts, and consistency.

Marketing and sales are essential collaborators of a revenue operation company but are not the only ones. A truly linked revenue operation outstretches to all the teams and departments influencing the revenue of the company.

Success of Customer

The success of customers has become a noteworthy influencer of revenue. According to research, consumers are 89% likely to turn to the competition if they experience bad customer service. Nevertheless, 90% will likely stick with the company if their customer experience was pleasant. This is a game-changer considering it costs seven times more to attract new customers than to retain the existing ones.

Management of Products

The product team must work closely with the revenue operation team to ensure that the company achieves its revenue objectives. The team should be aware of the products that are selling well, how customers are adopting new products and how to make plans that align with the company’s revenue targets.

Finance

It might not directly influence revenue, but finance keeps an eye on execution ensuring that the organization meets or surpasses the expectations. If you are a CFO it’s important to be acquainted with the performance of your business and pinpoint the dangers and the positives in the forecast. When finance is aligned properly, the revenue operation team is able to make more accurate choices about the budget and investing back in the organization.