Eighty-six percent of executives told Forrester Consulting that Revenue Operations is important to meet their goals, but only 41% were very confident they understood what it was. Forrester identified high, medium, and low maturity RevOps organisations and of the 927 multi-national organisations 25% were high maturity. So we know it’s early adoption days for RevOps but we also know its high returns.
Salesforce takes a typically functional view on the matter: RevOps (or “revenue operations’) is a B2B function that uses automation to help teams make decisions that grow the business. RevOps brings everyone together — from marketing, sales, service, customer success, and finance — around three shared goals: price for better conversion and margin, reduce revenue leakage, and use customer data to identify new revenue opportunities.
Forrester says: Revenue Operations is defined as the strategic and organizational alignment of the resources, people, processes, and technologies that drive the conversion of prospects to customers and maximize customer lifetime value. It is an alignment of the functions that determine the success of a company’s revenue lifecycle.
It’s hard to disagree with any of this, but for us, it takes a too narrow a view of the things that contribute to revenue, HubSpot goes a lot wider to say:
"RevOps is the mindset, practice, and manifestation of unifying your internal operations. With this new approach, your business runs friction-free, and so does your customer experience."
I think it is fair to say that we would agree with this somewhat more full-funnel approach.
At RevOpsLab we define it as:
Revenue Operations (RevOps) is a business function that aims to maximize an organization's revenue potential. It is the deployment of a systems thinking approach to driving full-funnel accountability through the alignment of Marketing, Sales, and Service across your organisation’s process, platform, and people.
When properly implemented, RevOps helps an organization rewrite internal operations, improve client acquisition, empower client delight, and establish a company culture focused on driving revenue.
Going back to that Forrester study - Fifty-seven percent of respondents reported that their organizations plan to invest in a RevOps function in the next 12 months. Let’s take a look at a couple of reasons you might consider following their lead.
Why do you need RevOps?
- It provides a codified, replicable process that will help deals close faster
- It will help you build a consistent approach to scaling
Forrester says: The benefits of a revenue operations function are clear: more robust and accurate planning, improved internal productivity, and increased win rates. Those who have highly mature revenue operations teams are two times more likely to receive these benefits than low maturity teams.
The five main benefits of RevOps:
| From | To |
| Time wasted comparing information between systems | 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 |
