What is RevOps (Revenue Operations)?

Written by Christina | Mar 2, 2022 4:30:13 PM

There are more definitions about what RevOps is (and isn't) than almost any other business function or practice right now and this says to us, that the market for revenue operations is in a low state of maturity - it’s like the early days of motoring before everyone decided what order the pedals on a car should go in.

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

Scaling is where revenue growth exceeds investment growth and really is a byword for efficiency, it is when you can close more deals without hiring more salespeople, or ship more product without needing to spend more money. A revenue operation department powers this growth through designing process and systems efficiency into the interconnected departments and channels in the business.

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

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