What is revenue operations? We talk often about the importance of aligning sales, marketing, services, and systems. There are various avenues for success in that arena, however, a strong revenue operations strategy marries all of the important elements of successful sales, marketing, systems, and service strategies for the end goal of increasing not only revenue but improving internal operations and customer experience overall. Let’s dive into the what, why, and how of Revenue Operations and the benefits of implementing a Rev Ops strategy into your B2B company.
What is Revenue Operations?
Let’s define rev ops: Revenue Operations, or Rev Ops for short, is a cross-functional strategy implemented within the various operations of a business with the goal of maximizing revenue potential within a company. What is operating revenue? Simply put, operating revenue is revenue generated by the central activities of a company. The combination of efforts made by sales, marketing, and success teams allows for the optimization of both the sales and marketing funnels, generating higher quality leads, improving customer experience, and ultimately increasing revenue. According to Forbes, Revenue Operations recognizes that revenue isn’t an end goal, but rather a full cyclical process described as an “end-to-end process of driving revenue, from the moment a prospect considers a purchase (Marketing) to when you close the deal (Sales) to their renewal and upsell (Customer Success). The result of this orchestration is faster growth and more profit.”
What Does RevOps Do?
The overarching goal of RevOps is alignment between marketing, sales, and customer success. While these are all varying facets of operation within a company, aligning them allows for true revenue optimization and success. Applying a RevOps strategy within your organization will drive growth by creating an aligned focus on operational efficiency. A well-made revenue ops strategy is entirely dependent on data, transparency, communication, accountability, and a robust focus on collaboration from all key players.
RevOps Key Players
A revenue operations strategy relies heavily on the alignment and optimization of all key players. The typical structure within a company places customer and revenue success as a focus within individual departments, rather than holistically aligning customer and revenue success across all departments. A RevOps team is designed to connect the disconnected, and create fluid processes that seek to enhance all facets of the customer experience with revenue growth as the goal by enlisting key players from marketing, sales, systems, and services. An operations management team is necessary for aligning and managing resources in each department to ensure each outcome aligns with the customer’s and business’ goals. In a revenue operations strategy, an enablement team is needed to manage and marry sales and marketing to align with customer success.
A powerful RevOps team requires software tools and data quality that can be best managed by a systems administrator and data analyst. The technical capabilities of a systems administrator and data analyst accompanied by the unique expertise of sales and marketing creates a strong foundation for success on all fronts. The revenue growth framework created collectively by designated members of the marketing, sales, systems, and services teams paves the way for a holistic and data-driven focus on customer and company success. With all key players operating efficiently with revenue as a focus, consistent business growth becomes more predictable and attainable.
The Benefits of Implementing a RevOps Strategy
The unified goal of revenue growth within a company can provide clarity, accountability, and actionable insights that yield predictable business growth, revenue growth, and adaptability. The competitive advantage of implementing a RevOps strategy lies in a cohesive and collaborative data-driven approach to the processes within each department. This alone can have a major impact on adaptability in relation to market changes. Revenue operational management teams can provide structure, communication, focus, project management, and coordination that allows for seamless transitions in relation to market changes.
RevOps seeks to highlight operational inefficiencies and opportunities for revenue generation in order to bridge the gap on all fronts through unification and optimization.
By creating a revenue funnel focus for all departments, where all client-facing teams play a major role in the end-to-end customer experience, the benefits for both your company and your customers are apparent and exciting. As the end-to-end customer experience continues to demand a level of connectivity that a RevOps strategy can provide, there is a focus on the bigger picture that benefits all involved.
How do you know if you need RevOps?
Auditing is the first step in understanding the customer experience pain points and departmental disconnects that could benefit from a RevOps strategy. During your audit, it’s important to take a look at how effectively the technology that is managing each movement in the customer experience is being used by members in all departments. If the audit highlights discrepancies in usage among various teams that may, in turn, deliver misaligned numbers or misplaced understanding of where a customer lies within their journey, a revenue operations strategy would be a great benefit for your organization as the framework supports the entire customer lifecycle.
Once an audit has been conducted, it is important to analyze the audit objectively and align your team with the health of your business by giving them the proper tools to better understand the revenue stream and where their efforts play a role in optimizing and improving growth for both your customers and organization. If the audit shows miscommunications and discrepancies in the customer experience or between departments, it is time to think about building and incorporating a RevOps strategy into your B2B company.
Key Takeaways
Through the implementation of a healthy revenue operations structure, it can be easy to learn what does and does not work within your B2B company and reframe those issues into collaborative solutions that benefit not only your operational revenue but your employees and customers as well. The seamless integration of all teams for a common goal creates a healthier revenue growth strategy, predictable growth on all fronts, and adaptability across the board as everyone is on the same page, working towards the same goal using productive tactics that improve the experience for all involved. If you’re unsure of where to start, hiring a Revenue Operations Consultant can elevate and ease the strategy buildout and implementation process to the benefit of your customers, employees, and ultimately your revenue.
About LAIRE Digital
LAIRE Digital is a digital growth agency dedicated to helping you generate reliable revenue to grow your B2B company. With the right mix of digital marketing, strategic planning, and sales enablement, our team can help ensure that your revenue goals are met. If you’re ready to take the next step on the path towards producing results that will take your business to the next level, schedule a free 20-minute marketing assessment with us today.
