Choosing the Right RevOps Model for Your Business

Traditionally in the B2B space, marketing, sales and customer success have been siloed, each with their own operating functions and set of goals and priorities. The challenge with this way of working is each division is separated. The different goals and priorities make coordination and alignment much harder to implement - this is where Revenue Operations (Rev Ops) comes in.

In our previous blog post, Revenue Operations: Definitions and Explanations, we explained the definition of Rev Ops is the strategic integration of your sales, marketing and service departments into a ‘revenue team’, aligning all teams around revenue goals.

Revenue Operations bridges gaps between organizational silos - across people, processes, data and technology - to provide an end-to-end view of the customer journey and a seamless customer experience.

Across Marketing, Sales and Customer Success, functional leaders have traditionally been focused on revenue goals very specific to their own organization. Marketing leaders focused on generating qualified leads to deliver to Sales. For their part, Sales leaders focused on closing deals and hitting quota. Finally, Customer Success leaders focused on improving satisfaction, increasing retention and generating renewal, cross-sell and upsell revenue.

Collaboratively, there tended to be a degree of coordination at the strategic leadership level only around organizational-wide initiatives that required the cross-functional support of multiple teams. A Revenue Operations paradigm requires a closer-knit alignment.

RevOps Teams

PEOPLE

People-Lead their respective teams on shared go-to-market (GTM) initiatives with other customer-facing departments.

PROCESSES

Processes-Ensure the right processes are in place that enable teams to communicate and coordinate effectively in support of planned GTM motions that align with revenue goals.

DATA

Data-Identify key data points that inform a complete end-to-end customer experience, from Marketing to Sales, and from Sales to Customer Success.

TECHNOLOGY

Technology-Work with customer-facing leaders on maximizing the tech stack, looking for ways to integrate with one another so that robust customer profiles can be formed.

Choosing the Right RevOps Model for Your Business

Although there are several key factors that remain constant when devising a successful Revenue Operations strategy, there is no one-size-fits-all formula. RevOps is about aligning operational functions across Marketing, Sales and Customer Success, and ensuring transparency in planning, execution and analytics to optimize GTM operations. No two businesses are alike, however, and variables such as brand, company size, revenue and existing culture play important roles in building the proper path.

A Revenue Ops model can be implemented in most any company at any time, and when done right, it should not be disruptive with the proper change management processes in place. It’s about identifying what is currently working or isn’t in your organization to acquire, keep and grow customers, and making the necessary changes to improve how your company works together to achieve revenue goals.

For early stage start-ups, consider a RevOps hire as soon as you start building out a Sales team; a dedicated resource who leverages your GTM learnings and insights to build a solid revenue foundation. For young organizations, there might not be a need for a full end-to-end function quite yet, as functions like Customer Success might still be being built. But, it’s good to get started early with a long-term plan in place.

On the other hand, more mature organizations benefit from a RevOps plan that includes strategizing, owning and managing the entire go-to-market motion. Next, you’ll review four different Revenue Operations models taking root in organizations today.

For early stage start-ups, consider a RevOps hire as soon as you start building out a Sales team; a dedicated resource who leverages your GTM learnings and insights to build a solid revenue foundation.

Four RevOps Models

As no two organizations are exactly the same, there are a number of ways to structure a Revenue Operations model within a company. The most common approaches include the following:

Revenue Ops as a process

In the absence of a formal Revenue Operations function, a company can put into place a values-driven, organizational culture to drive a collaborative RevOps process. This is deployed often in smaller organizations, but it is also successful in large organizations when there is a strong understanding as to how all revenue teams should work together. Oftentimes, decisions are channeled into a revenue steering committee or demand management council with a digital link to connect the dots between functions and departments.

COO and Business Operations

This Revenue Ops function includes Marketing Ops, Sales Ops and Customer Success, and each of them reports into the company’s Chief Operations Officer. This takes Revenue Ops and the traditional operations of Sales, Marketing and Customer Success and funnels them into a business operations function. It is the COO’s task to achieve true alignment.

Revenue Ops as a function/role

This is where a business has a Chief Revenue Officer (CRO) or a dedicated Revenue Ops function in place that encompasses Marketing Ops, Sales Ops, Sales Enablement and Customer Success. All of these departments report to the CRO, who manages alignment to drive revenue.

CRO and CCO

The Chief Revenue Officer and Chief Customer Officer (CCO) work together to head up Revenue Ops functions. Customer Success Operations is linked under the Revenue Ops structure.

Well over one-third of businesses deploy a Revenue Operations team or are in the process of building one, executing upon transparent, end-to-end business processes to drive predictable revenue across Marketing, Sales and Customer Success.

If your company has not yet started, the time is now!

As you navigate the journey to alignment, transparency and operational efficiency, remember that Revenue Operations is being called a “game changer” and a critical component of modern B2B growth.