There’s a new concept — a new function, rather — that’s taking the B2B SaaS space by storm. It’s been around for a while now. Many of you have heard of it. Some might even be a part of it. Almost all of you have questions about it.
That function, of course, is RevOps (short for Revenue Operations).
This post is going to cover everything RevOps in SaaS. What is it? How did it come about? How do you implement it? What are its benefits? What does a typical RevOps framework look like? How does it differ from SalesOps?
Let’s start by understanding the origins of this revolutionary new function.
What is RevOps
Most modern companies today have three main revenue-generating teams — marketing, sales, and customer success.
All of these teams interact with the customer in some capacity:
▪ Marketing creates brand awareness and generates leads via ad campaigns and customer outreach programs.
▪ Sales brings in the business by connecting with these leads (virtually or in-person) and converting them into customers.
▪ Customer success helps retain that business by ensuring customers derive the maximum value from their purchases.
Each of these teams is critical to a company’s success. And during a customer lifecycle, each of these teams is bound to interact with the same customer at some point.
The problem is, all these teams are talking to that same customer in slightly different ways, using slightly different terminologies. Not just that, the tools and data sources these teams use are also different.
The resulting misalignment — the disconnect — is causing massive problems to organizations globally; problems like poor customer experiences, bad business decisions, and ineffective processes.
RevOps was born out of the need to fix this issue.
By streamlining marketing, sales, and customer success, RevOps aims to break age-old silos that tend to exist between these departments. RevOps also works on bringing greater visibility between them and consistency in the way they talk to customers, adopt new technologies, and implement processes.
You can think of RevOps as your school music teacher, making sure everyone in the choir is singing as one, resulting in a melody rather than a cacophony.
The RevOps Framework
The old way of doing business doesn’t apply to modern SaaS firms anymore. Closing a deal, then celebrating and forgetting about that customer altogether — this no longer works in today’s diverse, product-rich landscape.
On the contrary, the amount a customer pays you at the start today is relatively small compared to their total potential lifetime value. Today’s customers want hyper-personalized experiences that continue throughout their journey with you and your products. And they prefer embarking upon this journey through a subscription model, rather than a one-time upfront payment.
Since most revenue is now achieved after point-of-sale, the role of a RevOps program has become even more vital.
Every robust RevOps framework is built upon four foundational pillars:
▪ People
▪ Processes
▪ Technology
▪ Data
The goal of a RevOps framework is to streamline operations and break traditional silos between sales, marketing, and customer success. It does this by acting as a common bridge between these teams, ensuring they all speak the same language and put up a united front.
Let’s compare the roles of these three teams in a typical organization, against those of an organization with a RevOps function:
What does RevOps do
The most common responsibilities of a typical RevOps playbook include:
- Reviewing company policies and business processes
- Facilitating easier communication between sales, marketing, and customer success
- Generating short- and long-term reports using a variety of data sets
- Obtaining, implementing, and maintaining software across all revenue-generating functions
- Providing on-going training to all employees regarding the use of new systems or following new processes
- Delivering visibility across the entire revenue team
- Driving revenue predictability
- Improving efficiency across the revenue process
- Ensuring greater accountability from all stakeholders
Key Factors for a Successful RevOps Implementation
Now that we’ve seen how RevOps came about and what its main functions are, let’s look at some key factors that you should consider when implementing a RevOps model at your organization.
The Right Leader
Appoint a RevOps VP who knows how to handle three things above all else: data, processes, and technology. These are the core skills of a good RevOps leader. They don’t need to be closers, PR experts, or brilliant marketeers. All they need to be are strategic thinkers.
Thorough review and analysis
Round up your business leaders and carefully weight the costs and benefits of implementing a RevOps program. List down key opportunity areas and create a solid transformation plan.
Ensuring accountability from all stakeholders
Everyone in your sales, marketing, and customer success teams needs to be in on the plan. Those who aren’t willing to take the step might not be the right fit for your organization.
A holistic overhaul
Make sure your plan involves improving processes and tools as well, and not just changing your org structure. Tools and processes are where most of the bottlenecks lie. Unless you fix those, your plan will likely fall flat.
Below are some common pitfalls you should prepare for when setting up a RevOps team:
▪ Lack of buy-in from your business leaders
▪ Technology overload
▪ Lack of alignment regarding the customer journey
▪ Budget constraints
▪ Weak internal expertise
▪ Lack of ownership
▪ Non-existent feedback loops
Benefits of RevOps
Okay, so now you have a fair idea about the RevOps framework, how you can implement one at your own company, and some common pitfalls you should avoid.
At this point, some of you are probably wondering: Ummm, a RevOps program sounds great and all, but do we really need one?
Your concerns are justified. Adopting a RevOps model is a rigorous, time-intensive process that requires immense coordination and cooperation between some of your biggest departments.
But by and large, organizations willing to put in the effort and implement a RevOps model stand to gain tremendously in the long run.
Let’s look at some of RevOps’ biggest benefits:
▪ Provides a single source of truth for the entire company
▪ Ensures total visibility and accountability across all teams
▪ Drives smarter, data-driven decisions
▪ Optimizes the customer experience from start to end
▪ Enables stronger collaboration between teams
▪ Facilitates exponential long-term growth
▪ Renders processes more efficient
▪ Brings greater accuracy to pipeline and business predictions
For those who need more convincing, this post by the Boston Consulting Group reported the following benefits enjoyed by top B2B tech companies (led by SaaS providers) that implemented a RevOps function:
▪ 100% to 200% increases in digital marketing ROI
▪ 10% to 20% increases in sales productivity
▪ 10% increases in lead acceptance
▪ 15% to 20% increases in internal customer satisfaction
▪ 30% reductions in GTM expenses
RevOps vs SalesOps
Many people wonder how RevOps differs from SalesOps.
The simplest way of differentiating between these two functions is:
Whatever RevOps does for your revenue-generating teams, SalesOps does for your sales team.
Simplifying processes, adopting new technologies, harnessing data, reducing friction, increasing productivity — the key responsibilities of these two functions are quite similar. But their mode and area of operations are very different.
For a complete RevOps vs SalesOps analysis, you can head over to one of our other posts that covers the topic in detail.
Conclusion
The main goal of a RevOps team is to ensure your company is using the same language when talking to the customer — be that in marketing campaigns, during the sales process, while onboarding and training, and even during cross-selling or upselling.
One way to tell if your RevOps model is working is if you notice improvements in key business metrics like conversation rates and ARRs. These improvements don’t have to be significant, either. For instance, assuming the number of leads remains the same, if your pipeline conversion rate and win rate increase by as little as 0.05 - 0.1%, and if your ACV (Annual Contract Value) improves by approximately 10-15%, you stand to increase your ARR (Annual Recurring Revenue) by as much as 100% … or more!
So take your time, carefully plan your RevOps structure, and then go about executing it step by step. But know that if you linger too long, or decide against it altogether, you might lose big in the long run.
Because whether or not you end up implementing a RevOps function at some point, you can bet your competitors certainly will.
