The 2020 pandemic has slowed many pipelines and stopped some B2B deals in their tracks, making revenue operations (RevOps) a larger priority for many B2B organizations. The integration of operations functions, tools and data enables these RevOps teams to take the various portions of the customer experience out of their silos to present a seamless experience for prospects and customers, and a holistic view for the company.
In July, Demand Gen Report and LeanData published What’s Working in Revenue Operations?, a report on the state of revenue operations with insights from some of the companies who are already reaping the rewards of prioritizing RevOps in their organizations. Here are some takeaways from that report.
Unifying Teams Around the Customer
Latane Conant, CMO at 6sense, attributes improvements to the relevant experiences that aligned sales and marketing teams are able to deliver at every customer touchpoint.
“If they have access to insights that they need to make decisions in real time and you enable agility,” she says, “you will innately be able to deliver a great customer experience.”
When marketing operations and sales operations align as a single, comprehensive unit focused on customers, they’re better able to drive revenue. Increasing embrace of this paradigm has led to an industry shift, with another Demand Gen Report study indicating that Director of Revenue Operations titles have risen 68% faster than Director of Sales Operations titles.
A successful RevOps team can be more proactive than reactive, according to Jeff Pedowitz, CEO of The Pedowitz Group, so that “instead of running the organization from an efficiency standpoint, you’d be running it from an ROI perspective.”
Taking Ownership of the Customer
Leads have always been precious, but in a receding economy they become even more so. Successful B2B organizations recognize this and are taking the RevOps model from “buzzword stage” into ramped-up adoption.
Don Otvos, VP of Revenue Operations at LeanData, describes it as the function that owns the customer, touching everything from marketing, finance and sales to customer experience, customer success and even product. It’s an ideal model for ensuring a frictionless customer journey, moving marketing prospects to sales opportunities to customers—and then to customers who renew and upgrade. The holistic view of their experience is a crucial component in orchestrating a successful flow from one leg of that journey to the next.
While there are still hand-off points, like from marketing to sales, there’s a holistic picture that gives everyone a complete understanding of what that customer has experienced thus far. They don’t start from scratch in each stage of the buyer’s journey.
That’s where a key challenge comes in. Each team needs to trust in the other, so leaders need to keep a close eye on communication and continuing to build that trust.
Sales & Marketing Alignment
The emergence of RevOps hasn’t come out of the blue. It’s a “put your money where your mouth is” moment—an evolution of the long-discussed importance of sales and marketing alignment that also loops in customer success teams and rallies the entire team around a singular goal.
Jake Randall, Area Director, North Central at Okta, has seen his company thrive under the RevOps structure.
“Part of our charter,” he says, “was helping people understand what we were trying to do and how we were trying to look at things holistically and break down those common silos in B2B that commonly stand in the way of growth.”
The strategy has proved successful at Okta, where they’ve generated 50+% year-over-year revenue growth with the RevOps model.
Integrated Insights
Alignment is just one part of the RevOps story, where deeper integration requires sharing unified data across teams to keep the focus on customers. And John Russo, Founder and CMO of B2B Fusion, suggests that RevOps also serves as a valuable reporting tool for determining an organization’s next steps. With insights integrated more holistically, you get a clearer broad view of the entire operations of the business to see what is and isn’t working in sales, marketing and customer success.
“I see it more as a reporting function that helps guide the organization on what’s working or what’s not … or informing what the customer experience could be,” he says.
Leadership Buy-In
B2B marketers can make impressive improvements in ROI capabilities by investing in RevOps, provided they have leadership buy-in. So many organizations are in transition right now, and it may be an ideal time to consider this new approach to focus on revenue growth.
“The savvy marketer can paint a picture of the before and after of what the RevOps business can look like,” Pedowitz says. “And really think about how each stakeholder involved can benefit from that. You have to show them their jobs don’t go away but show them how their lives would improve.”
You can get more information about the state of revenue operations from the full report, What’s Working in Revenue Operations? Successful RevOps Teams Treat Every Lead Like Gold to Enhance the Customer Experience.
For more advice on adapting to the evolving sales and marketing landscape, read 6 Ways Marketers Can Adapt in Time of Uncertainty.
Holly Celeste Fisk
Holly Celeste Fisk is an accomplished marketing pro with 20+ years of experience in B2B and B2C. She’s responsible for Content4Demand’s internal marketing efforts, managing everything from content creation and email marketing to events and sponsorships, blog publishing, website management and social media presence. When she’s not working, you’ll find her sliding into third at softball, buried in a book or practicing her Italian.
