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    What is revenue operations and why should you care?

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    I’ve been seeing a lot of talk lately about revenue operations, also sometimes called revops, and I’ll bet you have too. The term seems to be having a moment in the spotlight. For instance, I heard that “VP of Revenue Operations” job titles have increased by 300% in 2020 and 2021.

    But what exactly is revenue operations, and why should we care?

    What revenue operations means

    Revenue operations refers to the practice of aligning all aspects of the business organization to maintain and grow revenue in a coordinated fashion. Revenue operations initiatives are often begun by hiring or promoting into a “Chief Revenue Operations Officer” or “VP of Revenue Operations” role.

    In its simplest form, revenue operations is something that most organizations already strive for at some level or other. We all know that when our sales, marketing, operations, and customer success teams work in lockstep, revenue grows.

    Revops is about optimizing team efforts for revenue growth in a coordinated fashion.

    But many companies are investing in driving this alignment to a new level, and signaling that by their interest and investment in a revenue operations initiative. For sales departments, a revenue operations initiative means that the team must learn to align and collaborate with every aspect of the organization in a much more coordinated fashion than was previously expected or even possible.

    And I think that’s good news for us and for customers.

    Why are we suddenly so interested in "revenue operations?"

    A number of factors seem to be driving the rising interest in revops. Customers are demanding a more seamless experience, which means companies that can deliver seamlessness enjoy a competitive advantage. Revops supports seamless experience by removing silos and improving collaboration across the customer lifecycle.

    At the same time, technology is enabling more data sharing and collaboration across organizations, which in turn fuels the ability of organizations to achieve that seamless experience that customers appreciate and will come to expect.

    As some companies get ahead of the curve on this and succeed in creating both a seamless customer experience and a fully aligned revenue process from marketing to sales to operations to customer success, other companies are finding out they have to do the same if they want to remain competitive.

    Another reason is that vendors want revops to become a new software category to own and are pushing hard for the term to be widely used. Also, when all the point solutions - developed with vast amounts of venture capital - start to merge to prevent Frankenstacks,this term will get even more traction.

    In other words, we'll reach a tipping point, and soon everyone will be eager to get on board.

    What does a successful revenue operations initiative look like?

    A successful revenue operations initiative starts by breaking down traditional silos between marketing, sales, operations, and customer success.

    The director, VP, or officer of revenue operations becomes responsible for overseeing and coordinating all of these aspects of the company. In this role, the revops leader determines priorities, develops teams, implements appropriate technology, and drives alignment from end to end.

    A successful revenue operations initiative begins with a focus on the customer experience, and customer needs. Then, based on the customer’s needs, develops an end-to-end experience and the teams and processes necessary to deliver that experience to the customer.

    In order to accomplish this, the revenue operations leader and team must have appropriate technology to share information, collaborate, and drive consistent processes from marketing to sales to customer success.

    How Membrain supports revenue operations

    When we designed the first edition of Membrain, we weren’t using the term “revenue operations” - but we always knew that the goal was for sales to coordinate seamlessly within the sales team as well as across the organization to deliver an exceptional customer experience.

    Because customer experience and success is at the heart of what we built, and because of our focus on making processes actionable and educational, Membrain will become a tool of choice for revops teams.

    Our core workflows enable sales teams to build, analyze, and execute on seamless processes that focus on customer needs. Our pricing model makes it affordable to provide non-sales personnel with critical data they need to inform their processes and interactions with customers.

    Our account growth module ensures that your teams can take care of existing accounts with a growth-oriented mindset that improves the long-term customer experience and coordinates seamlessly with every aspect of the customer’s interactions with your company.

    And our integrations with marketing automation and other software make it possible to ensure total data coordination and collaboration across the organization.

    I would love to show you how and why Membrain is the ideal tool for your revops initiative - whether you’re hiring a revenue operations VP, or simply wanting to improve collaboration across your sales, marketing, and customer success departments. Let us know if you'd like to explore how to go from theory to practice.

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    George Brontén
    Published July 21, 2021
    By George Brontén

    George is the founder & CEO of Membrain, the Sales Enablement CRM that makes it easy to execute your sales strategy. A life-long entrepreneur with 20 years of experience in the software space and a passion for sales and marketing. With the life motto "Don't settle for mainstream", he is always looking for new ways to achieve improved business results using innovative software, skills, and processes. George is also the author of the book Stop Killing Deals and the host of the Stop Killing Deals webinar and podcast series.

    Find out more about George Brontén on LinkedIn

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