Revenue Operations, or RevOps, is quickly becoming the new buzzword for B2B. Finally, the industry is recognizing the B2B growth engine as a process. Other functions in the B2B enterprise have undergone this evolution – finance matured to ERP, operations to automated execution systems, R&D to product lifecycle management systems. The revenue function, sometimes called the growth function, comprises the strategy, marketing, sales, customer, and product teams. The process through which the company grows its revenue, and sustains that growth over time, is an end-to-end value stream that spans these teams.
At ayeQ, we have been focused on improving RevOps for decades. It’s how we successfully grew B2B companies. Granted, we were engineers let loose on the marketing function, so building an engine was just what we did. But there weren’t a lot of engines around 2 decades ago. So, we built it manually, over and over again, company by company. And we learned how to get it right. Now, the market calls what we built “RevOps” and we love it.
So, what are the essential elements for a RevOps engine?
- Guiding strategy. First, you must define and document your go-to-market strategy. That strategy serves to guide the execution across your teams. The RevOps platform must be built to align all the teams’ activities to the strategy.
- End-to-end process. Get rid of the notion of a marketing funnel and a sales funnel. It is 1 funnel. The RevOps platform helps you build an end-to-end process, and prompts you to develop the critical elements, such as handoffs and qualification criteria.
- Complete RevOps model. With a standard process, a RevOps platform should model your entire growth function. You should clearly see the goals for each team, and how the goals contribute to the successful achievement of your growth targets. You should also be able to model the structure and size of each team, based on the characteristics of the revenue pipeline model.
- Analytics for optimization. Critical to achieving accelerated, sustained, predictable revenue growth is closed-loop analytics. You must be able to see how your teams’ actual performance compares to the model in real time. This allows you to adjust your resources, resolve problem areas, and do more of what is increasing productivity – much like a modern manufacturing process.
These elements are critical for a RevOps engine, but like any other business or system change, the engine must be adopted and consistently used… which leads to the critical elements for a successful RevOps platform:
- Don’t over-engineer the process. This is key, and what we have spent a long time perfecting. Keep only the elements that really move the organization forward, only the things that the team needs to know all the time. Too much will result in confusion and resistance.
- Guiding workflows. While every strategy is different, getting to good strategy is repeatable. Use best practices that are proven to define good strategy, and use your unique business expertise to add the creativity part.
- Pre-built analytics. We know the questions you are going to ask, or should ask, as you scale your B2B company. One of the problems we consistently see with CRM systems is that, while you can do anything with the platform, you aren’t sure what you should do. Our streamlined process walks you through the essential reports that will give you the right information to make strategic decisions.
- Focused strategic activity. This is another key success factor. A great RevOps platform supports the focus on strategic activities by the leadership team. We have written several blogs on this topic alone, but aligning your executive team and giving them the platform for strategic collaboration is one of the most important things you can do to create a leading, innovative company.
So, what is RevOps? For us, it is a platform of strategic best practices, alignment, execution, and optimization that allows your growth function to align its activities to accelerate growth. When it is employed, the common “siloes of greatness” across strategy, marketing, sales, customer, and product teams unite to become something quite powerful. We have seen it many, many times.
To learn more, watch this on-demand webinar, or request an ayeQ demo today!
