6 Reasons RevOps is the MVP of GTM

According to Gartner, 75% of the highest-growth companies in the world will deploy a Revenue Operations model by 2025. This is not far away, and we believe a new era for Revenue Operations has already begun! 

Let’s look at seven key reasons that today’s successful software companies should rely on a mature Revenue Operations team to achieve their targets.

1. Rev Ops are more strategic than the past

RevOps has evolved from "data short order cook" to the "revenue problem solvers and advisors."

The RevOps function surfaced about five years ago, and in no time, the C-suite asked for sprawling dashboards and reports, making life in RevOps feel a bit like a data “short order cook.”  

As the people best positioned to wield the data, (and the ones at the tip of the sword answering questions about the disparities in the data) RevOps has emerged as the truth tellers and information stewards across disparate sources.  

In the best SaaS companies, RevOps has emerged as the revenue problem solvers, able to take a holistic view of sales motions and customer journeys to assess the "friction between the functions." 

They can diagnosis the root causes back to system, process, or people engagement/ enablement; quantify the revenue bleed; and suggest fixes accordingly.  

The best-in-class RevOps teams have matured into an advisory role, pivoting to a pro-active state.  If you’re just using them as short-order cooks, you’re only seeing a fraction of the value they can provide.

2. RevOps leaders have more multifaceted backgrounds.

RevOps leaders are increasingly sourced cross-functionally from across GTM, making them both close to the business and close to the data.

Traditionally, RevOps has been viewed as an outgrowth of SalesOps with a hardcore background in CRM and Data Science. The role of Head of RevOps has leveled up and so too has the need for the leadership of RevOps to become more “executive” and aligned with the business itself.  

To find the right leaders, RevOps leaders are beginning to come from adjacent groups, like Marketing, Product, or Business Intelligence. This makes them better able to set departmental objectives that are aligned with the North Star goals and less prone to whimsy or lack of understanding of one department. 

3. RevOps leaders are geniuses at using technological advancements to solve tough problems.

RevOps leverages technological advances and AI to tackle tough challenges to build (or at least begin construction of) the Deal 360 'Holy Grail.' 

Beyond the AI hype, RevOps actively sees the possibilities of technological advances to leapfrog over data challenges of the past. 

Most organizations are limited to working exclusively with structured data from the CRM, MAP, Sales Engagement, and Conversational Intelligence platforms.  

Today we see Revenue Marketing Intelligence platforms emerge that combine structured and unstructured data with human insights (i.e. natural language buying signals) so a full deal 360 can be created across accounts, both prospect and customer. 

We know that a full deal 360 is still a bit of a Holy Grail for many organizations, but the horizon is fast approaching, and the capability is here now. Imagine a dynamic and iterative ICP, the ability to discern optimal touch patterns, or the most impactful messaging and value propositions that really work in the field. You don’t have to imagine it, because the best RevOps teams are already building it!  

4. RevOps helps your tech stack prove value.

RevOps leans into our current Capital Efficient economic times with a disciplined lens on the GTM Tech Stack, forcing the individual tools and platforms to prove their ROI.

The average B2B enterprise has more than 23 core systems in their GTM tech stack alone.

During the “growth at all costs” years, many companies (over) invested in TOFU technologies that were often more focused on justifying functional metrics than providing business value (“tech bloat”). 

RevOps, as the more neutral systems owner and budget holder, takes a more fiscally minded lens to the resources invested.

RevOps evaluates the various GTM tools and platforms based on their ability to integrate with one another and facilitate the booking of revenue across the complete buyer and customer journeys.  

Some fear what will happen if their pet system is ripped-out, however in practice often RevOps reduces redundancy or over-spend in license count to reallocate on solutions that provide greater benefits using ROI. 

RevOps is architecting a factory with the budget that is available, and that plays well in today’s Capital Efficient Growth world.

5. RevOps can lead the charge for a unified dashboard.

RevOps has upped-the-game in the battle of data integrity using a "unify & double-click" approach with the KPI’s for the C-suite, who is now turning the corner to be data-driven over gut-driven as their confidence and trust improves.

Given the historical data integrity challenges, combined with “Marketing math,” vs. “Sales math,” vs. “Investor math,” who could blame the C-suite for data skepticism? 

However, RevOps is shining the light on a better, more confidence-inspiring, data-driven way.

We’ve found that the best RevOps teams stop the over-indexing and report sprawl by pivoting to focus on a handful of critical KPIs to create GTM-level dashboards.  These RevOps groups work across the GTM teams to create a unified definition methodology. 

Thus, as various users “double-click” and drill into the underlying data there is more trust that the data lines up and paints an accurate picture.  Now that GTM speaks the same data language, there is less time spent in-fighting about the integrity of the data and more time spent leveraging it to make decisions about how to use it to run the business.

6. RevOps can help you prioritize better.

RevOps can drive prioritization and alignment on the typically overstuffed list of strategic initiatives by using intelligence to forecast both the lift and reach of each.

Today’s RevOps orgs drive intelligent alignment on strategic initiatives. 

For instance, if the GTM team determines that 30% of this year’s annual revenue will come from a strategic initiative targeting a specific vertical, then RevOps can scope the lift necessary (including readiness, enablement, activation) to hit a particular reach of the desired initiative, and suggest an executive sponsor and cross-functional cadence to execute and be successful.  

Smart RevOps leaders understand that the business is dynamic, and priorities will change.  But RevOps can demonstrate risks-to-revenue or opportunities for revenue, and stack rank those against the current business needs with suggestions about how to work for optimal impact.  

RevOps has come a long way in a short time earning them MVP status amongst the GTM team. As you can see by the 7 findings in this report, focusing on a mature RevOps organization is a critical key to success in our ever-changing and more competitive world.