Using RevOps to Drive Business Value in a Complex Economic Environment

Today's increasingly complex and unstable world, together with a continued focus from senior leaders on improving growth, use of technology and addressing workforce issues, means that many savvy organizations are looking towards Revenue Operations

Revenue Operations (or RevOps for short) is the alignment of sales, marketing and customer success operations across the full customer life cycle to drive growth through operational efficiency and keep all teams accountable to revenue. It’s designed to break down silos between departments and support business performance.

RevOps Drives Tangible Business Benefits

Many are already seeing tangible benefits from developing their own RevOps strategy. In an IDC survey of 1,200 global organizations, 76% of business leaders say a strong data-to-analytics pipeline has helped them improve operational efficiency. Of those surveyed, 75% saw an increase in revenue and 74% reported increased profit.

While RevOps is not a new concept, it has gained fresh appreciation in the modern business world thanks to advances in data and analytics technology. It’s now possible to establish in-the-moment awareness of your operations, your sales, and – most importantly – your customers, through real-time information that triggers immediate action.

Key Considerations for Your RevOps Strategy

For those not already working in this way, here are six key things to keep in mind when developing a RevOps strategy.

Ensure data sources are reliable - RevOps adds the most value when process are created to minimize data outliers and applications are built on reliable, trustworthy, and accurate data that the business can depend on. Investing in the right technological and reporting infrastructure to guarantee this is vital.

Build a single-view of fresh data - Global retailer Urban Outfitters has worked with us to integrate data from its 240+ apps on store performance, ecommerce sales, distribution centers, and supply chain logistics to create a single-view of fresh data every two minutes that offers visibility across all aspects of individual stores’ KPIs.

Define clear roles and responsibilities - The role of the RevOps team is not to take overall revenue responsibility, but to provide an objective lens in the decision-making process. It does so by streamlining processes and pulling together data sources from across the organization and using analytics tools to derive new insights to guide business leaders in their next move.

Incorporate data from customer-facing apps and smart devices - CSC ServiceWorks, the largest provider of laundry services in the US, is using Qlik to analyze patterns from its customer app and over one million laundry devices. So far, they have eliminated 15% of service truck maintenance visits because they were not needed, which is saving them between $2 and $3 million a year.

Form strategic internal partnerships - Having the RevOps team works hand-in-hand with the Chief Strategy Officer (CSO) also adds value. The combination of customer success and consulting services offer a unique proposition that enables the business to deliver a better lifecycle journey. There are other efficiency gains when teams work together with a common data-driven mindset. Having standardized data sources, templates and processes helps focus the teams on common goals and increase collaboration across the organization.

Be able to turn insights into action - RevOps teams need to be able to convert raw data into purposeful actions. Again, technical limitations within existing data platforms can act as a barrier here. RevOps teams can spend more time cleaning up and managing data than they do analyzing and understanding it. Legacy interfaces can demand an almost arcane understanding of data terms, and with no machine learning or AI to lean on. RevOps teams can be forced to do most of the predictive analysis themselves or spend too much time getting the data ready and less time providing insights

Greater Clarity for Better Insights

The good news is that as more and more companies move towards a cloud-based SaaS model, many find themselves in a better position to adopt this approach, thanks to the vast amount of data sources that have become readily available to them.

Even if that’s not the case, as long as teams are ready to take a new approach to data, they can collaborate and make data-driven decisions in real time to take more decisive actions. With this greater clarity and better strategic insights, anyone can redefine their business purpose to deliver greater value for their employees and customers.

RevOps can break down silos between departments and support business performance.