The importance and challenge of aligning revenue functions

In the recent blog on revops being the fastest growing job title, we outlined the importance of aligning the revenue functions. In the fast-paced and competitive business landscape of today, it has become increasingly important for organisations to align their revenue functions to achieve sustainable growth and success. Three key revenue functions - marketing, sales, and customer success - play integral roles in driving revenue generation and customer satisfaction. However, aligning these functions can be a complex and challenging endeavour. In this blog, we will explore the reasons why aligning marketing, sales, and customer success is crucial and why it can be difficult to accomplish.

The importance of alignment:

1.       Improved Customer Experience: Aligning marketing, sales, and customer success ensures a seamless and consistent experience for customers throughout their journey. A positive customer experience leads to increased customer satisfaction, loyalty, and ultimately, revenue growth.

2.       Enhanced Efficiency and Productivity: Alignment among revenue functions eliminates silos and fosters collaboration. Shared knowledge enables teams to work more efficiently and effectively. As a result, productivity improves, sales cycles shorten, and revenue potential increases.

3.       Revenue Generation: the coordinated effort in attracting, converting, and retaining customers maximises customer lifetime value.

This all sounds obvious, but from my experience, achieving this is incredibly difficult. There are many reasons for this, but the ones I have witnessed, and expect a lot of organisations experience the same are:

1.     Conflicting priorities: these teams are not always housed under the same leadership, and although company performance is at the forefront, how this is achieved can be viewed differently across leaders.

2.     Aligning and simplifying metrics: the lack of a common goal or purpose and therefore variations in what marketing, sales and customer success are trying to achieve is common. The misalignment can be as simple as a quantity vs quality disparity.

3.     Technology and data integration: one of the most common challenges I have witnessed is the lack of technology integration and data sharing as a consequence.  Growth has usually meant organisations have made quick decisions on finding a solution and then when trying to align functions there isn’t any technical integration.

As a RevOps evangelist, I believe aligning revenue functions: marketing, sales, and customer success is paramount for organisations achieving sustained revenue growth, customer satisfaction, and long-term success. Overcoming challenges related to conflicting priorities, metrics, and technology integration is essential for successful alignment. However, the difficulty in overcoming this challenge cannot be underestimated.

RevOps is for all, not just for SaaS

RevOps first came to prevalence in the Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) space, where the old way of doing business didn’t apply or work anymore. The days of closing a deal, celebrating, and moving on to the next stopped working.

The expectations of a customer changed, and in turn so did the market, to a subscription-based model. This now means SaaS deals are relatively small initially, with big potential lifetime value, and therefore, the companies who can align their RevOps framework across the customer journey are benefitting hugely.

The importance of alignment across marketing, sales, and customer success to streamline operations, improve efficiency, and drive revenue growth saw the rise of RevOps in SaaS businesses.

But, while RevOps has gained popularity in the SaaS sector, it is important to recognise that its benefits extend far beyond SaaS businesses. Below, we will explore why RevOps is not just for SaaS companies.

1.       It aims to align functions. This alignment should ensure a seamless customer experience and maximise revenue generation. All companies can benefit from a unified revenue strategy.

2.       It focuses on the customer. RevOps places strong emphasis on delivering excellent customer experience. Ensuring the business is all driving for this, can ensure consistency, improve interactions, smooth transitions, and result in happier and longer-term customers.

3.       It adopts a scalable growth model. Achieving scalable growth is the ambition of every company. By leveraging data, business can make real-time decisions that drive revenue. Businesses in fast moving markets can benefit from this greatly.

4.       It enables efficient resource allocation. Aligning processes and people using data quickly highlights where teams are most effective and efficient. Armed with this insight, teams can be structured in a more optimal way.

5.       It’s adaptable. RevOps as a function can adapt to any business, and therefore businesses outside the SaaS world who can leverage the function should gain a significant advantage over their competitors.

In summary, RevOps is not limited to SaaS organisations. It’s core benefits of aligning teams, focusing on the customer, driving scalable growth, improving operational effectiveness and its adaptability are beneficial universally. As the business landscape continues to evolve, we believe RevOps will become increasingly essential, and it could remain as one of the fastest growing jobs for a while yet.

RevOps is the fastest growing job in the USA…

I was pleasantly surprised when I read in Forbes, that Revenue Operations was the fastest growing job in America, but not totally amazed, as I know first hand how important the function is.

But I needed more validation, so I thought I’d join the new craze and ask ChatGPT. Here’s what it said:

RevOps, short for Revenue Operations, is quickly becoming one of the most in-demand job titles in the business world. This job function is a strategic, cross-functional approach to optimising revenue growth, combining sales, marketing, and customer success to achieve company goals. As companies continue to recognise the importance of revenue generation, RevOps is emerging as a vital role to ensure the success of a company’s revenue operations.

More and more businesses are identifying RevOps as the critical cog in revenue generation, and in a competitive and challenging market, it makes business sense.

ChatGPT goes on to highlight a few of the reasons RevOps is the fastest growing job title:

• It aligns revenue functions: marketing, sales and customer success

• It promotes a data-driven approach

• It puts the customer first

• It is focused on operational efficiencies

• All businesses need revenue growth

The importance of the above, coupled with the recent social proof and fear of missing out (or being left behind) will further accelerate the growth and highlight the value and importance RevOps has on revenue generation for any business, in almost any industry.

The best movie to represent RevOps?

Michael Lewis’ Moneyball, a true story of how a small baseball team flipped the odds against the likes of the New York Yankees, by collecting, using and acting on data, hasn’t just inspired sports teams around the world, but has started to have a big impact in other industries.

RevOps’ goal is to align marketing, sales and customer success (fulfilment), to enhance the customer journey and maximise revenue. To evaluate the performance, organisations need to be capturing, recording and analysing data, at each step in the customer journey.

Armed with this information organisations can make amendments to their processes and to deliver a higher level of service. In this data revolution - spurred in sport by the Moneyball concept, RevOps is now changing the way organisations maximise revenue in the most customer centric and efficient ways.