Is The Rise Of RevOps Vs Sales Ops The Future Of Sales?

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While Rev Ops just sounds like a buzzword used to emphasise the need for growth – it’s actually quickly changing how companies approach revenue, and in turn, becoming a significant focus for many. Growth no longer looks like a funnel; instead, it’s a wheel centred around getting customers, engaging them, and then delighting them to restart the cycle. But what makes it different or even better than traditional sales operations? In this episode of the Selling in Asia podcast, Tom Abbott sits down with Justin Michael to discuss the future of sales and the rise of RevOps vs Sales Ops. 

Also read:

• Essential Sales Technology Stacks for Professionals
• 8 Ways To Align Sales & Customer Service
• The Ultimate Guide To Different Sales Roles

What is RevOps?

RevOps, also known as Revenue Operations, is an upcoming growth-driven process that is beginning to be implemented across organisations in various industries. It works by combining four historically separate departments (sales, marketing, customer success and systems) to create a revenue-generating team focused on achieving success by aligning their goals.

The last five years has moved into an account-based selling motion where the sales team and the marketing team are aligned based on the intent data on where to strike.

– Justin Michael

In particular, RevOps is a bit of a rule-breaker because it focuses on reinventing the traditionally siloed state of marketing, sales, and customer success data and strategies. Thereby creating a more consistent approach to success and growth across an organisation.

Rev Ops Vs Sales Ops

So what’s the difference between RevOps and Sales Ops? Sales operations focus on specific sales activities or, as Sales Ops lead Patrick Kelly once said, “all the nasty things that you don’t want to do but need to do to make a great sales force.” Therefore, sales operations exist to help create a seamless process that enables sales professionals to be productive. Typical tools of the sales operation process include cloud phone systems, CRM systems and compensation management. Overall, the typical responsibilities of sales operations include sales team organisation, data management, forecasting, cross-functional collaboration, technology management, performance management and sales enablement.

Also read: 4 CRM Best Practices | How To Organise Prospecting Information

In contrast, revenue operations help sales, marketing, and customer success to do their respective jobs, create the best customer experience and provide customer service excellence. For this reason, there are four main areas of focus: operations management, enablement, insights and tech tools.

 Rev Ops is getting really popular because it gives the C-levels control.

– Justin Michael

How will revenue operations impact the future of sales?

A lot of what sales development reps are doing now is going to go away. It’s going to be fully automated. Companies will first look to expand their revenue operations team because many sales professionals in RevOps have to wear multiple hats since technology and innovation have just been exploding at a pace far beyond our current ability to handle. Therefore RevOps will become highly funded, and existing technology platforms that are very fractured and bifurcated will become consolidated platforms.

If you haven’t hired a leader in revenue operations, consider someone to sit as the glue in the go-between your sales motion and marketing machine to be the whisper for not only the customer but advocate for both teams.

– Justin Michael

Challenges of creating a Rev Ops tech stack

Change is scary, which is why it’s so easy for organisations to remain stalled in their growth and revenue. However, with a little foresight, you can easily overcome these obstacles. So here are some challenges (and risks) of adopting a revenue operations technology stack into your process:

Cost 

If you’re reluctant to spend more money on your technology stack, you’re not alone – many companies find it hard to justify this increase in spending. However, in 2020 44% of organizations planned to increase their IT budget spending – so consider that you may get left behind if you don’t increase your budget for rev ops technology. 

Disruption

For many people, trying something new can be stressful and daunting. So it can be tempting to stick with what you know when you’ve mastered the tools you already have. More so, the last thing you want is a disruption to your service. However, consider that if you don’t harness new processes like others in your industry, you’re unlikely to grow and profit.

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