Revenue Operations (RevOps) is the new “it” thing for many SaaS organizations, with more job openings and thought leadership popping up every single day.
Simply put, it’s a modern approach to revenue growth that works with go-to-market teams to help companies grow and scale effectively. RevOps teams handle insights, systems, and processes across different revenue-generating functions, from lead nurturing through customer retention.
But is it really that new?
While in many ways it is the first of its kind, organizations shouldn’t feel too bewildered. RevOps in many ways is just the new modality of the traditional strategy mindset, applying a similar approach to drive success across an organization.
Think about it like this: the traditional strategy approach is similar to dial-up internet. While it eventually connects you with the end goal, the process to get there is tedious and isn’t optimized for users. Conversely, RevOps is like upgrading to fiber, connecting organizations with a faster, more efficient way to achieve goals and scale growth.
So, does that mean RevOps is just strategy rebranded? Read on to find out:
They both play one of the most critical roles in an organization.
Both RevOps and strategy apply a top-down approach, working with key decision-makers to plan and implement efforts across teams.
With a primary focus on Marketing, Sales, and Customer Success, RevOps is critical in driving alignment across the major go-to-market functions. As RevOps expands in organizations, it can also work closely with functions like Finance (FinOps) and Product (DevOps).
Similarly, strategy professionals operate cross-functionally through an organization, ensuring effective communication with stakeholders in other departments to achieve company-wide success.
They align actions that drive business outcomes.
When an organization’s teams work in silos, it can be nearly impossible to set overarching goals and coordinate efforts across functions. That’s where alignment comes in, breaking down the silos by working across an organization to set and meet company-wide goals.
RevOps aligns people, processes, and data to organizational goals. It’s responsible for ensuring all players are in sync — from team members to departments and functions.
For RevOps, alignment works in two directions: cross-functionally by coordinating across teams, and vertically by connecting actions with outcomes. Effective teams create a shared understanding of the organization’s goals and objectives, so everyone involved can move in unison.
From a strategy perspective, it aligns efforts across the entire organization. Success rarely comes from within one silo, so organization-wide alignment is key to effective strategy execution that leads to real bottom-line-impacting results.
Without alignment, it becomes difficult for an organization to define its strategy or prioritize what needs to be done first. This results in no way to measure success because it becomes unclear which outcomes are tied to the effort. RevOps and strategy are both critical to aligning teams and maximizing growth opportunities.
They are turbocharged by reporting and data.
In growing organizations, a proper understanding of growth levers and performance is essential. As companies scale, they need to identify what has enabled success to date and the best ways to further accelerate growth.
RevOps teams typically own organizational reporting and insights that paint the full picture of performance. Whether it’s as a generalized function or a specific data team, effective teams lead the charge for KPIs and performance insights.
Similarly, the traditional strategic process includes identifying KPIs, using the indicators to develop reports and analyses, and digging deeper into the data to understand the “why” behind it. By pinpointing the leading and lagging indicators, teams can help the organization optimize future performance.
Taking a deep dive into KPIs and reports to understand the data is a critical step for both RevOps and strategy professionals. While this practice is well executed from a strategy perspective, it’s not currently as widespread in RevOps.
By taking the extra time to deeply understand the data and the “why” behind the outcome, RevOps can mirror the approach strategy professionals take, optimizing plans and propelling their team towards their goals.
They embrace that change is a constant.
Change is an important, unavoidable factor for RevOps and strategy.
RevOps is often responsible for change within an organization, managing the process from beginning to end.
Likewise, strategy plays an important role in organizational change management. This is the process that guides organizations through making significant updates to their culture, technologies, or infrastructure.
For both strategy and RevOps, managing these processes is no easy feat. Enter Change Intelligence, the art of how to design, implement, and iterate processes that accelerate revenue.
Change Intelligence is the new modality of the traditional, strategy-led approach to managing change. It provides total situational awareness of the impacts and dependencies that are necessary to confidently manage complex technology, enabling teams to work faster and in sync across go-to-market functions.
While the typical strategic process can take anywhere from 6-36 months, Change Intelligence significantly speeds up that process, giving RevOps teams a faster, more nimble approach to change management. When applied by RevOps teams, it can fast-track their change management process to success.
So is RevOps a new concept, or is it just strategy rebranded? When it comes down to it, the traditional approach to strategy certainly isn’t obsolete. While it’s enmeshed in many ways with RevOps, they each play a valuable role that’s applied differently within an organization.
Most importantly, the strategic mindset is a valuable lens for RevOps teams to apply to their work. RevOps teams can make a real, sustainable impact on their organization’s ability to grow and scale by applying the best practices from strategy to their work.
TL;DR? Here are the key takeaways:
- RevOps is a new modality of the traditional strategic approach that functions in a similar way, working with go-to-market teams to help an organization grow and scale effectively.
- No, RevOps is not just strategy rebranded. But, they are enmeshed in many ways, sharing similar functions like aligning action across an organization, optimizing performance using data and analytics, and serving as the change management leaders at their organizations.
- RevOps teams can benefit from the strategy mindset, using it to glean a better understanding of their data and the “why” behind it. By fully realizing their data and reports, teams can improve and optimize their work, leading to better future outcomes.
- Change Intelligence — the art of how to design, implement, and iterate processes that accelerate revenue — is disrupting the traditional approach to change management. By harnessing the power of Change Intelligence, RevOps teams can accelerate their process with a faster, more nimble approach.
