Who Should NOT Activate Revenue Operations

Revenue Operations or RevOps for short has been an up-and-coming term in 2020. This was the first year there was an entire track dedicated to RevOps at Inbound 2020, HubSpot’s annual conference. However, since the business function is relatively new to B2B organizations outside the SaaS space, there's misalignment around when an organization will benefit from activating revenue operations. 

This article will provide you guidelines on who should not activate revenue operations and the reasons why.

This is not to say you shouldn’t activate revenue operations in the future when your organization is better aligned to support the adoption. To fully recognize the benefits of revenue operations, a company needs to already operate with a set of established processes and systems across its marketing, sales, and service teams.

They don’t need to be perfect, but they do need to exist.

It’s an instance of you need to be able to walk before you can run.

Below are 3 examples of common cases where organizations approach RevOps from a lens that is either too narrow or unrealistic. If any of the following examples align with your current situation, it's best to address the given hurdle prior to activating the RevOps business function into your organization.

1. Your company is looking to increase lead generation quickly

Trying to integrate RevOps within your organization with the specific mission to increase leads is going to slow down your immediate lead generation efforts. The bandwidth needed to adopt RevOps across the organization will dilute the effort of filling your sales/deal pipeline. Activating revenue operations to solve this challenge is like switching operating systems on your computer when your challenge could be addressed by updating an application on your existing operating system.

Recommendation:

If lead generation is the primary issue you are working to solve, the lens should focus specifically on your marketing or sales department based on your organization’s structure and model. Yes, in the long term, RevOps will help identify new efficiencies to support the two teams and provide insights around your customer experience as well as product performance. However, if you are just looking for an immediate boost of leads, then RevOps is not the first solution you should pursue.

2. Your company is not flexible to new procedures or methodologies:

Activating revenue operations will require your entire organization to adopt a new mentality around the company’s growth and the buyer’s journey. It is important to keep in mind you are technically introducing a new business function to the company. If the majority of your team leads are set in their ways and follow a traditional approach, adopting a new framework is going to be an uphill battle. As with any introduction of a new process or methodology in a company, it is not uncommon to experience pushback by naysayers unwilling to commit to the process.

Recommendation:

If you have a team locked into traditional methodologies, start small. You will need to identify and engage individuals who will be your early adopters within the organization. A big “plus” when it comes to revenue operations is it's all about identifying and improving revenue efficiency opportunities that address common pains experienced by every organizational level. By first identifying and educating your early adopters within your organization, you can create a grassroots movement to integrate RevOps.

3. Your company only makes short term commitments to initiatives

Another common mishap with organizations adopting RevOps is it's treated the same as a campaign. The adoption is only granted a short time frame for implementation and is required to showcase impressive results in the given span of time. On the one hand, it is fair and responsible to measure and evaluate a new initiative's efficiency. However, when activating an in-depth shift in your organization, the expectations need to be extended to a longer time frame. If you cannot make a long-term commitment to integrating RevOps within your organization, efforts are stopped before the true benefits of the adoption are experienced. It's encouraged you don't approach the process until you are ready to make that commitment.

Recommendation:

This may be one of the most challenging and risky hurdles to overcome but the most straightforward. You have to set the correct expectations with leadership and make sure you need to gain buy-in on the framework. Truly integrating and adopting RevOps within an organization is going to be at least a 12+ month initiative.

Revenue operations would be the standard practice across all organizations if you could quickly and easily experience up to a 20% increase in revenue. A shift that can generate that impact is not going to be easy and requires commitment.

In conclusion:

RevOps is not a quick fix that will align disjointed departments. It is not a silver bullet that will magically have your sales pipeline bursting at the seams. It is not a plug and play solution to improve your internal business intelligence. Yes, RevOps will build the infrastructure and systems to solve these challenges over time, but it requires a long-term commitment and dedicated effort by your entire organization.

If you don’t fall within one of the 3 scenarios listed above and feel RevOps is a framework that would benefit your organization at this time or in the near future, visit a previous article on How to Start Integrating Revenue Operations.

Alternatively, if you would like more information on who shouldn't activate RevOps yet, you can listen to episode 27 of The Digital Utopia Podcast.