RevOps (Revenue Operations)
Revenue operations, or RevOps, is the function that aligns the teams and systems responsible for revenue, marketing and sales, along with the data that connects them. It exists because in most companies those teams each measure something different, and the numbers get reconciled only during a crisis. RevOps is the layer that keeps every revenue team working from the same numbers.
How it actually works
RevOps owns three things: the shared metrics every revenue team is judged on, the handoffs between those teams, and the systems and data that tie them together. The most common failure is at the systems layer, and it begins at purchase. Companies bring in a systems integrator to connect their tools, and the integrator's quote covers the license cost.
The quote leaves out the rest of the total cost of ownership: implementation, ongoing maintenance, and the internal time required to keep the system running. The license is typically the smallest of those costs, and it is the one the sign-off is based on. In controls language, a sign-off based on the license alone is a scope-of-authority failure: the approver authorized a fraction of the commitment, and the implementation, maintenance, and internal time that follow were approved by no one. Purchase approval should cover the total cost of ownership stated at sign-off, or the approval authority was never actually exercised.
When the shared-metrics layer is missing, the visible symptom is duplicated work. Different teams propose the same project under different names and different KPIs, because nothing connects any team's metrics to the rest of the business, and each duplicate has its own budget. The handoffs RevOps owns also carry a cash value: lead-to-cash days multiplied by daily revenue is working capital tied up in the funnel, so compressing a handoff between marketing and sales releases cash the same way compressing days sales outstanding does, and the compression belongs in the function's business case alongside the reconciled numbers.
In practice
One organization submitted 56 planned initiatives to its PMO, sourced from each business unit. On review, about 12 were duplicates: different teams had proposed the same project under different names and different KPIs, because nothing connected their metrics to the rest of the business. Only 4 of the 56 investigated what was driving costs up and retention down. That is the gap RevOps is built to close: shared metrics and a documented view of where one team's work hands off to the next. The systems-layer failure has a costed example. A logistics company serving Amazon and UPS had unreliable capacity reporting, so HR did not know when to hire and sales did not know whether the team could fulfill; they were turning away $20 million a year in new business. In the rush to fix it, they bought a middleware tool at $65,000 a year, locked in for three years, that still required an external team to implement, while the same functionality was already integrated into the cloud platform they had chosen, at a few thousand dollars a year with no lock-in. The sign-off had been based on the license quote, and the total cost of ownership never entered it ([marketing ROI recovery](/insights/what-turnarounds-teach#marketing-roi-recovery)).
Where we come in
We build the connective layer most RevOps functions are missing: shared metrics that tie marketing and sales to the same profit number, and a documented view of every handoff between them, without a seven-figure integration. It is the same architecture work behind our engagements with Digital Realty, Equinix, and Potbelly.
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Related terms
- Marketing and sales operations
- The functions that run the systems, data, and process for each team. RevOps connects them so the teams stop optimizing against each other.
- Systems integrator
- A firm hired to connect a company's tools. Integrator quotes typically cover the license cost and leave out the rest of the total cost of ownership.
- Total cost of ownership (TCO)
- The full cost of a system over its life: license, implementation, maintenance, and internal time to run it. The license is usually the smallest part.
- Go-to-market (GTM) strategy
- How a company brings a product to market across marketing and sales. RevOps keeps a GTM plan intact at the handoffs between teams.