How to choose the best enablement reporting structure for your business

Once you have the right enablement reporting structure, you'll more effectively (and effortlessly) support your business' needs. To get there, you first have to understand the unique advantages and disadvantages of each possible structure.

There's a lack of consistent role definition when it comes to enablement teams’ responsibilities and composition. Every organization has its nuances, and enablement practitioners have their own opinions based on their experiences. But there are some general themes when it comes to the advantages, and disadvantages, of each reporting approach.

In this article, we'll run through them, so you can choose the right one for your org:

Reporting to the Chief Revenue Officer

Let’s start by looking at an enablement industry favorite — reporting directly to the Chief Revenue Officer (CRO).?

There are some undeniable advantages to being directly aligned with the CRO and so close to the C-Suite, including:?

• Stronger partnership with other cross-functional teams that also report to the CRO, such as sales, marketing, and customer success.
• Autonomy to innovate and implement new approaches in alignment with the company’s strategic priorities.
• Improved chance to scale and grow the function along with the organization, and the potential for more specialized roles and expertise within enablement.

While there are many positives, one may still run into challenges with this reporting structure, such as:

• Overemphasis on short-term sales targets at the expense of long-term strategic initiatives, such as skill development.
• A disconnect between enablement initiatives and the day-to-day activities and specific challenges faced by reps.

Reporting into revenue operations

Another popular reporting structure for the enablement function, is to report into the revenue operations (RevOps) function. This has several advantages, including:?

• More access to data and analysis capabilities to measure enablement initiative impact.
• Alignment of enablement initiatives with the company’s overall revenue strategy and objectives.
• An emphasis on the entire customer lifecycle, ensuring that enablement initiatives are designed to enhance the customer experience from lead generation through post-sale.

While reporting to operations can help create a more cohesive and effective enablement function, there are also some limitations to consider, such as:

• An over-emphasis on enablement of processes, systems, and data, in alignment with operations’ priorities, with reduced focus on areas such as skills training.?
• Resource allocation challenges due to the diversified focus on the broader operations team.
• Delayed execution and responsiveness due to increased layers of approval required for initiatives created by enablement sitting at a lower level within an organization.

Enjoying Katie's article? Check out more content, just like this, over at the Sales Enablement Collective content hub.

Reporting to Marketing

Another area of the business, which is less common, but still seen within enablement reporting structures, is marketing.?

Through my conversations with fellow enablement leader, Jill Noyes, Director of Enablement at ArisGlobal, who’s reported into marketing at more than one organization in her enablement tenure, it’s clear that this reporting structure can:

• Enhance enablement’s alignment with customer messaging and content.
• Provide a better understanding of customer and buyer journeys.
• Expose enablement to a broader range of skills and responsibilities, which can pay dividends in future roles with one’s career.

Despite the advantages mentioned above, Jill found that reporting to marketing can also:?

• Spur misalignment between enablement and sales objectives.?
• Create an overemphasis on content and campaigns, neglecting broader sales needs in enablement programs.
• Lead to an overall siloed team that may be slow to capture and adapt to feedback from the GTM teams that consume their enablement programs.?

Customer education

Reporting into a customer education team, often within a customer experience department, has also been seen as a home for enablement teams. This approach allows enablement to:

• Closely align its initiatives with the needs and challenges of customers.
• Create a unified and consistent customer experience.
• More effectively educate internal GTM teams on the company's products using educational materials created by the customer education team.

While enablement teams may benefit from this structure based on the above, many of the challenges mentioned previously in this article, also apply, including:

• Misalignment with broader GTM objectives and creates a lack of understanding of broader GTM dynamics.
• Resource allocation conflict.
• An overemphasis on training and content development, potentially neglecting other critical aspects such as sales tactics, process improvements, and practical sales tools.

Reporting to People or HR

Reporting up to a people team or human resources has also been seen in various organizations and has unique advantages for enablement, including the ability to:

• Enhance the quality of enablement training programs based on the people team's expertise in adult learning principles and instructional design.
• Create a more seamless sales onboarding process for new hires by aligning company-wide onboarding programs with GTM-specific onboarding programs owned by enablement.?
• Support employee development and retention, as the people team can work with enablement to develop personalized development plans to support career progression.?

On the other hand, people functions do commonly:?

• Lack in-depth knowledge of GTM processes, techniques, and challenges, which can lead to a disconnect between GTM enablement efforts and the actual needs of the GTM teams.?
• Have different priorities and track different key performance indicators (KPIs) than the GTM departments.
• Don’t have access to the important data required to articulate the impact of Enablement’s programs on the GTM organization.?

A hybrid approach?

Finally, some companies take a more hybrid approach with enablement resources scattered across multiple departments (e.g., sales, marketing, and operations). This can foster close collaboration between enablement and the teams they serve, and offer more flexible structures that adapt to the needs of the organization.?

That said, having dispersed teams may make it harder to create a cohesive enablement tech stack, standardized enablement motions, and get the budget to properly land initiatives.?

Final thoughts

While there are many options when it comes to enablement reporting structures, the right approach will always depend on the specific needs, goals, and organizational context of a company.?

By understanding the unique advantages and disadvantages of each approach, organizations can make informed decisions to optimize their enablement strategies and enablement leaders can more effectively advocate for different reporting structures within their organizations to support their desired outcomes.

Katie's article was originally published here in full at Sales Enablement Collective.

What did you miss?

?? Thanks for being a part of our super exciting San Francisco summit this week! ??

??Have you taken the sales enablement IQ test yet? Use your results to benchmark your experience to key sales enablement competencies, lean in on your strengths, and identify opportunities for professional growth.

?? Sales Enablement Collective Awards 2024 is awarding these categories: ?Sales Enablement Leader of the Year ?Sales Enablement Rising Star ?Al Revenue Innovation of the Year

Voting ends on November 1, 2024. ??

----------------------------------------------------------------

What’s coming up?

???? SEC Croatia virtual meetup: Sales enablement onboarding & measuring impact | September 11 | RSVP here

???? SEC Berlin networking meetup | September 26 | RSVP here

?? Upcoming Sales Enablement Summits near you:

Boston | October 3 & 4*

Singapore | October 30*

Sydney | November 6 & 7*

Chicago | November 13 & 14*

----------------------------------------------------------------

Ready to elevate your sales enablement game?

• Become sales enablement certified — Get the playbook on tackling the day-to-day challenges in your role with confidence. Learn in-person, live & online, or on-demand.
• Join an event near you — 1750+ attendees and 400+ speakers join us worldwide in 15 cities. Stay up-to-date on the latest trends, build new connections, & hear from the industry’s leading experts.
• Upskill & network in one place — Frustrated of looking in multiple places for the right resources? Grab our L&D membership to access courses, events, and mentor programs, plus weekly insights, live workshops, and much more.