RevOps challenge: getting the most out of your Revtech
In short: RevOps is a way for organizations to take control of their sales, growth, and productivity through a holistic modus operandi bringing different teams and departments together. In this, organizations are dependent on revenue technology (Revtech) for success. Many companies spend huge sums on ‘Big Revtech’, without thinking about whether they will use all its functionality and what else they need to develop to get the most value from the technology’s functionality (think processes, ways of working and culture for instance). Keep reading for tips on how to get the most out of your Revtech.
WHEN DID IT ALL START WITH REVOPS?
The history of revenue management can be traced back to the 1980s, originating in the airline industry. To optimize financial results, airlines began introducing a dynamic pricing concept. Businesses like American Airlines successfully applied price discrimination techniques and anticipated consumer demand. Airlines and hospitality businesses as well as Telco companies have been on top of this challenge for decades, but the approach is now scaling further, especially in B2B companies.
Leading companies are restructuring their organizations to address the app bloat that is happening across marketing and sales, and the new operational force needed to tame it.
Revenue Operations (RevOps) stands for change in management practices and processes, roles and responsibilities, data and technologies. The change concerns how companies organise for sales, marketing and customer success (CS) in order to maximise productivity and impact of their activities.
RevOps recognizes that revenue isn’t just an outcome but rather a full process that involves the strategic convergence of sales, marketing and customer success (CS). It’s the end-to-end process of driving revenue, from the moment a prospect considers a purchase (marketing) to when you close the deal (sales) to their renewal and upsell (CS). The result of this orchestration is faster growth and more profit. The full view to Revenue management include Up-sales, Cross-sales, New Customer Hunting and managing Retention. Pricing is also an important factor alongside growing the average deal value.
BRINGING IN NEW TECH – THE CHALLENGES
Bringing in new technology and ways of operating is not a frictionless process. A recent report on ‘Warum Modernisiering Scheitert’ by Mayflower, highlights that software costs have exploded, with each additional feature costing more and being less likely to be used. The report quotes the Standish Group, according to which 45% of technology’s features are never used. Similarly, Gartner, in a report on ‘4 Actions to Improve Martech ROI’, found that only 33% of Martech features are used. Furthermore, Microsoft acknowledges that most users of its ubiquitous Microsoft 365 suite only use around 20% of its functionality.
Revenue operations and Revtech is by no means immune to this problem.
As MIT researcher, Erik Brynjolfsson explains in a Research Brief on ‘The Productivity J-Curve’:
...low rates of technology use are typically caused when the capabilities necessary to use the software productively – the bundles of complementary processes, data, technology integration, roles, collaboration, work systems and governance – are not developed in parallel. Without this, companies develop a ‘capability deficit’, that prevents them from getting the most value from technology.
To solve this problem, our team at 180ops has developed a ‘RevOps Capability Maturity Model’ that allows us to quickly assess a company’s current and desired RevOps capabilities, and the gaps that need to be bridged.
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This provides the insight to identify matching capability development activities, to organise them into immediate, medium and longer-term horizons, and to bring them together into a visual development roadmap. And by linking the three horizons to the business’ cashflow drivers, the roadmap can be optimised so that development progresses in the most economically valuable way.
The huge sums spent on technology are wasted if all its functionality is not used fully. If companies want to get more value from the Revtech they have, they need to develop the complementary capabilities that allow them to use it to the full.
HOW TO GET THE MOST VALUE FROM YOUR REVTECH – 3 TAKEAWAYS
If you want to get the most value from your Revtech:
Arrange a call with us to see how 180ops can help you get the most value for your Revtech.
This newsletter is written in collaboration with one of our extended team specialists, Dr. Graham Hill. He brings in 30+ years of experience working for blue-chip consultancies such as KPMG, Price Waterhouse and PricewaterhouseCoopers, as an Interim Head at Toyota and Huawei Technologies and as an independent strategy consultant.
Graham has been closely involved in the evolution of customer value management for over 30 years. Starting with CRM in the 1990s, he pioneered Customer Experience Management in the 2000s and Complex Service Systems Design in the 2010s. More recently, he has been involved in projects implementing Decisioning-as-a-Service, Journey Orchestration and Conversational Commerce.
Graham is the founder of Janus spv., a boutique consultancy specialising in customer value management for corporate clients.