Key Takeaways
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Market conditions have grown infinitely more challenging for companies, making a coordinated go-to-market structure an absolute imperative. This makes revenue operations an indispensable tool for companies.
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Roadmapping is a key ingredient of RevOps success, not only helping teams to be more aligned but also driving accountability so people work on what has the highest impact on revenue.
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It is important to remember that a well-planned RevOps roadmap is not a task list. It’s a process that involves carefully evaluating the gaps in not just the customer journey but also the mistakes in your own processes.
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As daunting as it can seem as you get started, a strategic framework will help you in planning your initiative-keeping revenue as the overarching theme.
When you expect your product manager to map out the vision and direction of your product offering, why shouldn’t your go-to-market operations deserve the same due diligence?
Many B2B companies rely on intuition to decide what they should be doing. But such an approach often fails to answer the revenue-based “why” in them.
This is where a strategic roadmap (also referred to as RevOps framework) for your revenue operations becomes crucial.
When consistent revenue growth continues to be a challenge for 78% of B2B companies, a well-executed revenue operation framework can deliver a centralized plan to predict revenue based on data.
Without a roadmap in place, you rely on a shotgun approach to your revenue. Just like a product roadmap, a RevOps roadmap becomes a source of truth for your revenue team. For the rest of your organization, it offers a glimpse into the work that is being done and why.
3 Things to Consider While Building Your RevOps Roadmap
According to a report by SiriusDecisions, B2B organizations that have implemented aligned revenue operations are better positioned to thrive in the next three to five years.
Your RevOps strategy roadmap will be a one-stop source that shows everyone the top-level game plan and direction while describing the high-level timelines.
Make a note of the following factors as you get down to building your RevOps framework.
1. Maintain Simplicity
Your RevOps framework will act as a visual tool. When using Excel, PowerPoint, or online tools such as Smartsheet, keep to one tab/slide for each team (Marketing, Sales, Customer Success).
2. Collaborate:
A RevOps roadmap is incomplete without stakeholders from various teams and not just executives from sales, marketing, and customer success. You will include people from HR, finance, and legal teams too. While your framework defines multiple workstreams and ownerships, remember to make collaboration a basis for everyone to achieve the revenue goals.
3. Goal-specific:
While focusing on every minute detail is not required, your RevOps strategy framework should encompass all the critical activities. These are deliverables that have a direct impact on your revenue targets.
Creating a RevOps Roadmap: 5 Key Points to Consider
RevOps is a centralizing function, aimed to increase collaboration between different departments. In order to achieve end-to-end alignment of the revenue engine, your RevOps roadmap should start and end with a growth mindset, with focused attention to closing the gaps in your buyers’ journey.
A strategic roadmap for RevOps relies heavily on the unique situation of your organization. While there is no one-size-fits-all approach, some general guidelines can help you to build a comprehensive, interconnected, visible, and repeatable process across go-to-market functions.
1. Build Your Benchmark
Begin by creating your RevOps productivity benchmark.
Many enterprises hesitate to create benchmarks, worried they will choose something that will be regretted later.
To avoid such a situation, avoid metrics that don’t always translate to success, such as a rep’s volume of calls or emails.
Data plays a strong role here. Look into what is and is not progressing through your funnel. But one month of data won’t cut it. Measure everything for 90 days (at least) before you create benchmarks and KPIs. Be prepared to review this and revise it sometimes.
2. Understand Your Business Capabilities
A well-planned strategy roadmap for RevOps dives deep into business resources and needs.
Let’s take an organization with less than 100 people. Most likely, their revenue operations will consist of a small team, possibly a single person handling different areas.
For large organizations, the picture is different where RevOps roles might already exist in sales, marketing, and client success.
While starting with a RevOps lead can have advantages, you need to have a far-out vision of where your business will stand in a year, two years, or five years from now. Taking the route of a larger organization can ensure that you have a solid system in place.
3. Prioritize
One of the key differences between a RevOps strategy roadmap and a task list is that the work planned for RevOps is carefully aligned with its predicted impact on the business. Your revenue team, then, focuses on high-impact work that leads to the organization reaching its revenue goals.
You can prioritize which work your team takes up by looking at the gaps that a specific activity will solve. In the absence of these gaps, will your revenue increase? Will you see more qualified leads? Will it lead to more minor leakages at handoff points?
4. Assemble Your Team
Driving full-funnel accountability is incomplete without a team of RevOps rockstars!
The aim of your RevOps roadmap is to unify people, process, and platforms. Consequently, there are several roles that could be right for your business.
Take operations management, for instance. This team will understand the resources available and distribute them accordingly while aligning them with the overall vision and revenue goals. Similarly, you might require a more robust data and analytics team who would collect data and help you make informed decisions.
5. Align Your Team
Audits are a great way to start here.
Note down the existing processes across your internal teams so you have a better grasp of the inconsistencies that are causing problems for team members.
Data analysis plays a pivotal role. It can help you develop a baseline for the areas of improvement and whether a technological upgrade can help your team realize its full potential.
As go-to-market alignment can only be reached if your teams are aligned, your revenue operations framework, as well as progress, should be communicated regularly with your RevOps team.
Why RevOps Roadmaps Fail at Times
A crucial trait of a well-planned revenue operations strategy is its proclivity to ask “why?”. And this starts with gap analysis.
In its absence, you will fail to prioritize work based on the level of impact. So, it is not that the work is not getting done. Instead, there is no consistent communication across the organization about the work that will unify GTMs.
Your revenue operations framework will be ineffective if:
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More than one roadmap is being used and your team is not sure which one to refer to
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There is no consistent meeting cadence, leading to the roadmap becoming static
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There is a lack of prioritization leading to the RevOps roadmap becoming a task list
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No ownerships are being given to initiatives
Roadmapping for Continued Success
From a buzzword a few years back, RevOps has become an organizational imperative.
Done well, RevOps helps businesses fix revenue pipeline through significant efficiency gains, organizational efficacy, customer centricity, cost savings, and, finally, business growth.
Reaping such benefits starts with a well-executed RevOps framework that works in tandem with the company vision.
As you make roadmapping a consistent process, you will create opportunities for a new era of superior customer experience, increased revenue, and sustained growth.
