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Sales Operations (Sales Ops) and Revenue Operations (RevOps) are two closely related business functions that often intersect. But how can you ensure they work together as an unstoppable force for revenue generation rather than as competing entities?
Sales Ops vs RevOps: What’s the Difference?
What is Sales Ops?
Sales Ops is an organisational concept that predates RevOps. First emerging in the 1980s and gaining momentum with the advent of digital CRM systems, the primary goal of Sales Ops was to streamline the selling process. This was achieved through more systematic prospecting and sales nurturing, with Sales Ops teams using digital tools and customer data to target, qualify, and close more leads, more quickly.
What is RevOps?
RevOps, which came to prominence in the 2010s, arose as tech companies like HubSpot recognised that sustainable revenue growth required more than just an effective sales team. Instead, RevOps took a holistic approach, aligning the efforts of marketing, sales, and customer service teams to:
- Collectively define strategic, best-fit sales targets
- Create amazing end-to end customer experiences
- Become more operationally efficient
- Build deeper, recurring revenue streams for their companies
Since the rise of RevOps, the role of Sales Operations has narrowed in focus, as less of the responsibility for co-ordinating efforts with other business units devolved to them.
Responsibilities and Objectives of Sales Ops and RevOps teams
Are They Competing or Complementary Forces?
Sales Ops vs RevOps: Potential Overlap and Turf Wars
On the face of it, there could be significant overlap between RevOps and Sales Ops, especially in areas like sales forecasting, CRM management, and analytics. And without clear definitions of roles and responsibilities, this overlap can lead to friction. Sales Ops may feel that RevOps is encroaching on their territory, while RevOps might view Sales Ops as too focused on short-term goals.
Different Priorities
RevOps typically focuses on long-term revenue growth and alignment across the organisation, while Sales Ops can choose to prioritise immediate sales performance and hitting targets. This difference in priorities can cause tension, particularly if RevOps proposes changes that seem disruptive to the sales team’s short-term goals.
Resistance to Change
Sales Ops might resist changes proposed by RevOps, especially if they involve new processes or technologies that could disrupt current operations. On the flip side, RevOps might push for long-term beneficial changes that Sales Ops sees as immediate obstacles.
Sales Ops vs RevOps: Working Together in Harmony
Despite potential conflicts, modern Sales Ops and RevOps teams are perfectly suited to work together. RevOps can provide strategic oversight to grow revenue in the business as a whole, ensuring that Sales Ops always have the tools, data and sales collateral they need to optimise and automate their sales process.
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Meanwhile, RevOp's work with marketing operations and customer service (aka customer success) teams, helps the whole business continually optimise customer experience and nurture sales relationships. This emphasis on customer experience ultimately unlocks more sales growth by identifying and handing back new upsell/cross-sell opportunities.
Rev Ops is the engine in the middle of the organisation perfectly aligning and animating all this revenue-generating activity.
Alignment and Integration
The definition of these specific roles ensures the revenue-generating ball is never dropped.
Sales Ops primarily focuses on the sales process, strengthening the relationship between sales reps and customers up to the point of closing deals. In contrast, RevOps takes a broader view, enhancing customer experience across the entire journey—from marketing and sales through to customer success.
This holistic approach helps ensure seamless service that continues even after sales are made, delivering the awesome customer experiences and major operational efficiencies that drive continual revenue growth.
Done properly SalesOps and RevOps are never competing for influence and supremacy in the modern business set up. Sales Ops is a subset of Revenue Operations, but RevOps is always working to serve the best interests of the Sales Operations team.
