The RevOps wake-up call

While Revenue Operations (RevOps) is becoming a fixture in many global organisations, from tech unicorns to multinational enterprises, many companies are still trying to separate the signal from the noise.

- By Dr Amy Osmond Cook

RevOps is the strategic engine that unifies sales, marketing, customer success, and operational functions to align the entire go-to-market (GTM) engine. In short, RevOps makes sure every customer-facing team is rowing in the same direction. And the results speak for themselves. Companies that implemented a unified GTM strategy across sales and marketing achieved 36 per cent higher revenue growth and up to 28 per cent greater profitability, according to Forrester.

In this article, we take on five common myths about RevOps, using real-world examples, to help business leaders understand why getting this right matters now more than ever

MYTH 1: REVOPS IS JUST SALES OPERATIONS WITH A NEW NAME

Even though the term ‘RevOps’ was coined in 2016, RevOps has been around for thousands of years. At its core, revenue operations is the process of aligning teams, processes, and tools across an organization's revenue-generating departments. As long as there has been revenue, there has been RevOps.

Sales operations is a critical discipline, but it typically focuses on pipeline management, forecasting, and supporting reps with tools and processes. RevOps, on the other hand, operates at a broader, more strategic level, bringing together sales, marketing, and customer success to work toward shared revenue goals.

When these teams operate in silos, the results are damaging. HubSpot reports that B2B companies with poor alignment between these functions lose more than 10 per cent of their revenue annually.

The RevOps model eliminates these problems by introducing a shared language, centralized data, and a unified view of the customer journey.

MYTH 2: HIERARCHY = LEADERSHIP

Your organisational chart is lying to you. It shows boxes and lines, implying leadership flows downward from titles. Meanwhile, your real leaders—the ones actually driving results—are scattered across every level, often without formal authority.