The top 5 RevOps trends to watch for in 2023

RevOps emerged in response to a major shift from product-centric to service-based delivery models, particularly in the B2B SaaS space. As the concept has become more popular, we’re now starting to see these methods applied across a broader range of industries as they embrace digital transformation. 

With digital experiences now the norm across most industries, RevOps adoption will only continue to increase. After all, the need for more seamless and streamlined customer experiences is greater than ever, and that leaves no space for organizational silos.

As the traditional, siloed approach to doing business falters in the face of constant change and disruption, RevOps is now finding its place as a fundamental business strategy. This has led to a rapid rise of RevOps-related job titles, such as Director of Revenue Operations and Chief Revenue Officer. This is backed by LinkedIn’s recent US Jobs on the Rise report which listed Head of Revenue Operations as the fastest growing title over the past five years. 

Similarly, the availability of RevOps tools and platforms is growing too. One of the priorities of RevOps is to unify and streamline both internal and external business communications, so we can also expect to see more integration between popular CRM and collaboration platforms, as well as far more automation of RevOps processes.

Leadership is especially vital in the field, not least because RevOps represents a sea change in corporate culture in which teams, empowered by the right technologies and processes, are willing and able to work together. 

When RevOps first emerged as a business strategy a few years ago, it focused primarily on analyzing historical data to predict future outcomes. The belief was that this would help teams set realistic expectations for the following year. 

Unfortunately, the last couple of years have been anything but normal. What these years have taught us, however, is that we can’t just flip the switch and go back to what was normal before. After all, the pandemic introduced changes that will persist for years to come, such as the rise of remote work and the greater demand for digital services. 

To stay relevant in the uncertain years ahead, businesses must be agile and ready to adapt quickly to unforeseen changes. That means their go-to-market strategies must be similarly flexible. Therefore, focusing on historical trends and data is of limited use. Leaders must keep a finger on the pulse of their organizations by monitoring trends in near real-time so they can make important decisions in hours and days rather than weeks or months. 

While historical trends and insights are the most traditional form of data analytics, the focus is now shifting towards real-time metrics to enhance decision-making. Given how vital real-time analytics are in the era of customer experience, they will play a central role in RevOps. 

Thanks to real-time analytics, teams can respond proactively, instead of learning from issues only after they’ve occurred. For example, applying real-time analytics to your sales and marketing strategy informs you instantly about which areas of the client journey are working and which ones are running into issues. In other words, you’ll be able to easily identify growth opportunities and funnel bottlenecks, as well as why they’re happening, giving you the chance to take decisive action before it's too late. 

B2B selling has never been more complicated. As businesses scale, the vast amount of data collected from an ever-increasing range of client touchpoints rises exponentially. Sales cycles lengthen, buying groups broaden, and new opportunities beget new challenges. There’s simply far too much to do if you’re relying on manual work alone. 

Automation has always played a key role in RevOps, but there’s already far more that can be automated compared to just a couple of years ago. Artificial intelligence and machine learning continue to advance at an unprecedented rate, giving businesses new opportunities to leverage relevant, timely and accurate data. After all, any automated decision-making is only ever as good as the data that goes into it. 

Using machine learning for data collection and analysis isn’t a new trend, but it’s certainly one of the most pervasive, which is why it will become a core focus for many companies in 2023. Indeed, to make decisions in near real-time, you need automation to sift through mountains of data collected across multiple GTM systems. 

Artificial intelligence and machine learning won’t replace the need for human teams – that’s not the goal. However, what they will do is augment their capabilities to quickly make smart decisions at every stage of an increasingly complex and diverse range of customer journeys. 

Traditionally, businesses focused on selling products to customers. Revenue was defined by the income generated by those sales. In most industries, things have changed. No longer are businesses just selling products – they’re selling experiences. In the increasingly demanding world of B2B SaaS, the quality of those experiences is often the primary driver of revenue. 

When RevOps first emerged, it largely focused on ironing out internal inefficiencies, with the top-level goal being to increase revenue. Today, however, revenue is inseparable from client experience. That’s why the focus is shifting more towards the customer and their needs. For example, lead-routing prioritizes key data points, such as when customers and prospects are most likely to move to the next stage of the sales funnel or which subscription tier they are most likely to purchase. 

One of the most important RevOps trends for the year ahead will be the rise of signal-based selling, in which data points and the context surrounding them will provide opportunities to maximize customer lifetime value. A single data point isn’t enough to inform decisions, but with context around it, such as sentiment analysis and sales funnel stage, you have the information required to improve the customer experience. 

While the increasing focus on customer experience shouldn’t mean overlooking factors like product and pricing, it’s important to recognize these two factors as part of a greater whole. For example, prospects typically come for the product and sign up for the right price, but your capability to retain those customers depends on the experience they have for the duration of their engagement with your company. 

In many industries, remote work is now well-established as the new normal. However, while the implications for lifestyle and productivity are generally positive, there are challenges that many businesses have yet to adequately address. 

It’s inherently more difficult to maintain company culture and consistency when everyone’s working from different places at different times on different devices. The ad-hoc measures introduced to address these challenges during the pandemic may have helped businesses stay above water, but they’re not enough to ensure long-term success. 

A sustainable RevOps strategy needs to foster closer communication and collaboration between the different GTM teams and enable a learning environment where every success is recognized and rewarded while failures are treated as events to learn from. 

The nature of distributed work is such that RevOps, along with the automated processes that come with it, is essential in today’s market. In other words, everyone needs to have access to the same data by way of an interconnected environment. This will make it easier to ensure that the right sales and marketing and CS people are focusing on the right areas. 

Given the need to maintain closer collaboration in distributed work environments, we can also expect to see greater consolidation across RevOps tech stacks. Instead of trying to identify the best tools for the job out of thousands of potential options, we’ll likely see tech companies focusing more on the integration of key functions. This will give organizations the opportunity to deploy an integrated RevOps stack, rather than juggling dozens of different tools that lack out-of-the-box interoperability. 

RevOps teams are now the new orchestrators of the customer journey. The problem is that, as a company scales, this often suffers simply because it becomes exponentially harder to maintain the same level of personalized service delivery. 

A consolidated data-driven RevOps strategy, empowered by the right tech stack, can help organizations overcome that challenge. That’s why most of the RevOps trends outlined in the post revolve around data and how it can help companies achieve sustainable growth, rather than just focusing on what looks good on the next balance sheet. 

If you want to see how automation can help power your RevOps strategy in 2023, book a demo with one of our revenue analysis experts. 

The primary goal of RevOps teams is to optimize the revenue generation process across the entire GTM organization by easily identifying areas for improvement, measuring performance and making informed decisions. The only way to achieve those goals is to have access to accurate and reliable data as the foundation for effective decision making, departmental alignment, improved customer experience, and performance measurement. 

As the RevOps concept evolves, the trends around it are becoming more and more strategic. Previously, the focus was on issues such as data quality, sales and marketing integration, and personalization at scale. While these are all still very important, the conversation is now moving more towards how RevOps can be a strategic company-wide solution rather than just a tactical tool. 

The automation of the revenue analysis function not only helps RevOps teams save time and resources while improving accuracy and consistency, it can also help scale more effectively, enable them to offer real-time proactive analysis and facilitate collaboration among all GTM teams. By leveraging automation, RevOps teams can gain deeper insights into the revenue generation process, leading to more informed decision-making and better revenue optimization outcomes.