Revving Up Go-to-Market Operations In B2B

REVVING UP GO-TO-MARKETOPERATIONS IN B2BBy Federico Fabbri, Basir Mustaghni, Marina Nekrasova, Tom Matuszczyk, and Matt WardNew technologies and increasinglysophisticated buyer behaviors arechanging how customer acquisitionand retention are managed at B2B technology companies. Chief revenue officers, aswell as other leaders of sales, marketing,and customer success functions, mustevolve their operating models if they hopeto stay ahead. These changes will take onheightened importance as tech playersadopt more virtualized sales motions inresponse to the coronavirus crisis. Suchchanges also will continue to providecompanies with sustainable advantage,once demand for their products andservices fully rebounds.RevOps, the concept of centralizing operations teams from marketing, sales, andcustomer success, has emerged as a highimpact way to accelerate revenue growthand go-to-market (GTM) operations efficiency through tighter alignment of thesefunctions. Top B2B technology companies,led by software as a service (SaaS) providers, are reporting substantial benefits, including: 100% to 200% increases in digitalmarketing ROI 10% to 20% increases in sales productivity 10% increases in lead acceptance 15% to 20% increases in internalcustomer satisfaction 30% reductions in GTM expensesThe Challenge for Sales andMarketing TodayMany GTM executives today wrestle withachieving efficient, predictable, and sustained growth. Increased customer sophistication has made sales and marketing morecomplicated, as have a proliferation oftools, data, and metrics, faster product andservices innovation, and lower competitivebarriers. For GTM executives to make informed decisions, the operations functionsthat support sales, marketing, and customer success must work together to produce

data and insights that meet consistent standards and metrics as they track customersmoving along the purchasing journey.their GTM operations into a single RevOpsfunction. Centralization has multiplebenefits.Few GTM functions perform that way today. While sales and marketing teams oftenare equipped with better tools than everbefore—from more-sophisticated CRMs tospecialized marketing automation platforms and customer success software—their experience with the expanding techstack is often marred by spotty adoptionand poor integration. Poor integration isoften exacerbated by the fact that GTMteams are run in silos with misaligned incentives. (See Exhibit 1.) These teamsstruggle with many issues, including dataconsistency and reliability, tech stack integration, competing sources of information,duplication of reporting and forecasting,low cross-functional collaboration andtrust, and broken hand-over processes.First, it makes it easier to streamline endto-end purchasing funnel activities, including standardizing reporting, metrics, andtools. Improved performance from RevOpsdriven alignment shows in key metricssuch as customer lifetime value versus acquisition cost (LTV/CAC) ratios, customersatisfaction scores, as well as marketingand sales pipeline velocity. As already noted, we have seen clients who have madeend-to-end funnel integration a priorityincrease their marketing ROI by up to 200%and boost sales productivity by as muchas 20%.Effective integration is tough, but thosewho achieve even partial success will reapbig returns by helping their GTM teams goafter the right customer segments, in theright way, at the right time.The Case for RevOpsTo achieve better GTM alignment, morecompanies are centralizing some or all ofSecond, RevOps improves the efficiency ofGTM investments in people and tools. Centralization streamlines priority setting anddecision making for key activities such astraining, day-to day-execution, as well asprocess and tool design and implementation.Third, RevOps can accelerate the executionof GTM growth levers such as price realization and cross-selling by arming sales andcustomer success teams with the right enablers in the form of tools, metrics, processes, and operational support.Exhibit 1 Poor Alignment Results from Go-to-Market Operations Teams Evolving in SilosA typical go-to-market organizational generationMarketingopsField salesSales ingMarketingtoolsInside salesSales tner salesSalesenablementFieldmarketingCore roles GTM operations roles have beenaround since the 1980s andearlier (traditionally a technicalrole, including analysts andCRM administrators). In the past 10 years, ops roleshave exploded in number tosupport a more complex techstack and buying process, and toaid leaders with strategy andanalysis. However, ops teams havetypically grown up in functionalsilos, contributing to poor GTMalignment.Ops rolesSource: BCG discussions with B2B go-to-market executives, Jan 2020 to Mar 2020.Boston Consulting Group Revving Up Go-to-Market Operations in B2B 2

Recently, we observed a real-world example of such benefits at a fast growing SaaScompany that used RevOps to scale itsGTM as it doubled revenues, from 500million to 1 billion. By streamlining backend GTM processes, they decreased unproductive time for sales reps, improved theintegration of tools and prioritization of investments, reduced costs by removing duplicate roles, and reduced attrition throughimproved career prospects for operationspersonnel.Barriers to RevOpsNot all companies, however, see centralizing GTM operations teams as an immediate opportunity. We have heard executivesexpress concern around three main issues:1. The organizational and cultural changerequired is too large and too scary totackle, and the transformation costswould outweigh the potential benefits.As one manager put it, “Things areworking OK today. I don’t think theadditional benefits are worth the costof such a big organizational change.”2. Centralized GTM operations staff couldlose close working relationships withfrontline staff in marketing, sales, andcustomer success. For instance, oneexecutive said: “My experience is thatcentralized teams are not very effectiveat execution, because it becomes easyto only focus on the strategy and notthe execution.”3. Many organizations believe they do nothave a good place for RevOps to report.A common sentiment expressed bythose with a decentralized operatingmodel is, “If we had centralized RevOps,I’d want it reporting to the chief revenue officer. So unless there’s a CRO, Ijust can’t see it working: either sales ormarketing would get neglected.”Through our work we have seen that all ofthese commonly expressed concerns andbarriers can be overcome with the right approach. And while implementing RevOps isa significant undertaking for any sizableorganization, we believe the benefits outweigh the investments for many B2B businesses. Most importantly, at companieswhere GTM is already misaligned and clearaction to create alignment is not taken, ourexperience shows that matters often tendto get worse over time as individual teamscontinue to invest in diverging strategiesand workarounds.How to Succeed with RevOpsTo understand where RevOps can have apositive impact and to see how substantialthat impact may be, leadership should startby diagnosing the current state of theirGTM processes and the operations behindthem. This diagnostic effort should includea review of current strategy and planningprocesses; cross-functional execution andincentives; metrics and dashboards; andtools, data, and people. BCG has developeda diagnostic survey that can help B2B executives determine whether improving GTMalignment should be a priority.Once a company determines RevOps is theright move, the next question is how to setup the function, including which groups,processes, and tools to centralize. (See Exhibit 2.) Typically, more than half of GTMoperations activities and the people performing them are strong candidates forcentralization.The insights from the diagnostic will enable management to establish a strong setof guidelines for where to focus and how tosequence the transformation effort. For example, one company might find that trustamong GTM teams is high but currentalignment is low. In this case, it should consider centralizing reporting lines first andthen adjust the ways in which teams worktogether. At another organization wheretrust is low, it might be better to start witha smaller degree of change, such as partialcentralization or virtual alignment. Alternatively, a leadership shakeup can be away to reset the trust and culture as a firststep on the journey.For large organizations, a hybrid RevOpsmodel can be a good solution. For instance,Boston Consulting Group Revving Up Go-to-Market Operations in B2B 3

Exhibit 2 Typical GTM Operations ActivitiesStrategy NSSALESOPERATIONSCUSTOMERSUCCESS OPERATIONSFunctional planning cycle supportFunctional planning cycle supportFunctional planning cycle supportCampaign managementQuota and incentivesCustomer coverageAgency managementOpportunity managementCustomer experience managementLead management and handoffAccount and territory planningProfessional services managementSite and journey optimizationPartner ops and metricsContent managementDeal support and discountmanagementBusiness analyticsBusiness analyticsBusiness analyticsTools and data managementTools and data managementTools and data managementField training and supportField training and supportSource: Expert interviews.Note: The definition of “operations” activities differs by company. Activities considered “operations” by some organizations may be considered“core” by others.several successful B2B tech companies usea hub-and-spoke model to maintain theconnection with, and functional supportfor, field operations. A centralized RevOpsorganization sets standards, manages common processes and tools, coordinatesacross regions and functions, and prioritizes and executes major projects. Regionaloperations teams leverage the centralRevOps resources but customize processesfor regional theaters and provide day-today support for regional leaders. This model balances speed of service for the regionswith the coordination benefits of a centralized RevOps team.Whatever the starting point and path theorganization chooses, leaders should keepin mind six important success factors for aRevOps transformation:1. Systematically lay out the startingpoint by conducting the type ofdiagnostic we’ve just described.Review it with all key stakeholders toascertain if everyone has the sameunderstanding of the current state ofaffairs.2. Weigh the benefits and costs of achange carefully. Use the diagnostic tounderstand key areas of opportunityand devise a plan for your transformation. Centralized RevOps is right formany companies, but not a one-size-fitsall solution for everyone.3. Identify a leader with cross-functional experience who can influencechange at a large scale. The rightleader should be motivated to optimizebenefits for the full business, not justone GTM function. This person maynot exist today within the GTM organization, in which case companies needto consider bringing in someonefrom another function or from theoutside.4. Let go of leaders and team membersnot willing to embrace the newcross-functional mindset. Very likely,some people will prefer to “look aftertheir own.” This mindset will act as apoison, reducing the positive impact ofthe transformation and perhaps derailing it altogether.Boston Consulting Group Revving Up Go-to-Market Operations in B2B 4