Traditional management styles have long focused on overseeing individual departments or teams within an organization. However, a new management paradigm has emerged in recent years: revenue operations (RevOps) management.

Few people have heard about this fast-growing job, but companies will soon know about the advantages of leveraging RevOps management skills. Experts predict that 75 percent of high-growth companies worldwide will use a RevOps model by 2025. How is this management style different from previous models? Integration and alignment are key. 

What is RevOps?

RevOps focuses on revenue growth by connecting data from various customer-facing departments like sales, marketing, and service to enhance customer acquisition, recurring revenue, and customer satisfaction. 

“A RevOps team or approach can act as the central hub for customer information for the organization, with a focus on customer acquisition, bookings, recurring revenue, customer churn and satisfaction and other customer-centric metrics,” says Jesse Scardina, writer at TechTarget. “IT enables RevOps with tools such as analytics and AI to discover both trends and opportunities driving revenue streams.” 

The primary goal of RevOps is to unify data from different departments to offer a complete 360-degree view of customers throughout their journey with the company—a shift that requires a different management style. While traditional managers excel in overseeing the day-to-day operations of their respective departments, a new breed of RevOps managers bring a unique perspective that blurs departmental boundaries, amps up collaboration among marketing and sales teams to achieve common goals, and revs up go-to-market strategies. It’s a system that’s long overdue. 

“On a practical level, running this growth machine using traditional marketing, sales, customer service, product, IT and finance functions is like driving an expensive racing car that is only firing on two cylinders, gets terrible gas mileage, and needs a wheel alignment,” explains Stephen Diorio, director of the Revenue Enablement Institute. “Customers won’t suffer the bumps and bruises of being passed from disconnected marketing, sales, and customer success teams as they move along the revenue cycle.” 

Let’s explore the distinctions between these two management styles and compare their strengths, approaches, and contributions to organizational success in today’s business environment.

Compare the Scope of Responsibilities

A traditional manager typically oversees a specific team or department within an organization. Their responsibilities include setting goals, managing resources, and ensuring the team achieves its objectives. Unfortunately, focusing on single departments can sometimes lead to siloed processes. 

Ninety-four percent of business leaders agreed that aligning sales and marketing had gained prominence within their operations. This means an experienced RevOps benefits your operations because they focus on streamlining operations, improving efficiency, and maximizing revenue opportunities across the entire customer lifecycle.

RevOps managers wield a unique blend of strategic foresight and tactical acumen to propel businesses toward sustained growth and success.

Consider Different Focus Areas

While traditional managerial roles are centered on overseeing specific departments and ensuring team productivity, RevOps managers operate on a broader scale, meticulously navigating the entire revenue cycle. Their focus extends from lead generation to customer retention, encompassing a comprehensive analysis of data and processes. 

With research showing that tighter alignment between go-to-market teams contributes to a 100 to 200 percent increase in digital marketing ROI, RevOps managers are invaluable at identifying bottlenecks and implementing strategic interventions to enhance revenue generation and bolstering customer satisfaction. 

Unlike their counterparts, RevOps managers’ primary focus is to align efforts across the organization to drive sustainable growth. 

Cross-Functional Collaboration

While traditional managers may collaborate with other departments, their primary focus is managing their team or department.

By contrast, RevOps managers work closely with sales, marketing, and customer success teams to ensure alignment across these departments. “A successful RevOps professional needs to confidently, smoothly, and collaboratively work with other department leaders to get buy-in and develop solutions that will be adopted into the daily workings of the organization,” says marketing strategist Patti Myers.

Metrics and KPIs

With conventional management, leaders commonly keep tabs on their teams’ performance metrics, like productivity, efficiency, and project completion rates. 

Meanwhile, RevOps managers hone in on revenue-centric metrics such as lead conversion rates, customer acquisition costs, customer lifetime value, and churn rates. These metrics are their compass for pinpointing improvement areas and propelling revenue growth initiatives forward.

Technology and Tools

Traditional managers may use various tools and software to manage projects, track tasks, and communicate with team members.

With sales planning tools like Fullcast, RevOps managers can leverage CRM platforms, AI-supported marketing automation, and analytics tools to streamline revenue operations, track performance, and make data-driven decisions.

The distinct roles of traditional and RevOps managers underscore the diverse needs of modern organizations. While conventional managers excel in nurturing team dynamics within specific departments, RevOps managers bring targeted skills that help align key revenue-driving functions that propel comprehensive business growth. 

We Can Help

Fullcast was built for RevOps leaders by RevOps leaders to bring together all of the moving pieces of our clients’ sales go-to-market strategies and automate their execution. We seamlessly connect go-to-market planning activities with tactical sales execution, enabling your operations, sales, finance, and customer success teams to make continuous adjustments in response to real-time strategy changes. From territory management to performance tracking, we operate with speed, agility, and AI-powered automation. 

Book a demo today.