RevOps Research Shows Direct Impact to Accelerated Revenue Growth
Highlights
- RevOps research found that while only 16 percent of total company respondents managed revenue centrally, that cohort was significantly skewed among performance archetypes. Nearly 9 out of 10 of the highest growth companies managed revenue centrally.
- Larger companies managed revenue centrally about twice as frequently as midsize companies and over three times more frequently than smaller companies.
- Revenue Operations was the most used revenue management framework. While it is not yet pervasive, the research found that 76% of the highest growth companies managed revenue centrally with this method.
Research performed for the Business Growth Report sought to identify how the highest growth companies outperformed their lower growth peers.
But before posing survey questions to measure what participants did to grow revenues, we asked questions to measure their revenue growth performance. Specifically, we captured the following three performance measures for all participants.
- Revenue growth for prior two fiscal years
- Profit growth for prior two fiscal years
- Revenue predictability and consistency
The data was weighted and used to segment respondents into one of three performance archetypes.
- Best-in-class organizations scored in the top 15%
- Median organizations scored in the middle 50%
- Laggard organizations scored in the lower 35%
The data surfaced two factors that most stood out among performance archetypes. They are described below.
Centralized Revenue Management
A survey question was used to determine the primary source of company revenue accountability. The total responses are shown in the below left side pie chart.
While only 16% of companies manage revenue centrally, 89% of that cohort are the top 15% growth companies.
Click to TweetIt was no surprise that the sales organization was responsible for company revenue among most respondents. However, we did incur a surprise when delineating the respondent data by growth performance archetype.
Only 16 percent of all respondents advised that revenue responsibility was centrally managed. However, 89 percent of that small cohort was made up of the highest revenue growth companies (i.e., top 15 percent). This inverse relationship reveals that about 9 out of 10 of the highest growth companies manage revenue responsibility differently than all other lower growth companies.
This statistically relevant data suggests that centralized revenue management highly correlates with company revenue growth.
We also uncovered a statistical pattern when analyzing the data by company size. Larger companies ($1+ billion) were about twice as likely to manage revenue centrally when compared to midsize companies ($100M to $1B) and 3.5 times more likely than smaller business (less than $100M).
The survey included questions to measure Revenue Operations adoption. Among respondents that managed revenue generation centrally, we asked participants if they used this model. The responses among the Best-in-Class respondents are shown below.
Centralized revenue management remains less adopted than the delegated departmental approach. However, among adopters, this method is used by just over three-quarters of the highest growth companies.
Revenue Management
Centralized revenue management often begins with it a single accountable resource. Most industries incurred the rise of a Chief Revenue Officer (CRO) to fill this role. The CRO coordinated all revenue generation departments and services to establish overall orchestration.
But one person cannot do it alone. A specialized team is needed to unify go-to-market motions, manage enterprise-wide revenue execution, continuously measure results, and implement swift course corrections when needed.
These actions shift the lead role from revenue coordination to managed execution and achieve a force multiplier revenue impact. This transition has been accelerated with RevOps implementation methodologies and best practices.
Revenue Operations is still a nascent business growth method but has quickly become a de facto standard for companies seeking a holistic approach to accelerated revenue generation.
RevOps Research Corroboration
Because the data patterns revealed a highly disproportionate adoption among the top performers and their lower performing peers, we sought other research for comparison purposes.
We were referred to a RevOps research study done by SiriusDecisions. The data found that when successfully implemented, "organizations that deployed revenue ops in some form grew revenue nearly three times faster than those who didn't." The research also advised that public companies with revenue ops achieved "a 71% higher stock performance." The results among studies were comparable.
Our review of third-party studies also found a wide body of research with an overarching conclusion that RevOps adoption is skyrocketing because when correctly done, it works.