How to Structure Your RevOps Team for Success

RevOps is a strategic function that aligns sales, marketing, and customer success teams around common goals and metrics, ensuring a seamless customer journey from initial contact to closed deals and beyond. A well-structured RevOps team is crucial for B2B companies looking to maximize revenue potential and scale their operations.

Modern RevOps teams are increasingly augmented by AI-powered revenue agents that automate many traditional manual tasks, allowing human team members to focus on strategic initiatives rather than data processing and routine operations. These virtual agents can automatically analyze pipeline health, execute workflow optimizations, and provide real-time insights that enhance every role within the RevOps structure. 

The revenue operations team structure typically includes roles focused on data analysis, process optimization, technology management, and enablement. These professionals work together to break down silos, improve data quality, automate workflows, and provide insights that help revenue-generating teams perform at their best. By centralizing revenue operations responsibilities under one umbrella, companies can achieve greater visibility into pipeline health, identify bottlenecks more quickly, and make data-driven decisions that improve overall business performance.

However, building an effective RevOps team is not just about hiring the right people; it also requires careful consideration of how those roles fit together and support each other. In this article, we will explore the key roles and responsibilities within a typical RevOps team structure and guide how B2B companies can set their teams up for success.

What Does Revenue Operations Do?

A successful RevOps team brings together professionals with diverse skill sets and expertise to drive revenue growth and operational efficiency. Let’s see the key roles and responsibilities of the team.

RevOps Leader

At the helm of the revenue operations structure is the RevOps leader, often holding a title such as Director or VP of Revenue Operations. This individual is responsible for setting the overall strategy and direction of the RevOps function, ensuring alignment with broader company goals. The RevOps leader oversees the team's day-to-day activities, manages team members, and liaises between RevOps and executive leadership.

Key responsibilities of a RevOps leader include:

• Developing and implementing a comprehensive RevOps strategy: This involves defining the vision and objectives for the RevOps function, identifying areas for improvement, and creating a roadmap to achieve desired outcomes. For example, a RevOps leader might develop a strategy to streamline the lead-to-cash process, reducing the time it takes to convert a lead into a paying customer.
• Establishing metrics and KPIs to measure the success of RevOps initiatives: The RevOps leader must determine which metrics best reflect the performance of the revenue operations structure and set targets for improvement. This could include metrics such as lead conversion rates, sales cycle length, and customer retention rates.
• Identifying opportunities for process improvement and cost optimization: The RevOps leader continuously assesses current processes and tools to identify inefficiencies and areas where costs can be reduced. For instance, they might recommend implementing a new CRM system to streamline data management and reduce manual data entry.
• Collaborating with sales, marketing, and customer success leaders to ensure alignment: The RevOps leader works closely with other department heads to ensure that everyone is working towards common goals and that there is seamless coordination between teams. This could involve regular cross-functional meetings to discuss priorities, challenges, and opportunities.
• Managing budgets and resources allocated to RevOps projects: The RevOps leader is responsible for ensuring that projects are adequately funded and staffed. They must balance competing priorities and allocate resources in a way that maximizes impact and ROI.
• Providing regular updates to executive leadership on the impact of RevOps efforts: The RevOps leader must communicate the value and progress of RevOps initiatives to senior management. This could include presenting quarterly reports on key metrics, highlighting success stories, and outlining plans for future improvements.
  
  

To excel in this role, the head of the department must possess strong strategic thinking abilities, excellent communication and interpersonal skills, and a deep understanding of the revenue operations structure and its various components.

RevOps Analysts and Managers

The backbone of any RevOps team is its analysts and managers, who are responsible for executing the strategy set forth by leadership. These individuals typically specialize in one or more areas of revenue operations, such as analytics, project management, sales operations, marketing operations, or customer success operations.

Some common revenue operations job titles at the analyst and manager level include:

• Revenue Operations Analyst
• Sales Operations Manager
• Marketing Operations Manager
• Customer Success Operations Manager
• Revenue Enablement Manager

These professionals are tasked with:

• Analyzing data to identify trends, patterns, and opportunities for improvement: RevOps analysts and managers dig deep into data from various sources (e.g., CRM, marketing automation, customer support) to uncover insights that can drive better decision-making. For example, an analyst might identify that deals over a certain size tend to have a much longer sales cycle, prompting the team to develop targeted strategies for accelerating large deals.
• Developing and implementing processes to optimize workflows and drive efficiency: RevOps professionals are always looking for ways to streamline processes and eliminate bottlenecks. This could involve mapping out current workflows, identifying pain points, and redesigning processes to be more efficient. For instance, a sales operations manager might implement a new lead scoring model to help sales reps prioritize their outreach efforts.
• Managing projects and initiatives related to their area of specialization: Each RevOps analyst or manager typically owns specific projects or initiatives aimed at improving performance in their area of focus. A marketing operations manager, for example, might lead a project to implement a new attribution model to better understand the ROI of different marketing channels.
• Collaborating with cross-functional teams to ensure seamless handoffs and data flow: RevOps professionals work closely with other teams to ensure that everyone has access to the data and insights they need to be successful. This could involve working with IT to integrate different systems, or partnering with sales and marketing leaders to define common definitions for key metrics.
• Providing training and support to revenue-generating teams: RevOps analysts and managers often serve as subject matter experts for the tools and processes they oversee. They may be responsible for training new hires, creating documentation, and providing ongoing support to ensure that everyone is using systems effectively.
• Monitoring and reporting on key performance indicators: RevOps professionals are responsible for tracking and reporting on the metrics that matter most to the business. They create dashboards, reports, and scorecards to provide visibility into performance and help identify areas for improvement, working alongside AI revenue agents that automatically capture data, identify patterns, and execute routine tasks, allowing analysts and managers to focus on strategic analysis and decision-making rather than manual data processing. 

To thrive in these roles, RevOps analysts and managers must have strong analytical and problem-solving skills, attention to detail, project management expertise, and the ability to work effectively with diverse stakeholders. 

RevOps Specialists

In addition to analysts and managers, a RevOps team may include specialists who focus on specific tools, systems, or processes that are critical to revenue operations. These roles are often highly technical and require deep expertise in their respective areas.

Examples of RevOps specialist roles include:

• CRM Administrator: Responsible for managing and optimizing the company's CRM system (e.g. Salesforce), ensuring data integrity, and supporting users. This might involve tasks such as creating custom fields and objects, designing workflows and automation rules, and troubleshooting issues reported by users.
• Contract Manager: Handles the creation, review, and management of sales contracts, ensuring compliance with legal and financial requirements. This could include drafting contract templates, negotiating terms with customers, and collaborating with legal and finance teams to ensure that contracts are properly executed and stored.
• Commissions Analyst: Manages the design, implementation, and administration of sales compensation plans, ensuring accurate and timely payment of commissions. This might involve building commission calculators, auditing payouts for accuracy, and providing reporting to sales leaders to help them understand the effectiveness of different compensation plans.
• Revenue Systems Manager: Oversees the integration and maintenance of various tools and systems used by the RevOps team and revenue-generating teams. This could include managing integrations between the CRM, marketing automation platform, and other key systems, as well as evaluating new tools and technologies that could help improve efficiency and performance.

AI Revenue Agents as Virtual Team Members

Modern RevOps teams increasingly include AI-powered revenue agents as virtual team members that work alongside human specialists. These agents automatically: 

• Execute routine data analysis and pattern recognition across multiple revenue streams
• Monitor deal progression and automatically flag at-risk opportunities
• Generate forecasts and pipeline reports without manual intervention
• Automate workflow optimizations based on performance data
• Provide real-time coaching recommendations to sales teams
• Handle administrative tasks like CRM updates and activity logging 
  
  

By deploying these virtual agents, RevOps teams can scale their impact without proportionally increasing headcount, allowing human team members to focus on strategic initiatives, stakeholder relationships, and complex problem-solving that requires human judgment. 

Structuring a Revenue Operations Team

When designing a RevOps team, companies must consider factors such as team size, business complexity, and organizational priorities to determine the optimal structure.

Functional vs Stakeholder Approach

One common way to structure a RevOps team is the functional approach, where team members are organized based on their specific areas of expertise, such as analytics, systems, or enablement. In this model, each function is responsible for supporting all revenue-generating teams (sales, marketing, customer success) in their respective area.

For example, a RevOps analyst focused on analytics would provide data-driven insights to inform decision-making across all revenue-related functions. Similarly, a systems specialist would manage tools and technologies used by all teams.

An alternative approach is the stakeholder model, where RevOps team members are aligned with specific revenue-generating teams. In this structure, there may be dedicated sales operations, marketing operations, and customer success operations roles, each focused on supporting their respective stakeholder group.

The advantage of the stakeholder approach is that RevOps team members can develop deep expertise in the specific needs and challenges of their assigned function. This can lead to more tailored support and stronger relationships with stakeholders.

However, the functional approach can promote greater consistency and efficiency across the organization, as RevOps team members can apply best practices and standardized processes across all revenue-generating teams.

Hybrid and Scaled Approaches

Many organizations adopt a hybrid approach that combines elements of both the functional and stakeholder models. For example, a RevOps team may have functional specialists in areas like analytics and systems, while also having dedicated liaisons or business partners assigned to work closely with each revenue-generating team.

This hybrid structure allows for both the benefits of specialized expertise and the advantages of close alignment with individual stakeholder groups.

As companies grow and scale, their RevOps teams may need to evolve and adapt their structure to meet changing needs. This could involve adding new roles and functions, such as a dedicated revenue enablement manager or a compliance specialist, to address emerging requirements.

Larger organizations may also find it necessary to create multiple "tiers" of RevOps support, with a centralized team providing strategic direction and guidance, and decentralized teams embedded within each business unit or region to provide more localized support.

Regardless of the specific structure chosen, the key is to ensure that revenue operations roles and responsibilities are clearly defined and that the RevOps team can effectively collaborate and communicate with all revenue-generating functions. A well-designed revenue operations job description can help attract the right talent and set expectations for how the RevOps team will support the organization's growth objectives.

Key Revenue Operations Skills

When building a high-performing RevOps team, it's crucial to look for candidates with a diverse set of skills that enable them to effectively support revenue growth and drive operational efficiency. Some of the most important skills to consider include:

• Technical aptitude: RevOps professionals must be comfortable working with a variety of tools and technologies, such as CRM systems, marketing automation platforms, and data analytics software.
• Business acumen: RevOps team members need to have a deep understanding of the business they support, including the company's products, target customers, and competitive landscape.
• Analytical skills: The ability to analyze complex data sets and derive meaningful insights is a critical skill for RevOps professionals. They must be able to identify patterns, trends, and opportunities for improvement, and communicate their findings effectively to stakeholders.
• Project management: This includes the ability to plan, execute, and monitor projects from start to finish while managing competing priorities and deadlines.
• Adaptability: Successful RevOps team members are those who can adapt quickly to change, learn new skills, and find creative solutions to problems.
  
  

By prioritizing these key skills when hiring for revenue operations roles, organizations can build teams that are well-equipped to tackle the complex challenges of driving revenue growth and operational efficiency in today's fast-paced business environment.

Wrapping Up

Implementing a Revenue Operations (RevOps) team can be a game-changer for B2B companies looking to drive growth and efficiency. By aligning sales, marketing, and customer success around common goals and metrics, RevOps helps break down silos, improve data quality, and optimize the entire revenue engine.

If you're struggling with disconnected systems, inconsistent reporting, or a lack of visibility into your revenue pipeline, it may be time to consider building a RevOps team. The key is to design a structure that fits your organization's specific needs, with the right balance of specialized expertise and cross-functional collaboration.