Why your business needs a revenue intelligence platform
by Andy McDonald
With a revenue intelligence platform, there is the potential for b2b businesses to drive multi-million pound increases by improving sales velocity even by marginal gains of 1.5% close rates and deal size and 5% increase in pipeline*.
So, what exactly does a RevOps model entail?
Simply put, Gartner describes RevOps as a way of aligning the business towards revenue enablement as opposed to sales enablement. It’s how businesses now act on the acknowledgement that, to drive efficient, predictable revenue, transparency and alignment are needed across all marketing, sales, and customer success operations.
In this sense, achieving a revenue operations model has been on the board agenda for a while now. But the rate at which the business landscape has changed is accelerating. With new buying and selling dynamics to navigate, the rise of hybrid working, and increasingly complex and disparate technology stacks underpinning existing processes, those responsible for revenue operations already have a huge and urgent job to do.
To thrive in the current economic climate, the RevOps imperative is more urgent still.
Having the right tools in place will help speed up the transition and maximise results. A revenue intelligence platform is at the heart of a revenue operations model, turning data into the insight needed to shape your entire revenue strategy and the workflows that put it into practice.
Whether your business is just starting its revenue operations journey or you are part of a fully-fledged revenue operations team, a revenue intelligence platform can support you in the following three ways:
1. Align revenue tools and sales data
To deploy a successful RevOps model, companies need to take stock of the tools they use, synthesise them, and look for opportunities to maximise their revenue-generating potential.
The CRM system is a hub of revenue data that is central to achieving revenue intelligence and ensuring everyone in your business has the complete data picture they need. A revenue intelligence platform can integrate with your CRM platform but also synthesise time-sequenced data from other business tools – such as previous order history, calendar appointments and meetings.
Deal-related activity intelligence that is sourced from all areas of the business ensures an interconnected revenue process, leading to a deeper understanding of the predictors of sales success.
2. Ensure the sales data you need is always captured
Of course, a big challenge of CRM has always been data quality and how to ensure information is completed in full and as new events happen. Without high-quality sales data, a successful RevOps model simply isn’t possible.
A good revenue intelligence platform should have the features and functionality to help demonstrate value to salespeople and motivate them to follow revenue processes. Techniques like gamification, for example, can be applied to help revenue leaders get the data out of reps’ notebooks or phones and into the CRM system.
3. Share actionable insight and outcomes across the revenue process
A revenue intelligence platform shines a light on your business, teams, and deal health. The next step is to utilise this insight so that sales reps and managers can more effectively manage their pipelines and convert sales.
Identifying the most successful sales activities means the platform can guide reps on actions that will most likely advance them to a successful close. Managers can also share best practices across the entire sales team to help them hit targets and replicate the success of top sellers.
For business leaders, a revenue intelligence platform means important financial decisions and plans for future growth – such as those relating to recruitment, managing cash flow, and setting targets – can be based on high-quality insights and a dependable, repeatable forecasting process.
Equipped with a revenue intelligence platform, revenue leaders can utilise every piece of data available to understand the direction of their business, remove inefficiencies, and maximise sales.
To find out how Cloudapps’ revenue intelligence platform could help transition your business to a successful RevOps model, contact us.
*ROI calculation
Sales velocity = (number of opportunities × average deal size × win rate or conversion rate) ⁄ sales cycle length
3,000 x 23% win rate x 50,000/180 days = 191,661/day
3,150 (5%) x 24.5% (1.5%) x 50,,750 (1.5%) = 217,590/day
Delta = 25,929/day x 365 = £9.46M
Tags: Andy McDonald revenue intelligence