As a manufacturer, do you have a revenue operations strategy?
Sure, building an airplane component or processing food might not seem as exciting as selling a hot new app or attacking the market with a viral video, but that doesn’t mean that a smart and savvy business growth strategy won’t work in manufacturing.
The misconception among manufacturers that integrated sales and marketing won’t deliver a return is limiting business growth. Companies think marketing isn’t worth the investment. They mistakenly believe changing how sales are handled is risky.
It’s also why some manufacturers may not have explored Revenue Operations.
What Is Revenue Operations?
Revenue Operations, or RevOps as it is also known, is a business strategy that aligns the revenue centers of a business. It aligns sales, operations, finance and customer service around the overall business goals. By aligning the goals of the typically siloed business units, overall efficiency increases, waste is reduced, duplicative and non-value-added work can be eliminated, and friction in operations can be reduced.
The company works faster and with more focus, and is better able to adapt to meet new challenges or seize new opportunities.
With cross-functional teams aligned, sharing data and information, working toward a shared goal, and with better insight into how the business operates, you can identify opportunities and take action to increase revenue.
It’s worked for many companies across industries. In fact, in a recent report, companies said that with RevOps in place they saw a 10% increase in lead acceptance, a 30% reduction in GTM expenses, and a 10% to 20% increase in sales productivity.
There’s no reason why manufacturers can’t see the same benefits with Revenue Operations.
How Manufacturers Can Make Revenue Operations Work
For manufacturers, strategy and investment usually focus on production, and rightly so. Production is the revenue driver for the business, but an investment made in RevOps will also provide benefits for production. Let’s look at how RevOps works for manufacturers specifically.
1. Align the Business, Marketing and Operations Goals
Manufacturing is a business, and the goals of the business should be the goals of the cross-functional internal teams. By focusing on the business goals, your operations, shipping, production, sales and marketing teams can align their efforts, boosting the business. Operations can better see how process improvement can lead to more sales, and you can better see the return on these internal investments.
2. Align Operations and Marketing Technology
As anyone in business can tell you, different systems and technologies often don’t work well together. The data kept and managed by sales may be in a different place, and even a different format, than the data used in marketing or operations. This can lead to flawed decisions. With RevOps, data can be centralized. It’s consistent and more accessible, so that decisions can be made quickly and with more confidence.
3. Identify Friction in Internal Processes
A significant source of business waste is internal friction. How difficult is it to prioritize a single order for a key customer? How much time is wasted answering what should be a simple customer question? One goal of RevOps is identifying and reducing business friction. Think of it like an order of operations for your business. Where are there bottlenecks in business operations? Where is there an opportunity for automation? Reducing friction will increase operational efficiency.
4. Set Metrics to Evaluate the Strategy
Just like launching a new product, when you need to determine your manufacturing budget to determine profitability, metrics help you evaluate and optimize your RevOps strategy. With your business goals in place, identify KPIs that will help you evaluate progress and determine opportunities for improvement. For example, tracking turnaround time for customer service tickets, or processing time for sending an order to the shop floor can help you track RevOps efficiency and the success of your efforts.
5. Create a Plan and Track Progress
Any change in processes will require help and effort from everyone involved. Creating a set plan with actionable phased goals will eliminate the confusion and frustration that can often happen with process changes. For example, notifying sales when orders ship could be part of the overall RevOps strategy and helps promotes RevOps with the shipping department. Track progress in a visible way and reward groups for their efforts to build excitement for the strategy.
Getting Started with Revenue Operations for Manufacturers
Revenue Operations is a powerful tool for any business looking for sales growth and cost reductions, but it can be overwhelming at first. It’s easy to get lost in the details, and without a clear return, business leaders might decide to drop the project.
Doing that will leave the business vulnerable to the competition who are actively looking for every advantage.
If you are interested in learning more about Revenue Operations, then reach out to GO2 today. Set up a no-obligation call with one of our experts about your business goals and how the right partner can give you a competitive advantage.
