What is Sales Operations

The most important objective for Sales Operations is to focus on Sales effectiveness rather than efficiency, bearing in mind that the roles within this organization vary significantly from company to company.

Sales Operations often plays a strong support role with other functions.

Studies have revealed that if such a role is allocated to sales leaders, the end result is more focused on sales efficiency rather than effectiveness. This is clearly obvious due to the difference in the energy and the discipline required among both jobs. The energy needed to be an active productive salesperson focusing on achieving sales targets on one hand versus the energy required to have the discipline for any kind of analytics and devising strategy on the other hand. Thus Sales Ops is a unique disciplinary positioned job set to leverage data and technology to support the sales organization, diagnose issues, and design solutions.

Below is a set of the different categorical functions executed within Sales Ops, all of which have deep roots in science and technology.

• Data Management and Governance: One of the main objectives of Sales Ops is to build a unified scientific language for the sales department in addition to the governance for sales data in order to be able to do a proper forecasting, and any other kind of analysis.
• CRM Utilization and Other Sales Systems: User Adoption became a top subject of most of the Sales top management as well as the challenges that reside within. It’s the sales Ops department job to roll up the implementation of the CRM by coordinating with the IT as well as the front-liners and run the required reinforcement sessions and actions to ensure User Adoption is there.
• Analytics and Business Insights: With an analytical mindset, technology and discipline (not obsessed with targets), Sales Ops take care of the entire analysis that caters to everything within the sales organization from customer segmentation, products to focus on, sales productivity and performance, to the scientific diagnosis of the problem and reaching an optimal solution to be discussed with the concerned parties.
• Sales Forecasting: Sales Ops department could build up scientifically the sales forecast without being biased for the commission or the profit, a fallacy done by sales or management people. Eliminating this hassle allows the sales department staff and leaders to focus solely on achieving their numbers.
• Lead Generation: Many sales teams complain that leads from marketing are often useless. Meanwhile, marketers insist that they’ve fulfilled their lead-generation objectives. The truth lies somewhere in the middle. The sales operations function can make generating, capturing, and following up on leads a seamless, cost-effective, and collaborative process.
• Sales Process: Research revealed that there was an 18% difference in revenue growth between companies that defined a formal sales process and companies that didn’t. With on-ground sales experience and having good customer understanding, sales Ops comes in to Optimize— the sales process or if needed, to redesign—your sales process for maximum customer value and sales performance.
• Compensation Design: Understanding the motive and drive of sales people coupled with understanding their analytical skills leaves them on the edge of designing the best rewarding compensation that could increase revenue growth.