1. What is Revenue Operations?
Revenue Operations (RevOps) is the strategic function that unifies processes, technology, and data across sales, marketing, and customer success teams to maximize revenue in a predictable and scalable way.
In simple terms: it's your company's operating system for generating revenue. Just as a factory has production operations that ensure every product comes out with the same quality, Revenue Operations ensures every dollar of revenue is generated efficiently and repeatably.
RevOps was born in U.S. technology companies around 2018-2019, when business leaders realized that having sales, marketing, and service departments working in silos created friction, inconsistent data, and missed opportunities.
RevOps vs Sales Operations
Sales Operations focuses exclusively on the sales team: territory planning, compensation, CRM. Revenue Operations is broader: it covers the entire revenue cycle, from the first marketing interaction to customer renewal. The key difference is that RevOps breaks down departmental silos.
2. Why does Revenue Operations matter?
Companies with a mature RevOps function grow 3x faster and are 15% more profitable than those operating in departmental silos (Forrester Research, 2024).
The symptoms of not having RevOps are familiar to any B2B commercial leader:
- Inaccurate forecast: You don't know how much you'll sell next quarter because every rep reports differently.
- Leads that slip through the cracks: Marketing generates leads that sales never follows up on, or that get assigned late and go cold.
- Manual reporting: Your team spends more time in spreadsheets than selling.
- Underutilized CRM: You have HubSpot/Salesforce but nobody uses it correctly.
- Team misalignment: Marketing says they generate plenty of leads. Sales says the leads are bad. Nobody has data to prove who's right.
Revenue Operations solves all these problems with a systemic approach: clear processes, unified data, and technology that makes work easier instead of more complicated.
3. The 4 pillars of Revenue Operations
Pillar 1: Processes
Document and standardize how your company generates revenue. From lead qualification to close and renewal, every step must be defined, measured, and optimized.
Pillar 2: Technology
The technology stack (CRM, automation, analytics) must be integrated and configured to support defined processes. Technology is the vehicle, not the destination.
Pillar 3: Data
A single source of truth. When marketing, sales, and service work with the same data and the same definitions (what is an MQL? what is a closed-won deal?), decisions are better and faster.
Pillar 4: People
Processes and technology only work if the team adopts them. Change management, continuous training, and designing systems that enable (not complicate) work are essential.
4. How to implement Revenue Operations
RevOps implementation is not a one-time 6-month project. It's an operational change that is implemented in phases and continuously optimized.
Phase 1: Diagnostic (2-4 weeks)
Before changing anything, you need to understand how your operation works today. Map the full customer journey, identify friction points, and measure baseline metrics (stage conversion, cycle time, acquisition cost).
Phase 2: Design (2-4 weeks)
Define target processes, data architecture, and required automations. This is the blueprint of your new operation. Don't implement without designing first.
Phase 3: Implementation (4-8 weeks)
Configure the CRM, create workflows, build dashboards, and migrate data. Do it in short sprints with measurable deliverables every 2 weeks.
Phase 4: Adoption and optimization (ongoing)
Train the team, monitor adoption, and optimize continuously. The best RevOps teams do weekly metric reviews and monthly process adjustments.
5. Common mistakes when implementing RevOps
- Starting with technology: Buying HubSpot/Salesforce before defining processes is the most expensive mistake. The CRM is a container; if what you put inside is messy, the CRM amplifies it.
- Not having clear ownership: RevOps needs a dedicated owner. If it belongs to everyone, it belongs to no one.
- Ignoring change management: The best process in the world fails if the team doesn't adopt it. Design for adoption, not for perfection.
- Measuring too much: Start with 5-7 key metrics, not 50 dashboards nobody looks at.
- Implement and abandon: RevOps is not a project, it's an operational function. It needs continuous attention.
6. Revenue Operations in Latin America
Revenue Operations is in an early stage in Latin America, which represents a massive opportunity for companies that adopt the function ahead of their competition.
The LATAM market has unique characteristics:
- Scarce talent: Experienced RevOps professionals are few and far between. Companies that cannot hire internally need external partners.
- HubSpot dominance: In LATAM, HubSpot is the most widely adopted CRM by growing B2B companies. Deep HubSpot expertise is a competitive advantage.
- Relationship culture: B2B sales in LATAM are more relationship-driven than in the U.S. RevOps must respect that culture while professionalizing it.
- Tight budgets: RevOps ROI must be fast and visible. Companies in LATAM don't have 12 months of patience.
At Revenue Hub we have implemented Revenue Operations in over 50 B2B companies in Chile, Mexico, Colombia, Argentina, and Peru. Our experience shows that companies adopting RevOps see measurable results within 60-90 days.
7. How to measure the ROI of Revenue Operations
Key metrics to evaluate the impact of RevOps:
- Sales cycle time: How long does a deal take from first contact to close? RevOps should reduce this by 20-30%.
- Stage conversion rate: Where are deals falling off? RevOps identifies and fixes the bottlenecks.
- Pipeline velocity: (Deals in pipeline x Win rate x Average deal size) / Sales cycle. This single metric summarizes the health of your operation.
- Time on operational tasks: How much time does your team spend on reporting, data entry, and manual tasks? RevOps should reduce this by 50-70%.
- Forecast accuracy: How close is your projection to reality? RevOps improves this from ~50% to >85%.
8. Where to start
If you are reading this and you identify with the problems mentioned, the first step is simple: diagnose your current situation.
You don't need to hire an in-house RevOps team to get started. You don't need to switch CRMs. You don't need a 12-month project.
What you need is an honest conversation about how your revenue operation works today and what can be improved. At Revenue Hub we offer exactly that: a 30-minute strategic conversation where we assess your situation and honestly tell you whether we can help.