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DATAAGGREGATORS
SALESINNOVATORS

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Sales ops has emerged as one of the most
significant game-changers of an organization. There
ability to increase efficiency from within has lead
organizations to take a change of route from going
after new customers to growing revenue from within
the limits of the current customers.
Seeing the success of Sales ops, organizations today are
placing triumphant executives to lead this role in their firms.
But what are the characteristics of these enormous value
creators today and what will it be when they turn into sales
process innovators of the future? Let’s have a close look at
the given table.
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Sales operations have been around since the
1970s when Xerox first established a sales
ops group.
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Decades ago, sales ops function was primarily created
to crunch numbers. They would aggregate data and
hand it over to their Sales Head. For example, Sales
ops forecasted travel or asset expenses or observed
how well sales were doing against projected
estimates.
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Sales ops refer to the role & processes within a
sales organization that assist, enable, and direct the
sales or account management teams to sell better,
proactively and more efficiently.
Through the right training, software tools, and processes,
sales ops leaders empower account & sales reps to focus
more on selling in order to drive business growth.
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“Sales Ops have changed from having a passive role to
have an active role in most large enterprises around the globe.”

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Sales Ops has come a long way from data
aggregators to value creators.
Now, their increasing importance will transform them
into Sales Process Innovators.
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These individuals will be the ones that proactively
engage with account & sales managers and sellers to
understand the deal status and recommend actions to
increase deal values, accelerate opportunities through
the sales cycle, or improve win rates.
They maintain a tight focus on sales processes including
resource optimization , development, analytics
& reporting and majorly forecasting.
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The Visionaries and Innovators see ways to boost
excellence delivered to the account that others often don’t.
Tell a sales ops innovator about a process capability and he
will find a way to bend it with dynamic methods for
increased effectiveness.
The innovator is often an internal evangelist for the breakthrough
change your sales ops can create for your organization and value you
can co-create with clients.
Process innovators synthesize information and can challenge the
status-quo with new and improved way of operations. They are also
instrumental in facilitating idea exchanges in collaboration with
marketing and sales teams.
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Process innovators synthesize information and can
challenge the status-quo with new and improved way of
operations.
They are also instrumental in facilitating idea exchanges in
collaboration with marketing and sales teams.
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The best sales ops leaders will be the ones who aren’t afraid to draw
different conclusions from the rest of the executive team.”

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In a plan to increase productivity and performance, Sales
ops will combine innovation with a high level of sales
process maturity. This involves formal & dynamic
processes, with measurement and accountability.
The need for this is highlighted in CSO Insights’ work, which found
that organizations with at least 75 percent CRM adoption, and either
a formal or dynamic sales process in place, outperform organiza-
tions with less mature processes by 14.9 percent in terms of win
rates, and 19.3 percent in terms of quota attainment rates.
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Talented sales process innovators will walk into any role
and audit the tools currently being utilized and assess
better alternatives.
They will examine every tool according to the data it generates, and
how that data can be used to improve the sales process. The tools
that will elevate the data and show what needs to be fixed, where ef-
ficiencies can be improved, etc. will be chosen over tools that just
spit out data.
PROFILE
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Finding a tool that fosters collaboration will be of
top priority. There will be a tool for groups and individuals to
present and analyze data, record feedback, review metrics,
qualitatively express the concerns they’re running into or the
doubts they’re hearing from prospects. Whichever
collaboration tool is used, will be available to everyone in the
entire company to use.
In addition to account managers, sales reps, marketing team and
product managers should be able to sign in to gain visibility and offer
their own suggestions or solutions.
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The procurement of tools, sales reporting, ad-hoc analysis,
data governance, dashboarding, business intelligence and
data management processes combine to keep sales ops on
their toes. All of these functions & responsibilities leave the
capacity to collect and analyze the data the organizations
need to stay successful.
Sales process innovators will produce more actionable & intuitive
data for all levels of the organization with the use of data science &
AI. It will help to expand the data sources beyond organizing data. It
can automatically provide you with actionable data in real time if set
correctly the first time.
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Are some of the questions they will be able to answer
at a click of a button
⁍ How long will it take to close a deal?
⁍ What message will win over a specific customer?
⁍ Which deals to prioritize?
⁍ What changes will optimize performance within the organization?
⁍ Which customers will churn?

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Sales Process innovators of the future will know the
pipeline assembly from top-of-funnel to bottom-of-funnel.
⁍ Where do leads enter?
⁍ From what source?
⁍ How many meaningful touchpoints get a certain
lead source and mix to close?
They will have Intelligent workstations optimized for efficient and
effective handling. Maximizing return on effort with the fewest errors.
Predictable outcomes will be easy with greater visibility.
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Moreover, process innovators will only measure important
account conversations and actions.
Value creators utilize all vanity metrics but process innovators will
instead replace them with only those metrics that report movement
out of the active pipeline. They will separate the active pipeline from
the passive pipeline. Too many times the active pipeline seems stuck
when actually it is a mix of both active and passive movement.
Distinctive pipelines will increase the movement of the account
managers that are going after these clients, bringing better visibility
to the sales head and sales ops
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Account managers & sales reps are doers. If they’re
not sending emails, making phone calls or getting in
a meeting with clients face-to-face, they’re not at
their best.
It makes perfect sense that tactical sales operations appeal
to them more than strategical. Instead of attending meet-
ings for reviewing data and planning out the account, they’re
out there in the thick of the action.
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But here’s the problem with sales ops that prioritize tactical over
strategic: actions are meaningless if they’re not the right actions.
An account manager could spend all day making phone calls
and get no closer to closing a single deal. That’s when the sales
process innovators strategy comes in.
Process innovators will make sure there time is not
spent on too many tactical tasks and are able to
keep real time to meet the higher needs of the
organization
“According to a study conducted by the SMA, only 46% of firms
agree that their sales ops people focus appropriately on strategy”
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The correct person to head sales operations in the future is someone who will regard both the analysis/design and the process
innovation mindset. One who can envision the business and technological future, and who can operate with leaders across the
organization, as well as with external partners, to allow ongoing Sales Ops success.
As you might have guessed, we're positive on what the future holds for a sales ops leader. All the trend that gassed the initial
emergence of sales ops continues to gain momentum. The SaaS gold rush proceeds to flourish, creating a surge of increasingly
powerful, advanced and versatile data sources into major enterprises. Its long-proven, more dynamic technology adoption is
starting to take place across organizations at large.
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