Some companies might think they have a robust sales operations team.
When in reality, the department is just a receptacle for all the work their sales leaders can’t find time to do.
Sales analytics, software evaluation, process improvement… pass it to sales ops!
This is a recipe for chaos that hinders and overloads sales efficiency.
It’s essential to define the role and structure of your sales ops team before implementation.
In this blog, we’ll help you understand sales ops so you can develop a sales operations strategy that aligns with your organisation’s needs.
Sales operations use systems and technology to support sales teams in meeting their goals. They rely on data to make decisions, like how many reps to hire and where to place them. Their main objectives are efficiency, excellence, and continuous sales process optimisation.
The B2B sales ops team focuses on making a company’s sales approach strategic, data-driven, and deliberate rather than reactive or haphazard.
You can think of the Head of Sales Ops as the strategic advisor to the VP of Sales.
They’re thinking long-term, often longer than 18 months out, while a VP of Sales might focus more on the shorter-term objectives.
In terms of responsibilities, you can boil sales ops down to three overarching focuses:
In the next section, we’ll go deeper into the benefits of sales ops.
Implementing a sales operations process streamlines your sales activities for efficient revenue generation. In turn, you ensure that everything sales does is in service of your organisational goals.
You also give your VPs and Managers more time to focus on deal-closing and management tasks rather than running win/loss analyses or filtering lead lists for new reps.
Here are some of the other benefits of establishing a dynamic sales ops team structure:
The downstream effects of a sales operations department are shorter sales cycles, better win rates, and, ultimately, more revenue for your business.
Sales operations is a critical function within an organisation. It supports the sales team in driving revenue and achieving business objectives.
The primary goal of sales ops is to streamline and optimise the sales process, ultimately increasing efficiency and effectiveness.
How do they achieve this?
Let’s review some of the key responsibilities of the sales operations team, which are divided into three focus areas: strategy and operations, analytics, and performance.
Sales operations professionals work closely with senior leadership to develop strategic plans aligning with the company’s goals.
This includes identifying target markets, setting sales targets, and developing sales strategies to achieve those targets.
Here are the key strategy and operations tasks of the standard SO team:
They determine the sales process stages and standardise them in the CRM.
Figure out which territories to pursue, which solutions to focus on selling and other longer-term objectives.
Sales ops are always looking for sales and industry best practices they can adopt and integrate into the sales process.
They run reports that help executives stay informed about all things sales.
Other sales operations responsibilities include supporting the sales team by helping streamline processes, providing training and resources, and ensuring that SDRs have the tools they need to succeed.
Team leaders ensure sales align with marketing, product, and company goals.
Sales operations are responsible for collecting and analysing data related to sales performance, customer behaviour, and market trends.
This data helps identify areas for improvement and for sales managers to make informed decisions.
They use historical and market data to predict how sales will fare in the short- and long-term.
Sometimes, they’ll lead the study of deals to determine what activities commonly lead to sales success.
Sales ops identify which KPIs to track; these metrics help them assess and iterate on their initiatives effectively.
They work with sales managers to create dashboards for reps to track their key metrics and progress towards goals.
This is a lot to handle on their own, so SO teams often work closely with IT, especially regarding data hygiene and cleansing.
Sales operations also play a crucial role in measuring the sales team’s performance.
They track key performance indicators (KPIs) to evaluate sales strategies’ effectiveness and identify areas for improvement. This data-driven approach allows them to make informed decisions about resource allocation and strategy adjustments.
Additionally, they’re responsible for forecasting revenue and setting realistic targets for the sales team. By analysing historical sales data and market trends, they can provide accurate forecasts that help the company plan for future growth.
A sales operations specialist is often responsible for evaluating and implementing B2B technology, including CRMs, sales software, prospecting tools, digital sales rooms, and analytics platforms.
The SO team might create and implement a training plan depending on the organisation.
Sales operations keep SDRs informed through regular reporting, sharing victories, and updating the team.
Sales operations managers are experts on the tech needed to streamline prospecting and automate sales.
Remember that some of these performance tasks might fall into the hands of a sales enablement department, though some companies bring enablement into ops.
Overall, sales operations are crucial organisational functions that help drive revenue, improve efficiency, and support the sales team in achieving their goals.
By focusing on strategy, support, analytics, technology management, and performance measurement, sales ops professionals play a crucial role in ensuring the sales team’s success.
Below is a breakdown of the significant sales operations roles in descending order of experience:
AKA the director of sales operations. They’re the strategic advisors to your Head of Sales and team leader.
They’ll define the sales ops strategy, coordinate with other departments, and present to leadership.
Often second-in-command, the manager oversees a team of operations analysts or specialists who help them improve the sales process, find new technology, run analysis projects, and perform other high-level tasks.
The analyst is proficient in sales tools, Excel, data modelling, and other analysis techniques.
They focus on using data to answer questions that will help the sales team improve their strategy and process.
An entry-level employee, the rep typically works closely with sales representatives, supporting them in various ways, from helping them create a sales dashboard to providing training on sales tools.
As your sales team grows, you’ll discover new operational needs. As a result, your sales ops team will increase, and each member will become more specialised.
At some point, many companies split a few of these roles into two. For example, a Senior Analyst may manage one or more Analysts.
Businesses may also hire operations specialists focusing on one core goal (e.g., improving sales velocity or training the sales team).
Several tools can make sales operations duties easier. The main tools every SO team needs are a data provider, CRM, sales forecasting tool and territory planning tools.
Let’s look at them in more detail:
For sales ops teams, data isn’t just numbers; it’s the engine that drives process efficiency, territory planning, and revenue alignment.
Without a reliable data provider, CRMs quickly decay, reps chase the wrong leads, and forecasting becomes guesswork.
That’s why having a trusted B2B data partner is essential: to keep pipelines accurate, reps productive, and the entire revenue engine running smoothly.
Cognism is a must-have tool for ops teams in sales. Here’s why:
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A CRM system is essential for SO teams to effectively manage customer interactions, track leads, and streamline sales.
This sales operations tool helps to:
Sales forecasting tools help predict future sales trends based on historical data and current market conditions.
This allows operations teams to make informed decisions about resource allocation and plan budgets.
These tools help teams to effectively manage and optimise their sales territories.
They allow teams to:
Building a profitable sales ops team isn’t just about hiring smart people; it’s about setting up the right foundation, tools, and processes to maximise revenue impact.
Here are the key steps:
Start by aligning sales ops with company revenue goals. Is the priority pipeline efficiency, territory expansion, or rep productivity?
Clear objectives shape the team’s strategy.
A strong sales ops team blends analytical thinkers, process optimisers, and tech-savvy specialists.
Look for people who can turn data into decisions and technology into productivity gains.
Profitability comes from repeatability.
Document lead routing, forecasting, territory planning, and reporting processes so reps and managers operate within a consistent framework.
Poor data drains productivity and creates friction across revenue teams.
Partner with a trusted B2B data provider like Cognism to ensure your CRM stays clean, compliant, and enriched with accurate contacts.
Integrate CRM, marketing automation, and data enrichment tools to streamline workflows.
Sales ops should be the architects of a sales tech stack that empowers reps, not burdens them.
A profitable sales ops team doesn’t just manage systems; they make the sales team better.
Provide training on tools, dashboards, and processes so reps can spend more time selling.
Build a culture of continuous improvement.
Track metrics like lead-to-opportunity conversion rates, rep productivity, and sales cycle length, and adjust processes to improve efficiency.
Whether you’re creating a new team or improving your existing operations department, you’ll find the below sales operations best practices and challenges valuable 👇
When tweaking the sales process or refining the overall strategy, ensure you use data to inform these decisions. Though “gut feel” certainly has its place, statistics should support it.
Data-driven decision-making is crucial in sales operations. It allows companies to identify trends, track performance, and make informed decisions that drive growth.
By analysing sales operations metrics such as conversion rates, customer acquisition costs, and revenue forecasts, businesses can gain valuable insights into their operations and determine the most effective strategies for achieving their goals.
Embracing automation in sales operations can significantly benefit your team by increasing efficiency, accuracy, and productivity.
Automating repetitive tasks, such as data entry or scheduling follow-up emails, can free up valuable time better spent on strategic initiatives and building client relationships.
There are numerous tools available that can help streamline your sales operations processes.
CRM systems like Salesforce or HubSpot can automate tasks like lead scoring and email tracking, while tools like Tableau can help visualise data and identify trends.
Incorporating automation into your sales operations can enhance efficiency, minimise errors, and ultimately yield better results.
Shadowing SDRs is valuable for improving sales operations. By spending time with reps in the field, you can gain insight into the day-to-day challenges and opportunities faced by the sales team. This allows your SOs to provide more effective support and guidance.
One of the critical benefits of shadowing reps is the ability to identify training needs and areas for improvement.
By observing reps in action, SO teams can pinpoint areas where additional training or resources are needed, helping to improve overall performance and productivity.
Accurate and reliable data is essential for making informed decisions. Poor data quality can lead to incorrect insights and ultimately impact the success of operations.
A sales operations coordinator may face challenges in integrating different tools and systems, leading to data management and communication inefficiencies.
Team members who are comfortable with the status quo may resist new processes or technologies implemented by the operations team.
Overcoming this resistance and ensuring buy-in from all team members is crucial for the success of any sales operations initiative.
Sales and operations teams may not always be aligned regarding goals, strategies, or communication. This lack of alignment can lead to inefficiencies and missed opportunities.
There’s so much a sales operations team can do!
Prioritising and sticking to the most important projects is often challenging, especially when a B2B sales team constantly asks for little favours.
As companies grow, they change, and so must the predictive analytics frameworks and technology.
This can be frustrating for sales ops teams; they always have to learn and adapt.
Automated workflows in the CRM can help salespeople stick to the process, but we all know some reps want to do things their way.
This can mess with sales process analytics and hurt sales efficiency.
To address these challenges, sales operations must prioritise data quality by:
How do you tell if your sales operations strategies are paying off?
You’ll have to monitor performance, mainly tracking the key metrics influenced by your OS team and metrics related to their core functions.
Here are the sales operations goals and KPIs to track:
This is one of the best KPIs for sales operations.
An increase in this performance metric is generally a sign that the sales operations skills, ideas and changes are paying off.
Sales operations spend a lot of time trying to impact sales efficiency; average sales cycle length indicates whether or not their methods are working.
Getting a lead’s attention is crucial to sales. Ops teams focus heavily on supporting reps with B2B data, workflows, and technology to engage their leads.
Lead response time indicates how well it’s all working.
This is an essential sales operations KPI. SO teams must know if SDRs are using the technology they implement and how they use it.
This helps them spot failures in optimising the platforms and provides clues into how well they performed.
If tech usage rates are low, the SO team should respond by training reps on it.
Sales forecasting and predictive analytics (identifying potential problems) are significant aspects of sales operations. They need feedback on the actual vs the predicted to refine their predictive methods.
With this info, they can iterate on their strategies to make them more effective next time.
While revenue and sales operations teams are interested in boosting the efficiency of revenue-generating teams and activities, sales operations are more specialised and focused primarily, if not only, on supporting the sales team.
Revenue operations take a more holistic approach, aligning and assisting sales, marketing, and customer success to increase revenue growth and enhance the customer experience.
In other words, breaking down silos between revenue-generating teams is the ultimate goal of RevOps. And empowering the sales team is the ultimate goal of sales ops.
Both functions work together closely to ensure the success and effectiveness of the sales team.
Sales enablement provides sales teams with the resources they need to sell effectively, such as product guides and marketing videos.
On the other hand, sales operations concentrate on optimising the sales process, leveraging technology, and driving efficiency within the sales organisation.
While a sales enablement rep might send over an industry report the rep can use to engage a new lead, an SO might set up an automation for them in their CRM.
Cognism is the number one tool for supercharging sales operations.
From keeping your CRM clean with real-time enrichment to streamlining lead routing and territory planning, Cognism gives ops teams the accurate, compliant data they need to keep revenue engines running smoothly.
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