On-Demand Webinar: Unfiltered take on AI in Account Planning: Meet DemandFarm’s KAM AI Revenue Ops Team Structure: Building the Backbone of Predictable Growth
Key Account Management (KAM) thrives on strong relationships, and there is no denying that. But it also demands precise account planning, strategic execution, data-driven decision-making, and seamless cross-functional collaboration. These elements are often challenging to maintain in organizations where sales, marketing, and customer success operate in silos. This is where Revenue Operations (RevOps) comes into play, unifying these teams under a cohesive framework to drive predictable growth and enhance the customer experience. In this blog, we’ll explore how RevOps can be the backbone of your KAM strategy. Why Are Business Leaders Shifting to a RevOps Team Structure? Organizations increasingly recognize the inefficiencies caused by siloed operations. The lack of alignment among sales, marketing, and customer success teams results in inconsistent customer experiences, missed revenue opportunities, and operational bottlenecks. RevOps offers a solution by fostering collaboration, centralizing data, and optimizing processes. Benefits of Shifting to RevOps Predictable Revenue: Unified teams working toward shared goals lead to consistent and scalable growth. Improved Customer Experience: Seamless processes ensure customers receive personalized and timely interactions. Operational Efficiency: Standardized workflows and centralized data reduce inefficiencies and boost productivity. What is RevOps? Revenue Operations, or RevOps, is a strategic framework that aligns all revenue-generating teams—sales, marketing, and customer success—under a unified operational model. By centralizing data, optimizing processes, and fostering collaboration, RevOps creates a seamless customer journey and ensures every department works toward shared revenue goals. It shifts the focus from individual departmental objectives to collective success. Core Objectives of RevOps Team Alignment: RevOps ensures that sales, marketing, and customer success teams work in harmony, eliminating silos and fostering collaboration. Process Optimization: It identifies workflow inefficiencies, streamlining operations to improve speed and effectiveness. Centralized Data: RevOps consolidates data across teams, creating a single source of truth to inform strategies and enhance decision-making. How RevOps Helps in Key Account Management? Key Account Management is inherently complex, requiring personalized strategies for high-value clients. RevOps simplifies this by providing a structured approach to: Align Teams: Ensures that sales, marketing, and customer success teams collaborate effectively to deliver consistent value to key accounts. Enhance Insights: Centralized data allows key account managers to access real-time insights into account performance, enabling proactive decision-making. Streamline Processes: By optimizing workflows, RevOps ensures smoother operations, such as seamless handoffs between teams. Improve Customer Experience: RevOps facilitates a unified approach to managing accounts, ensuring clients receive consistent communication and support. What is the Structural Basis of RevOps Teams and Whom It Comprises The structure of a RevOps team varies depending on organizational size and complexity but typically includes the following key roles: Leadership Chief Revenue Officer (CRO) or Chief Experience Officer (CXO): Oversees the RevOps function and ensures alignment across all revenue-generating teams. Core Teams and Functions Operations Management Role: Serves as the backbone of the RevOps framework by aligning operational strategies with business objectives. Responsibilities: Managing resources, ensuring workflow efficiency, and streamlining processes across departments. Enablement Specialists Role: Empowering teams with the tools, skills, and strategies to succeed. Responsibilities: Designing and delivering training programs, developing playbooks, and deploying productivity-enhancing tools for sales, marketing, and customer success teams. Insights and Analytics Team Role: Handles data collection, analysis, and reporting to drive informed decision-making. Responsibilities: Building dashboards, uncovering trends in customer behavior, and providing actionable insights to leadership and teams. Tools and Technology Team Role: Manages the technology stack and ensures seamless integration between revenue teams’ tools and platforms. Responsibilities: Implementing and maintaining CRMs, automation software, analytics tools, and ensuring data accuracy and flow between systems. Process Optimization Team Role: Identifies and resolves inefficiencies in workflows to ensure smooth operations. Responsibilities: Mapping processes, addressing bottlenecks, and implementing automation or process improvements to enhance team performance. Change Management Specialists Role: Ensures smooth transitions when introducing new tools, processes, or strategies. Responsibilities: Communicating changes, training teams, and minimizing disruption to ongoing operations. Communication and Alignment Specialists Role: Focuses on fostering collaboration and alignment between revenue teams. Responsibilities: Coordinating cross-functional initiatives, managing team updates, and ensuring unified messaging to customers. Do You Need a RevOps Team? Find how to assess your RevOps maturity Before building or optimizing a RevOps team, it’s essential to evaluate your organization’s current maturity level. Here’s a detailed guide to assess your readiness: 1. Alignment Evaluate whether your revenue-generating teams are aligned on goals, strategies, and metrics. Misaligned teams often work towards conflicting objectives, leading to inefficiencies and missed opportunities. Assess the clarity and consistency of your organizational goals and ensure they are communicated effectively across teams. 2. Process Efficiency Analyze whether workflows are standardized across departments. Identify bottlenecks, redundancies, or outdated practices that hinder productivity. A lack of standardized processes often results in fragmented operations, inconsistent customer experiences, and increased manual work. 3. Data Integration Determine if you have a single source of truth for customer and revenue data. Data silos across sales, marketing, and customer success teams can cause misalignment and hinder decision-making. Evaluate the level of integration between your CRM, analytics, and other operational tools. 4. Technology Stack Review your technology stack to ensure it supports collaboration, automation, and data sharing across teams. A fragmented tech stack with overlapping tools can lead to inefficiencies, while an optimized stack enhances operational alignment and productivity. 5. Performance Metrics Assess whether you consistently track and act on KPIs across teams. Metrics such as lead conversion rates, customer retention, pipeline velocity, and revenue growth should be monitored regularly. Evaluate the accuracy and accessibility of these metrics. Conducting a Structured Audit A comprehensive audit involves: Stakeholder Interviews: Gather insights from team leaders to identify pain points and alignment issues. Process Mapping: Visualize workflows to pinpoint inefficiencies and gaps. Tool Assessment: Evaluate the effectiveness and integration of existing tools. Data Analysis: Review key metrics to identify trends, strengths, and weaknesses. Building a RevOps Team from Scratch Step 1: Understand Your Current Framework Analyze existing workflows, tools, and team structures to identify gaps and inefficiencies. Document the key pain points that RevOps needs to address. Step 2: Define Roles and Responsibilities Create an organizational chart that outlines key
Top 5 People.ai alternatives
As turbulent socioeconomic factors continue to put revenue forecasts at risk, B2B organizations are looking inward to strengthen the strongest player in their arsenal – their strategic accounts. This renewed focus in the post-COVID hybrid work environment era also means an accelerated adoption of key account management (KAM) tech tools. Technology is no longer a nice-to-have to boost the performance of your strategic accounts. Without it, you’re left behind in the dynamic, collaborative sales cycles of 2024. But picking a KAM tool for your organization is no mean feat. Consulting multiple stakeholders and balancing critical parameters can be time-consuming and exhaustive. There are several robust solutions on the market – People.ai is one such tool. However, for those seeking more flexibility in terms of pricing and capabilities, we’ve curated this list of People.ai alternatives. Selection criteria for the People.ai alternatives list We’ve carefully evaluated these tools with thorough research and consideration. We’ve paid close attention to factors of critical importance in the strategic account management space, like the ease of use, customizability, 2 way sync with your CRM, and quality of support. 1. DemandFarm DemandFarm is a robust, comprehensive solution for managing your key account portfolio. Their Salesforce-native suite has products for account planning, relationship mapping, and opportunity (large deal) management. If you’re not a Salesforce user, their CRM-agnostic suite (Account Central) would be a good fit for you. The DemandFarm product suite is highly customizable, and the team practices a unique phased approach to implementation that improves tool adoption within your organization. Their value-driven account-based pricing is also a unique differentiator in this space, which incorporates the cross-functional collaborative nature of key account management. With a customer base of global organizations like HCL Tech, DHL, and Tech Mahindra, DemandFarm is one of the best, most reliable alternatives to People.ai. DemandFarm is all the things I wish SF did for account management from the start. Sean Neighbors Senior Vice President, Global Product Offerings Pros They have a 100% Salesforce-native product suite and a CRM-agnostic version – a win-win. Known for their proactive support and implementation teams DemandFarm recommends a unique multi-step phased rollout of their tools to encourage immediate adoption by the customer organization A first-in-the-market account-based pricing designed to accommodate and encourage the collaborative nature of key account management Cons Lacks multi-language support People.ai vs DF Pricing Pricing model. Unclear of the different tiers available for scaling the reach of this tool.Would love more transparency of pricing for large roll-outs to large enterprises. I use the tool a lot and it is definitely worth its price. The support is excellent, our feedback is picked up! Two-Way Sync Not able to capture the physical meetings. It has to be on the calendars for getting captured. Can there be a 2-way flow of info between People.ai and the CRM? Some of the downsides of People.ai and the ones I appreciate the least include its price factor. and that its not suited to some industries and some domain areas. Fully integrated with Salesforce to avoid duplication of work, and provide a single user experience for the GTM team! 2. Prolifiq.ai Prolifiq.ai is also a worthy alternative to People.ai. In addition to having tools for relationship mapping and account planning (CRUSH), Prolifiq.ai also has a digital content management tool (ACE). All their tools are Salesforce-native and are available through the Salesforce AppExchange platform. With a product suite that caters to the sales and sales enablement teams, Prolifiq.ai attempts to create a holistic solution for strategic account management. The bi-directional sync with Salesforce makes this an easy choice for SF users, although some reviews report that the onboarding and product training could have been better. Pros Their products are 100% Salesforce-native. They have a solution for digital content management, which is incredibly helpful for sales enablement teams. Cons The training content to use Prolifiq is somewhat confusing to track and get relevant information. Onboarding could be a little more prescriptive. Prolifiq.ai vs DemandFarm Customizability The only downside would be the “home page” only allows you to have 1 or 2 columns. The flexibility to customize sections of the tool to align with our specific business. Two-Way Sync Onboarding could be a little more prescriptive. The onboarding was smooth and aftercare has been excellent. Two-Way Sync The training content to use Prolifiq is somewhat confusing to track and get relevant information. The service is top-notch and highly personalized. Our account rep is responsive and accommodating. 3. Altify Altify is another Salesforce-native alternative to People.ai. They have solutions for relationship mapping, opportunity management, account planning, collaboration, and managing customers’ buying cycles. Upland Altify combines technology, strategy, and best practices to enhance account planning, opportunity management, as well as insight and relationship mapping natively within Salesforce. Altify guides sellers with contextual actions, insights, and coaching to build intimacy with customers, uncover new pipeline, and grow significant revenue. (maybe rephrase – make it lame) Pros 100% Salesforce-native Intuitive visuals, easy to use Cons I think having access to some types of quick on demand training videos would be helpful. Usability for very large maps (>30 contacts). Requires several account or opportunity maps instead of just one. With all things associated with Upland Software, their support is non existent. They are only meant to sell you something and then walk away. Unless you have deep technical expertise, I would not waste your time. Their updates will break your system leaving you without the ability to move forward. Altify is it is only available with Salesforce.com (SFDC). Altify vs DemandFarm Training I think having access to some types of quick on demand training videos would be helpful. The application is very easy to set-up and use. Great training and customer support. I am impressed with Allen’s training skills. Org Chart Usability Usability for very large maps (>30 contacts).Requires several account or opportunity maps instead of just one. Org chart is my favorite part of the tool. I also like the overall account profile to see at a high level
