Part
01
of one
Part
01
Please find excellent examples or case studies of... sales operations functions within organization (services companies if possible). How they are structured, key responsibilities of different roles, why they came to exist in the first place, etc.
Hi! Thank you for your question regarding excellent examples or case studies of sales operations functions within organization. The most useful sources I found to answer your question are this study by Callidus Cloud and this white paper from Synygy. A few notable examples of such cases are:
1) Merial Limited expecting a growth of 10% by focusing on learning and development, communication and sales, sales force systems and sales analytics
2) Aarmark uniform services gaining $30 million incremental sales by developing a simplified sales comp plan and a new go-to-market strategy
3) Iron Mountain registering a 4% growth in sales by improved headcounting
4) 4G Wireless incorporating performance analytics at its stores to ensure sales team's best practices.
A more detailed discussion on my findings is given below.
METHODOLOGY
In order to begin my research, I started by searching news articles, reports, studies, and white papers that could provide examples of sales operations, their general structures, the roles they performed and how they affected an organization's revenue. I then provided 4 case studies for organizations in which a new sales operations strategy was implemented with beneficial results for the firm.
SALES OPERATION ORGANIZATION
According to a study conducted by Callidus Cloud, a sales operations department reports directly to sales function for 33% of firms, while in the remaining 68% of firms, it reports to the operations, finance, or executive leadership. The study also stated that larger firms with revenues of more than $10 billion are more likely to have sales operations reporting under sales function.
2) Leadership Titles
As mentioned in a study by Callidus Cloud, the functional leader for sales operations in a majority of the firms had the title vice president (27% of firms) or director (25% of firms). Other titles include manager (14%), CEO or president (13%), and senior vice president or executive vice president (8%). Larger firms with revenues of more than $10 billion were found to usually favor the senior vice president or executive vice president title.
As per a white paper published by Synygy, most sales operations departments are organized into teams which directly report to the head of sales operations. The article stated that the most common teams associated with sales operations (with the % of companies employing them) are performance analytics (48%), sales comp design (34%), CRM development (31%), proposal/ RFP management (26%), sales process definition (26%) and sales talent training (26%). In terms of the ratio of sales operations staff to sales staff, this report has some insights on that. According to the report, 45% of organizations have fewer than 10 people on their sales operations staff, 20% have 10 to 24, 20% have 25 to 49, and 12% have over 200, with very few organizations in the middle (50-199). On the other hand, 43% of companies have a total sales staff of under 100, 17% have 100-249, and the rest have over 250.
CASE STUDY 1
As mentioned by Brad Kaegi, Director of Sales Force Effectiveness and Training at Merial Limited, the 4 main areas of development for sales operations department in his company were:
1) Learning and development, which is the sales training area aligned with operations sector.
2) Communications and sales process that gets involved in compensation, which focused on filtering all communications.
3) Sales force systems, which was developed by Salesforce.com team, to effectively grow new revenue.
4) Sales analytics and modeling. It's mission was to simplify operations of sales ops in the organization.
By using the above methods, the company expected a growth of at least 10% per annum in new revenue. The company has about 27 people in sales operations, and over 400 in sales overall.
CASE STUDY 2
Tom Maloney, Vice President of Sales Operations at ARAMARK Uniform Services, in an interview published on Synygy, stated the key areas of focus for him in sales ops were:
1) Launching a simplified sales comp plan, which reduced the number of levels from 14 to 5, to promote sales organization.
2) Implementing a go-to-market strategy that could prioritize prospects.
Using these approaches provided an incredible return on investment to the organization, with $30 million incremental sales in 6 years. Aramark has 28 people working in sales operations. A quick search of LinkedIn gave me an estimate of 1,700 for Aramark's total sales staff.
CASE STUDY 3
Ian Levine, Senior Vice President of Sales Operations at Iron Mountain stated in an interview that his company gained
sales revenue in 2010 after almost a decade by structuring its sales operations. When the sales ops department started focusing on headcount, it found a direct correlation between sales productivity and revenue, and focusing on it helped company sales grow by 4%. Iron Mountain has 65 people working in sales operations, and LinkedIn estimates they have 2,500 people in sales overalls.
CASE STUDY 4
Envysion solution offered a cloud-based, mobile-enabled, in-store video for its client, 4G Wireless, which featured advanced analytics capable of transforming data into actionable insights. These insights could then be applied across several business segments in the company, including loss prevention, customer experience, and the sales team’s best practices. This solution allowed 4G Wireless to gain transparency across its 135 stores in US. I couldn't find specifics on the sales ops to sales team ratios for this company.
CONCLUSION
To wrap up, I've provided four case studies on sales operations functions within organizations, and how they benefitted those organizations. Thank you for using Wonder! Let us know if we can help you with anything else.