RevOps serves as the operational backbone of an organization, connecting strategy and data holistically across every department.

When is the right time to invest in Revenue Operations (“RevOps”) to help connect strategy with execution? Over the past fifteen years, I’ve helped multiple organizations advance their RevOps functions. At its core, I believe RevOps serves as the operational backbone of an organization, looking at strategy and data holistically across every department.

Below, I’ll share tips and best practices for building out your RevOps function.

Signs You’re Ready to Invest in RevOps

The need for RevOps typically reveals itself before the function is in place. Two common signs I’ve noticed:

1. Fragmented Data and Siloed Systems

One clear indicator that it’s time to invest in RevOps is when teams cannot agree on the numbers. For example, your Marketing team is presenting “X” KPIs (“Key Performance Indicators) and “Y” MQLs (“Marketed Qualified Leads”), but your Sales team reports different numbers. Each team is pulling data in different ways from siloed systems. Without a single source of truth, trust can break down and slow decision-making. One of the key goals of RevOps is to build trust in this data.

2. Manual Processes

Too many manual processes is the other red flag. For example, if your Sales Representatives are spending more time updating records in your systems than they are selling, or your Operations teams are stitching reports together by hand, your set-up may no longer be scaling. RevOps helps to identify those pain points and work towards a way of minimizing the manual work across teams.

I view my internal stakeholders as customers. My job is to make their work easier and more effective.

Three Ways to Operationalize RevOps and Build Credibility Early

1. Company-Wide Project Tracker

Every team will have ideas and requests for RevOps on day one. You need a centralized place to capture, track and prioritize these requests. Setting up a shared project management tracker using tools like SmartSheet, Asana or Monday help to show stakeholders their input is being heard and considered.

You can even build dashboards by team to show them what you’ve completed, what you’re working on and what is coming up. It’s also an essential tool for making a business case when you want to build out your RevOps team later on.

2. Shadow Teams’ Day to Day

When joining a new organization, make a point to shadow and spend time with the teams you’re supporting: employees across functions such as Sales, Marketing and Customer Success. This will help to better understand daily workflows and challenges. You often uncover inefficiencies or legacy processes that no longer serve their purpose during these shadow sessions.

Beyond process insights, this is another way to build trust. In shadowing, teams see that RevOps is here to help, not micromanage. Personally, I view my internal stakeholders as customers, and my job is to make their work easier and more effective.

3. Integrate and Understand the Data

Get your arms around the data architecture. This starts with reviewing system integrations and asking questions like:

  • Are the integrations working the way they should be?
  • Are they being monitored for efficiency?
  • Do we know which fields, if any, are overriding others?

Many teams set up integrations, but never actively manage them. That ownership needs to be made intentionally and aligned across functions. The same applies to customer health scores, sales attribution, and any cross-functional metric. Every team should be clear on what is being tracked, why it matters and where that source of truth lives.

If your dashboards can’t help you answer, “Where should we spend our time this week?” they are not doing their job.

Four Reporting Dashboards to Build First with RevOps

If you are starting your RevOps function from scratch, these are the dashboards I would suggest you build and implement as soon as possible. If your dashboards can’t help you answer, “Where should we spend our time this week?” they are not doing their job.

1. Forecast Volatility Dashboard

This is one of the most critical dashboards. I often hear leaders, say, “I ran the forecast correctly on Monday, and by Friday, we were off by $200K. What changed?” A forecast volatility dashboard helps give visibility into what has changed by tracking pushes, pulls, close date shifts, lost deals and more. It helps to give context, prevents surprises and builds trust in the changing data.

2. Daily Performance Dashboard for Sales Development Representatives

Typically, your Sales Development Representatives are entry-level employees that may not have visibility from the executives in your organization. A daily dashboard shared with the full executive leadership team can help to change that.

3. Pipeline Coverage Dashboard by SDR or Segment

This one is foundational. You need to know if your Sales Representatives have 2x, 3x or 5x of their quota in pipeline, depending on your model. This helps managers coach them and ensures everyone understands where they stand.

4. Renewals, Churn and Net Revenue Retention Dashboard

For the Customer Success team, this dashboard can help track upcoming renewals by month and quarter, alongside churn and net revenue retention (“NRR”), to display and track both retention and expansion goals.

RevOps success should be measured by the quality of decisions you enable and the clarity you bring across Go-To-Market functions.

What Early RevOps Success Can Look Like

It can be easy for RevOps to get pulled into a volume mindset (i.e. how many dashboards were built, how many reports were cleaned up, how many workflows were automated). But “busy” does not equal effective. I believe real success is measured by the quality of decisions you enable and the clarity you bring across Go-To-Market functions.

The biggest impact comes from moving teams from gut instinct to data-backed action. Examples may be:

  • Sales team is focusing efforts on where deals consistently stall in the funnel
  • Marketing understands which programs drive revenue, not just leads
  • Managers are coaching Sales Representatives whose activity isn’t translating
  • Customer Success identifies upsell potential instead of just managing renewals

… Or simply ensuring every forecast call starts with a shared view of what’s real and what has changed. The goal is not just to make more reports. It’s stronger alignment to make better decisions.

Here’s the bottom line.

When done right, RevOps is the infrastructure that connects strategy to execution and helps your business scale holistically. Whether you are just starting to define your RevOps function or scaling it across multiple teams, focus first on understanding people, process and systems to identify where your efforts will matter most. The strongest RevOps functions do not just manage operations. They help to show a holistic view of data to instill trust, visibility and better decision-making.