Open23 Keynote Spotlight: How RevOps shapes business in the digital age

Openprise founder and CEO Ed King’s keynote at Open23 lit the way to a new future for RevOps. The annual user conference, held in conjunction with the inaugural community-led MOps-Apalooza summit for marketing and RevOps pros, brought together leaders and practitioners who have been hearing about the rise of RevOps for years–and are ready for it to happen.

During this deep dive into the transformative world of RevOps, Ed shared a vision for how RevOps is reshaping business strategies in the digital age. His keynote illuminated the evolving role of RevOps, its critical function in operationalizing data, and the expanding skill set required in this dynamic field. His thought-provoking talk offered essential insights for anyone looking to navigate the complexities of today’s business landscape.

Insight #1: RevOps drives go-to-market

What exactly is the essence of RevOps? Ed has spent the last several years on a quest, exploring and refining a concept that experts and analysts have struggled to define as the industry evolved and grew. At Open22, Ed said RevOps was defined by the net value it added to the enterprise, or the engine that makes everything better.

This year, he explained that RevOps transcends traditional boundaries of marketing and sales ops, emerging as a key driver in aligning go-to-market strategies. He described RevOps as a “go-to-market metrics reporter” and a “tech stack architect,” underscoring its multifaceted role in enhancing operational efficiency. It’s an integral part of business operations, adding significant value and functioning as a crucial multiplier of speed, of performance, and of investment. He emphasized, “RevOps is not just a sexy title… it’s not just an abbreviation of marketing ops plus sales ops.”

Ed outlined the key functions of RevOps in aligning various go-to-market strategies, managing technology stacks, and ensuring effective data governance. This approach is not merely about streamlining processes but fundamentally enhancing the way businesses operate—which means RevOps is really the owner of a cross-functional go-to-market process.

“Go-to-market is now a team sport. Somebody has to be the captain and the coordinator,” he said.

Insight #2: The centrality of data in RevOps

There’s a growing understanding that data is not just a resource but a foundational element in decision-making and strategy formulation. However, as Ed explained, the systems and data stores currently in place in most companies haven’t been designed to expose data to the end user, leaving an enormous gap between the promise of data to transform the organization and the reality.

“The reason there’s that unrealized promise is because the skillset that’s required to do this requires people who understand what’s in the data and know how to ask the right questions in an iterative manner to get to something interesting,” Ed said. “That skillset sits within the business. Then, to work technically with all that data and know how to use the tools, that skillset sits in IT. As long as those two skillsets sit separately, the promise of big data will never be realized.”

For RevOps to manage the expanded sales funnel—direct sales, channel sales, and product-led growth—RevOps professionals must bridge the gap between business knowledge and technical capability in order to drive business growth.

He stressed the importance of aligning people, processes, and technology with data at the core. RevOps involves not just collecting data but making it “good, personal, and usable.”

Insight #3: RevOps skills for the future

“Whether by design or by accident you ended up in ops, this is certainly a great place to be,” Ed said. “This is a once-in-a-decade type of market transformation. A lot of people can go through an entire career, never having experienced one. You are in the right place at the right time, and this is really going to be something that’s very exciting for all of us.”

The job market for RevOps is hot and rapidly evolving, demanding a diverse range of skills. As Ed put it, RevOps is becoming the Moneyball for go-to-market strategies, where data science and analytics are revolutionizing traditional business methods. To thrive in this field, professionals need to be adept in managing and integrating various SaaS technologies, understanding data governance, and aligning cross-functional teams. The future of RevOps lies in its ability to adapt and respond to the ever-changing business landscape, making it an exciting and dynamic career path.

“If you think about go-to-market overall, both in sales and marketing, historically it’s kind a black art,” he said. For RevOps, “what you are doing for go-to-market is bringing technology and data to make the black art of go-to-market into a science.”

Want to hear more? Watch Ed’s entire keynote and catch up on all the sessions from Open23 on demand, featuring inspiring customer stories from Rimini Street, Vimeo, and Rippling, along with practical discussions of best ops practices and big-picture snapshots from industry leaders.