Sales Operations: The “Catch All” Team

What exactly does sales operations do in complex B2B sales organizations? It depends.
At least that was the answer of the 350 sales organizations who participated in our new Sales Operations Optimization Study. Sales operations does a little bit of everything. From forecasting to CRM maintenance, scenario modelling and more. If it involves analysis, the CRM or a spreadsheet, chances are your sales operations function (whether they be a dedicated group or not) has a hand in it.
We asked participants to rate 16 different activities regarding their level of involvement. They told us that they had at least “regular” involvement in all but one, marketing automation. (This is to be expected, considering the continued lack of integration between sales and marketing). But even absent marketing automation, that leaves sales operations with a very broad footprint.
But involvement does not translate into ownership. Few sales operations teams reported leading or driving the activities