As the name suggests, sales operations is the operationalization of a company’s sales force. To do this, much like marketing operations and business operations, sales operations leaders must identify and design solutions for business activities and processes that enable sales organizations.

As with other business unit operations, sales operations outlines the roles, responsibilities, processes, technology and executive input required to enable the sales organization to function efficiently. 

For a sales operations strategy to be successful, it must identify key gaps in talent, tools, technology and processes and deliver a strategy to the sales organization/enablement leader to bridge those gaps. This must be done with buy-in from decision makers in the C-suite, as often sales force sizes are reduced if teams aren’t increasing profits through successful sales strategies.

Working in close tandem with sales organization/enablement teams to gain oversight on the existing processes, talent, sales techniques and available tools is required to find efficiencies and improvements. 

Sales operations leaders should focus on three main things:

1. Diagnose current state: Review, assess and map the existing sales organization, including talent, resources, technology, collateral, etc.
2. Develop a strategy: Optimize sales enablement strategy to equip the sales force with the collateral, tools and technologies needed to sell more effectively and efficiently.
3. Execute and drive change: Implement more efficient processes, talent, technology and techniques for enhanced efficiencies and continually drive business conversations around the importance of an optimized sales operation.

Gartner has the tools and research available to help your business transform its sales function into a high performing sales operations-led success. Ask us how.

Sales operations leaders must recognize and respond to the forces disrupting their workforce, from generational shifts to emerging technologies. Gen Z represents a new opportunity for sales operations leaders, as it is the first truly digitally native generation. Members of this group don’t just appreciate a connected world: They expect it. Sales operations leaders must prepare to welcome this new generation by examining their team culture and their technology priorities. Failing to adjust for this incoming demographic puts sales operations leaders at risk of missing out on top talent.

Gen Z prioritizes developing skills and gaining experiences. Leaders should embrace these priorities and have them influence the employee value proposition. Specifically, they should:

• Ensure these priorities are included in entry-level job descriptions.
• Maintain open lines of collaboration and communication.
• Understand the desired skills and experiences that are most valued.
• Allocate budget for continued learning and development.
• Design career paths with incremental steps that better illustrate career progression.

Being flexible to the sales market is crucial in a successful sales operations leader. Changes in buying behavior have reduced the effectiveness of traditional sales techniques, forcing sales leaders to reexamine current strategies. Sales leaders who don’t consider changing trends in buying dynamics will see wasted investments, overlooked critical initiatives and limited performance gains.

The people and skills needed for sales operations to be productive are continually changing, and sales operations leaders must recognize that the team they built for today will need to evolve to be successful over the next few years. 

Technology has been a big disruptor to the skills needed in sales operations. As an example, some sales leaders have invested in pseudo programmers to improve data extraction. However, technical advances in platform integration and data transformation have automated — or at least streamlined — many of these functions. The burden has shifted from technical data manipulation to drawing insights with data science.

Sales operations leaders — along with key stakeholders, including sales operations managers — will need to catalog the critical skills needed for future success, assess current availability and create a plan to remediate gaps.