RevOps and Finance: a strategic partnership to drive growth

When Copenhagen-based Heimdal Security was founded in 2014, it defied industry norms in a lot more ways than expected. Early in their journey, a single point of contact for Sales Operations was established, reporting to the Chief Financial Officer (CFO). As the business grew, the function has grown into a Revenue Operations (RevOps) function, maintaining the collaboration with CFO. What the team couldn’t have known was that, a decade later, many other organisations worldwide would follow their steps and have their RevOps teams working under the CFO.   

The Revenue Operations team is an equation composed of different elements. It brings sales, marketing, and customer success insights together to analyse all results across the customer journey and develop strategies to streamline processes. The different teams will use these improved strategies and processes to generate more revenue and enhance efficiency. While most companies have traditionally chosen to have the Chief Revenue Officer (CRO) lead the RevOps team, a growing number of businesses are now deciding to have RevOps report directly to the Finance department. The reasoning behind it, Jed Butcher, CFO at Heimdal, argues, comes mostly from the fact that the role of the CFO has been changing.  

“If you look at the evolution of the CFO role and wind back ten years, most CFOs likely had a less commercial, strategic and operational approach”, Jed says. “To use an analogy, they were more about keeping score, rather than influencing it.” 

It’s no surprise, then, that improving finance metrics, insights and storytelling are the priorities for over 70% of CFOs, as shown by Gartner’s latest survey on the top 5 priorities for CFOs in 2024. But aside from the CFO, businesses’ needs have also shifted.

In a complex economic environment where sustainable profitability is more important than ever before, growing at all costs no longer impresses investors. As Victor Embrechts, Head of Revenue Operations at Rydoo, explains, investors now worry about the strategies a company plans to adopt to stay profitable. And that, he states, is where the collaboration between Finance and RevOps can truly make a difference. 

“In the current economic climate, CFOs can add a fresh and data-driven perspective to the company and the go-to-market strategy,” Victor states. “Their analytical mindset can help them have a holistic view of where revenue is coming from and the biggest improvement opportunities to generate more revenue, especially in the long term.” 

And while most organisations have realised the importance of implementing Revenue Operations functions — according to a 2022 survey from West Monroe, 66% are either in progress or have already done it —, there are many who still opt to spread their efforts across multiple isolated functions. That, Rydoo’s CFO Aidana Zhakupbekova believes, can create silos and lead to challenges that, in the long run, can derail the organisation’s progress. 

“If the team is working together, there’s a lot more transparency, and everyone is aware of the processes from start to finish”, Aidana argues. “This way, if someone is out, there’s always another person on the team who can cover for them. Otherwise, all RevOps functions would stop.” 

Regardless of the benefits this collaboration may bring, it doesn’t necessarily mean the shift will happen instantly. As with all changes within an organisation, the whole team needs to be aligned before it can take place. For that, communication and transparency are key, but so is showcasing what great outcomes this alignment can bring. And if you’re looking for efficiency and profitability, aligning RevOps with Finance might be the right solution for your team.  

For years, finance leaders have been seen as the keepers of a company’s financial health — the ones responsible for overseeing budgets, managing financial risks, ensuring reporting, and keeping track of where money flows in and goes out. It worked for a while — until the market evolved and businesses either caught up or risked staying behind and losing great opportunities. 

For that, the role of the CFO also needed to shift. Today, as Jed Butcher argues, finance leaders are not expected to just keep score but to influence it. CFOs have become strategic leaders who not only maintain financial integrity but also make strategic planning and data-driven decisions that lead to profitable growth. For Rydoo’s CFO, returning to a traditional finance setting is not an option.  

“I’ve been strategically involved in businesses for the last five years, and now It would be hard to imagine going back to a time when CFOs were seen as leading Accounting and Reporting functions alone,” Aidana says. “I would always have to be strategic, to be business partnering, driving conversations, driving alignment on company goals. That, for me, is the fun part.”

Jed Butcher shares the same vision, recalling his own experience and how he’s always preferred to be strategically involved rather than focusing on day-to-day operational tasks, which he delegated. “I’m not someone who came from a traditional finance route, and I’ve always been more interested  and feel I added more value in strategy, commercial rationale and the culture of a business. So I’ve chosen to have controllers by my side to handle the day-to-day tasks”, Jed recalls. “For me, it feels quite natural to focus on that.”

Even though finance leaders are less involved in everyday tasks, they’re still highly driven by data. However, it’s the way they take advantage of that data to make informed decisions that lead to growth that makes the real difference, especially in today’s market, as Victor Embrechts argues.  

“Data from the customer acquisition cost of an outbound, inbound, the different sources of Marketing Qualified Leads (MQLs), as well as measuring it against the customer’s Lifetime Value (LTV), can go pretty far with helping understand processes, identify bottlenecks and quickly act on improvement opportunities.” And that’s where Revenue Operations comes in. 

When Aidana Zhakupbekova joined Rydoo’s team as the CFO, the RevOps team was spread across multiple functions, reporting to different managers. An external audit was already taking place, and when the CFO saw the results, she knew something had to change.  

“Centralising the function would allow us to prioritise projects directly linked to company OKRs and ensure the focus remained on those key aspects of the business”, Zhakupbekova explains. “The team can be distracted by ad-hoc requests, which might seem important at the moment but aren’t serving the organisation’s long-term goals. That was one of the reasons why we made this decision: to ensure priorities were set and known by the team, which would empower them to, if necessary, reject some of the requests coming in sideways.” 

Having a clear set of priorities that align with the company’s goals is crucial for RevOps to be able to revise and adjust processes. By centralising the team, and especially by working alongside finance’s control and rigour of data, companies can identify and prioritise high-impact projects across sales, customer success, and marketing. This ensures that all departments work towards a common goal instead of solely focusing on specific team objectives. For Embrechts, who’s worked under the CRO in the past, it is quite clear how finance brings in a unique perspective, as they look objectively at what will bring in the highest revenue for the company.  

“For CFOs, it doesn’t matter where the opportunities are located within the go-to-market organisation, and because CROs are experienced sellers themselves, they can be more passionate about driving revenue by focusing on new customer acquisition. In this perspective, some lesser-known phases of the customer journey that can drive more revenue, like optimising the after sales funnel or minimising the time-to-value for new customers, can sometimes be overlooked. These are the opportunities where the CFOs can chime in with their analytical mindset and holistic view to generate even more revenue.” 

For Aidana, this means that a more objective approach equips the CFO with enough data to make a more informed decision, translating into better results. “As a CFO, I don’t have any attachment to the source of the opportunity, which allows me to objectively assess the potential of each element of the GTM strategy and decide on focus areas.”

At Heimdal Security, the RevOps team has always had a commercial side. But while in the past they were seen as someone who helped with administrative sales tasks and their tools, creating dashboards or flows, today they focus on understanding sales performance and improving that efficiency. “You need someone who is not just thinking about maximising commissions; you need someone who’s thinking about driving top-line performance”, Heimdal’s CFO said.  

This alignment also enhances the company’s ability to forecast and plan, and for that, Jed Butcher believes investing in a RevOps team early on is essential. By having them work on these projects together from the get-go, the team also becomes more efficient, as they get more visibility over the whole journey, beginning to end. This can help to easily identify the bigger projects or bottlenecks, analyse them and make more informed decisions on how to move forward.  

“Having access to that data, you can have different conversations about what is the most profitable, what is the most sustainable revenue drivers”, Victor adds. “This overall view leads to an objective approach to what are the problems that need solving and what can generate the most revenue.” 

For RevOps and finance to work together successfully, collaboration and stakeholder management is essential. Maintaining connections and open channels of communication is the bridge that connects them to the other teams, ensuring there are no silos and that everyone is working towards the same goals.  

“Even though you need a holistic point of view, you need to have operations meetings with key stakeholders, both C-Levels and internal controllers of each commercial department — marketing, sales and customer success —, because they will give you their perspective into what is working and what they’re stuck on, so that it can be improved”, Victor Embrechts states.

When defining priorities, CFOs and the RevOps team should focus on aligning them with the company OKRs. However, keeping these channels open will ensure finance does not make any decisions without understanding the other team’s perspectives and pain points. It’s up to RevOps to connect to each team and understand what’s going on on the other side.  

“Despite being able to make the final call, I always strive to make the most informed decision possible”, Rydoo’s CFO says. “That’s why all the team members continue to be in close communication with the respective stakeholders and teams: Marketing, Sales and CS. 

For Jed Butcher, aligning with sales is essential to understand the effectiveness of the processes they’re implementing. “We need to make sure that we’re giving insights to the sales leaders so they can make their sales teams more efficient. And if you’re doing that from a consistent base of quality data structured in a way that provides you with maximum insight, that will make the process even more effective.” 

While the change might bring great benefits to the organisation, implementing the transition doesn’t happen overnight. It implies collaboration, planning and clear communication between all teams. But as Rydoo’s Head of RevOps states, the first step is to get executive buy-in. 

“You’ll need executive sponsorship, and in an ideal scenario you would have the CFO and CRO on board with it, before bringing the proposal to a larger audience“, Victor says, highlighting the need for one-on-one conversations to discuss the potential benefits and address any concerns will be essential. “Having those conversations first individually, and then creating a business case to present to the larger management team, is crucial.”

Highlighting benefits is essential, assures Heimdal’s CFO. “The real key is being able to articulate to the CEO and the CRO what the benefits of this shift are.” This, Jed believes, includes showing how transforming the data environment and tool stack can provide deeper performance insights, improving decision-making and generating growth. Butcher explains, “It’s about influencing them by helping them understand the benefits of working with Finance.”  

But that doesn’t mean you have to go in all at once. Embrechts suggests a smooth transition where the team collaborates with the CFO on a few more projects or even helps with specific reports. “You could, for example, request weekly sessions with the CFO to check areas of improvement,” Victor says. This gradual approach helps build trust and provides evidence of the results. “It’s way easier for the CRO to be fully convinced of the idea if you’ve done three months of calibration with the CFO and some amazing results came out of it.” 

Once the team has been assured of the benefits of the collaboration, emphasising the need for close collaboration to avoid silos is crucial, as Aidana stresses. “It’s all about reassuring the team and following up with some actions like, for example, keeping them in meetings with their respective teams to make sure that they’re connected to the business.”  

Finally, aligning priorities is key for supporting the company’s strategic goals. Zhakupbekova notes that while teams should base priorities on company OKRs, views might not always align. “It’s not a given that each member of the exec team sees the progress in a similar way. At the end of the day, sometimes you have to land on something and move on,” she advises, highlighting the need for dialogue and compromise. 

Collaboration between RevOps and finance leaders is now more important than ever, especially for businesses that are scaling up and aiming for profitable growth. In the current market landscape, paying close attention to what the right data and KPIs show is crucial for improving processes and developing new strategies to achieve the company’s goals. 

But that doesn’t mean these changes will have immediate results. By working together, Finance and RevOps can take a longer-term perspective and work on projects for which you’ll likely only see results in two years. It might be a struggle to wait for those end results to show, but a good RevOps team will make sure to show the team, especially leadership, that the decision to put that effort in can bring the greatest outcomes and drive higher revenue than the quick-fix solutions implemented in the past.   

“It’s OK if the return on investment comes after months or years, as long as you continue to measure, document and communicate it to the relevant stakeholders”, Victor Embrechts says. “This is how you make sustainable changes that truly impact your company.”