Sales operations centre (SOC) is the heart of sales operations. Many companies do not realize the benefits of sales transformation because they under invest in SOC or do not plan & roll it out like a project. The result inconsistent sales reviews, inefficient controls and unrealized outcomes. In this white paper, Browne & Mohan consultants share the best practice approach to build a strong sales operations centre

1. Browne & Mohan
Board & CEO Advisors, Management Consultants
Building a strong sales operation centre
Nupoor Sinha and Suma Chebiyyam

2. Browne & Mohan
Board & CEO Advisors, Management Consultants
Introduction
Sales is an area that most companies aren’t shy of
investing significant resources and efforts. Sales
transformation is one of the most critical changes a
company goes through. While technology is just an
instrument to formulize the changes and effects, human
intervention is what makes these transformations
successful. While companies put much effort in
planning and rolling sales improvements including
CRM, field sales gadgets and so on, an area that does
not get sufficient focus in sales is the operations centre.
Fundamentally, the role of sales operations is to
capture the data related to sales activities, and help
executives make decisions based on data. Most
companies underplay the role of Sales Operation Centre
(SOC) and consider it as an overhead. Sales operations is
not just a data sink, but a system to optimize the work
and improve outcomes. However, a strong SOC can not
only strengthen the sales function but also harnesses the
balance between technology and data to derive
actionable insights for the sales team. Companies
approach sales operations management in a piece-
meal approach and without any formal framework
covering resources, policies and implementation
aspects of SOC.
To ensure your sales operations centre is effective, see it
from a change management prism. Starting from the
resources that fit the role, right systems and policies that
help to capture data and reporting, approaches & signals
from management to make SOC gain acceptance, and
influence, and finally drive outcomes independently, SOC
roll out needs detailed planning and flawless execution.
To create a successful sales operation centre you need
to pursue it as a project, right from investing in the right
resources, enabling them with appropriate process and
decision rights, but also support it with right legitimacy
and institutional mechanisms.
Resources: people, technology & process
On the resources front, people are the key lynchpins of
the sales operations. They can make or break the sales
transformation. SOC resources can be at a junior level
(data analyst or sales support executives), sales
operations analyst or sales ops manager. It is not
important that you need to hire senior people for the
role to work. What is important is how passionate and
driven he is to get outcomes. An ideal SOC needs to
be good at communication in order to be on the same
page with management and the entire team. It also
helps avoid unnecessary misunderstandings.
The resource person needs to be good at decision-
making and quick in analysing information. This helps
in filtering and analysing the correct information and
getting rid of the rest. Since, he needs to work with
both people and technology, he needs to be someone
who has a good bond with his co-workers, be empathic
towards them, someone whom the team respects both
formally due to position and informally as a person. He
also has to be capable of grasping technology,
implement and institutionalize it with the prime
determined focus always being the task to be
delivered. Sales Operation lies in between sales
strategy and execution. Hence Sales Operation
Manager has to continuously think of better ways to
get things done.
Technology & other resources to capture data,
assimilate, analyse, and reporting also need detailed
planning and execution. Investing in the right
integration tools, for e.g. - CRM can feed data to the
finance team for the direct invoicing; marketing team
can get regular insights about leads generated from
various marketing efforts, can make the operation
seamless. Integration with Outlook or Gmail can reduce
the redundancy of data collection and most of the CRM
solutions come with calendar sync functionality which
comes handy if there have been instances of missing
the timelines.
To avoid future conflicts, create a sales operations
charter that defines the purpose, roles and rules of
sales operations. While management is responsible to
define the leads and opportunity stages, SOC owns the
sales process, maintains and improves them in the CRM
system. Data collection process is defined through
these stages which should further be validated by SOC.
The quality control and authenticity of data is
continuously monitored by SOC. Post collection and
validation integration with real-time events is done to
generate the actionable insights. Once resource issues
are addressed, it is time to prepare them for the
intended applications.
Pre Roll Out preparation
SOC effectiveness is dependent upon how others in the
sales team contribute and respond. To make SOC
work smoothly, it is important to have buy-in from all
the stakeholders. Prepare training sessions and all-
hands.
Management must plan transition stages and also run
parallel operations (manual and IT systems led) till it

3. Browne & Mohan
Board & CEO Advisors, Management Consultants
reaches an equilibrium state. Prepare the sales teams
for the new form of data collection, validation and
report so that they are not caught unprepared for the
new system. Conduct floor meeting and strategy
meetings with all the resources concerned including
SOC to detail out the role, process and expectations.
Use these meetings to iron out any rough edges. Test
reporting and review templates for data adequacy, and
fine tune whenever changes are required. Test the IT
systems also from big data and sharing perspective.
Institutionalization and Empowered Decision Making
Sales operations resources learn over time how sales
work in their organizations and must be willing to
explore “referral power” to pull things ups. Once the
organization is prepped up for taking up the
restructuring, role of management in empowering and
institutionalizing the role of SOC becomes critical.
Management must set the right expectations from all
sales resources about their interactions with SOC. If
SOC is a junior person, more so if homegrown,
management must take extra care in positioning SOC
role and reinforcing the behavior they expect all others
to adapt. Sales operations should feel empowered to
call for data, ask for additional information or provide
necessary feedback without any hindrance. During the
transition stage, and while running parallel operations,
ensure the activities of SOC are conducted with utmost
efficiency and high responsiveness. Management must
delegate areas where SOC can take decisions on own
and revert wherever higher decision rights are needed.
Continuous Reinforcement
Once the CRM roll out happens, and SOC starts
compiling & reporting data, there are possibilities of
fault lines emerging. This could happen when sales
stars don’t adhere to the SOC charter or data integrity
challenges emerge. Management has to step in at this
moment right away to nip at bud any such
transgressions. Management must use these moments
to reinforce the role of SOC and the sales process
alignment expectations.
Training & development support
SOC operations improve over time, from a reactive
data house to “sense and respond” intelligence arm.
For this to happen, sales leaders must identify the gaps
in competencies and capabilities of the SOC team, and
invest in appropriate training programs. Management
must encourage SOC to come out with improvements
in reports, analysis and responsiveness. Encourage
SOC to go deeper on customer insights, including cycle
time, payment timelines, etc.
Following these steps will not only risk-proof the sales
operations but will also enforce quality output with high
accountability. All in all, the combination of technology
and manual inputs implemented rightly would put your
organization on the right track to drive long-term and
sustainable growth.
Selected Bibliography
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Review, Nov 90-97
Dimatteo B C., 2006, Get employee buy-in for your
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LaForge, R.W, Ingram, T.N. and Cravens, D.W (2009),
Strategic alignment for sales organization
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No3-4, 199-219.
Piercy, N.F. and Lane, N (2005), Strategic imperatives
for transformation in the conventional sales
organization, Journal of Change Management, Vol 5,
Iss 3, 249-266.
Pink, D.H. To Sell Is Human: The Surprising Truth About
Moving Others, Riverhead Books, 2012.
Roberge, M, The Sales Acceleration Formula: Using
Data, Technology, and Inbound Selling to go from $0
to $100 Million, John Wiley, 2015.
Ross, A. and Tyler, M, Predictable Revenue: Turn Your
Business Into a Sales Machine with the $100 Million Best
Practices of Salesforce.com, Pebblestorm, 2011
Browne & Mohan insight are based on consulting experience, for
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