What would it look like if revenue operations was trusted to make change at all levels of an organization, from the C-suite on down? Not just as a support function, but as a strategic driver of change? 

Having led my RevOps team through a journey from $7 million to over $100 million in ARR, I've seen firsthand how this can become a reality. But it requires more than just the right tools or processes – it demands a fundamental shift in how organizations view and utilize their RevOps teams.

If you're in RevOps today, you're probably familiar with the challenge: how do we move beyond being seen as just "the Salesforce people" to becoming trusted strategic partners? 

This is the story of how we did exactly that at Keyfactor, transforming RevOps from a technical support function into a driving force for growth that now has a seat at the C-suite table.

So let’s dive in!

The strategy execution framework: Our secret powerhouse

I joined Key Factor in 2018, a company that started as a consulting firm back in 2001,when the Backstreet Boys were considered cool (I still think they are). In 2014, we began our slow transition to SaaS, and by 2018, we were at $7 million in ARR. Fast forward to 2024, and we've just crossed $100 million. The journey between those numbers is where RevOps proved its worth.

At Key Factor, we've developed a strategy execution framework that's become our north star. It starts with strategy, which I define simply as an input formula:

X + Y = Z, where Z is who we want to be, X is what we cannot control, and Y is what we can. 

In other words: what are we going to do to get where we want to go?

From there, it flows into process – which is essentially reverse engineering an outcome. We ask ourselves: what must be true for our desired outcome to happen? This creates a cascade of questions that ultimately give us our process steps. Technology should either make process steps easier (think AI) or help us collect data we'll need for analytics.