As we have moved to virtual briefings, I have increasingly been excerpting short video segments (with permission ) as part of my Analyst Cam series.
This time it is Meredith Schmidt, EVP of Revenue Cloud at Salesforce.
She paints a vivid image of the complexity of what she calls “revenue operations”. We are witnessing an explosion of business models – single sales, subscription, pay as you go, servitization etc combined with a proliferation of customer and partner channels – eCommerce, via resellers, in product etc
Managing the whole revenue cycle – the prospecting, the selling, the order taking, margin analysis, the billing, collections, the renewals – across channels and responsive to vertical nuances and location regulations around the globe is complex to say the least. And exponentially so when you throw in trade promotions, warranties and reverse logistics, They need functionality which today is fragmented across CRM, ERP, EAM, IoT, document management and other applications and various custom solutions and spreadsheets. She calls it “product to cash” – so much more elaborate than “order to cash”.
Meredith does a nice job explaining this in around 20 minutes, Salesforce’s progress and plans including how Einstein AI and how collaboration via Slack provide them an extra edge. I compliment her toward the end that it is impressive when someone as large as Salesforce can say their deals are “simple”.
Most rev ops teams dream of getting there some time soon.
