What you'll learn:
- The four pillars every RevOps foundation needs
- Why weak foundations cause RevOps to fail
- A real case study showing data cleanup in action
- How to check your current foundation strength
This article focuses on what comes before scaling.
For the full picture, read our comprehensive RevOps guide.
Why Foundations Fail Before Work Begins
Most RevOps projects fail before they start. Teams jump straight to tools and features.
They skip the foundation work. The problems show up fast.
The signs appear quickly:
- Sales blames marketing for bad leads
- Marketing blames sales for not closing
- Customer success has no context on deals
- Everyone works from different data
In 2025, 75% percent of RevOps professionals cite data issues as their biggest problem (Source: MarketingOps).
Signs of weak revenue operations foundations:
- No shared meaning of "qualified lead"
- Handoffs cause friction and blame
- Each team has its own reports
- Customer data lives in many systems
The fix isn't better tools. The fix is stronger foundations.
The Four Pillars of Revenue Operations Foundations
RevOps foundations rest on four pillars: People, Process, Data, and Tech.
Let's look at each one.
People Alignment: Breaking Down Revenue Silos
People alignment is where foundations start.
RevOps needs marketing, sales, and customer success to work toward shared goals. Not separate team targets. Shared revenue targets.
Without alignment, each team sees success in its own way:
- Marketing sees success as leads made
- Sales sees success as deals closed
- Customer success sees success as renewals
Marketing tracks leads. Sales tracks deals. Customer success tracks renewals.
Nobody tracks the full journey.
Signs of poor alignment:
- Blame games between teams
- Different views of what "qualified lead" means
- Friction when customers move between teams
- Separate reports with different numbers
What alignment looks like:
- Shared revenue metrics across all teams
- Regular cross-team meetings
- One unified view of each customer
- Joint ownership of revenue results
Aligned teams are 28% more profitable year-over-year (Source: Forrester).
Learn how to build alignment in our RevOps framework guide.
Process Rules: Creating Workflows That Scale
Process rules come after people alignment.
You need written, repeatable workflows before you automate anything. Automation makes broken processes worse. It grows problems at scale.
Key processes to write down:
- Lead handoffs: Clear rules for when leads move from marketing to sales
- Sales stages: Entry and exit rules for each deal stage
- Customer success triggers: When to reach out, escalate, or upsell
- Data entry rules: Who owns what data and how to enter it
Why this matters:
- Rules create clarity
- Clarity allows tracking
- Tracking shows what works
- What works can scale
(Source: QuotaPath)
That's not from cutting people. It's from cutting wasted effort.
Data Setup: Your Single Source of Truth
Data setup is the weakest foundation for most organizations.
What "single source of truth" means:
- One master customer record
- Accessible to all revenue teams
- Trusted by everyone
- Updated in real time
Common data problems:
- Data spread across sheets, CRMs, and chat tools
- Duplicate records with conflicting info
- Old data nobody trusts
- No clear owner for data quality
Impact of poor data:
- Teams can't align around data they don't trust
- Reports show different numbers to different people
- Choices rely on gut feel, not facts
- Every other RevOps ability breaks down
Fixing data foundations takes work. But it pays off. Here's how one company did it.
Case Study: How Shoper Built Their Revenue Data Foundation
Situation:
Shoper is an e-commerce platform provider with thousands of trial users each month. Their teams managed leads, trials, and customer talks from many channels. Forms, chatbots, and campaigns all generated data.
Problem:
Data lived in three places: Pipedrive, Intercom, and spreadsheets. Sales teams couldn't tell which trials were active or had high potential.
What this meant:
- Reps contacted all trial users or random groups
- Active trials got the same outreach as inactive ones
- Sales wasted time on users who would never convert
- Conversion rates stayed low
Solution:
MAN Digital consultant Dorota linked all data sources into HubSpot. The project created a single source of truth for all customer data.
What changed:
- Sales teams now see trial activity in one place
- Signals show which users add products and use features
- Reps focus only on high-chance leads
- Nurture flows handle inactive trials on their own
Result:
Sales efficiency improved drastically. Reps spend less time on cold trials.
They focus on engaged users. Trial-to-paid conversion improved within the first quarter.
Tech Readiness: Picking Tools That Serve Your Base
Tech comes last for a reason.
Tools should serve the other three pillars—not lead your choices.
Questions to ask before picking tech:
- Does it work with what we already use?
- Does it support our written processes?
- Can it scale as we grow?
- Does it reduce or add complexity?
Warning signs of tool problems:
- Tool sprawl creates new data silos
- Teams use different tools for the same job
- Links between tools need constant fixes
- Nobody knows what data lives where
Why HubSpot works for revenue operations foundations:
HubSpot combines CRM, marketing, sales, and service in one system. This setup handles all four pillars:
- People: Unified customer timeline visible to all teams
- Process: Deal pipelines and automation enforce rules
- Data: Single CRM database with cleanup tools
- Tech: Built-in links reduce point solutions
Building RevOps Foundations in HubSpot
How to use HubSpot for foundations:
For people alignment:
- Set up shared reports all teams can see
- Create team views of the same data
- Enable activity logging across teams
For process rules:
- Build deal stages with required fields
- Create automatic handoff workflows
- Set up task reminders and alerts
For data setup:
- Run duplicate checks often
- Set required fields on key objects
- Use import rules for clean data entry
For tech readiness:
- Connect current tools through links
- Combine point solutions where you can
- Track what data flows where
Checking Your Current Foundation Strength
Before you scale RevOps, check your foundations.
What to do with gaps:
Conclusion
Revenue operations foundations decide whether RevOps scales or stalls.
Your foundation checklist:
-
People: Align teams on shared revenue goals
- Break down silos between groups
- Create joint ownership
-
Process: Write workflows before automating
- Define handoff rules clearly
- Set standards that scale
-
Data: Build one source of truth
- Bring scattered data together
- Assign ownership for quality
-
Tech: Choose tools that serve your base
- Link tools before adding new ones
- Reduce complexity where you can
The four pillars are linked. Strength in all creates growth that builds on itself.
Ready to move forward?
Use our RevOps roadmap to build your 90-day foundation plan.
MAN Digital assesses foundation strength as the first step in every project.
Solid revenue operations foundations make everything after easier.