— 3 —
FOREWORD
The Case for a Defined MOPS Function
is Clear
What separates the top-performing B2B organizations
from the rest, enabling them to drive revenues and
rapidly adapt to change (like a global pandemic)? The
answer is Marketing Operations (MOPS). As managing
partners at Sojourn Solutions, we've built our business
careers helping marketers drive what matters most –
results. We've had a front-row seat on the emergence
of MOPS, which blends technology, processes, and
people to enable businesses to not only focus on their
customers and prospects but to also generate pipeline
and revenue.
The fact that MOPS has continued to grow in
importance since our 2019 MOPS report, as this
2021 MOPS report clearly indicates, is anything but
a surprise to us. The findings of this report paint a
picture of how a defined MOPS function adds value in
multiple ways.
1. Companies with a defined MOPS function
outperform, and are more adaptable than, companies
that lack a defined MOPS function. While any
successful marketing organization knows their
customer and can create a strong demand generation
program, the bigger challenge, based on our decades
of experience, is how the organization transforms that
demand and lead generation into actual pipeline and
revenue. Solving that issue sounds simple, but we've
seen countless companies struggle with it. MOPS
enables nurtured leads through each stage of the funnel,
coordinating with different marketing channels and
business functions as needed to ensure that messaging,
as well as technology, processes, and people, are all
working together holistically to drive revenues.
If you get anything wrong along the customer journey,
and have gaps in your marketing operations, leads will
simply leak out of your funnel. MOPS also supports
agility -- a company's ability to adapt to changing
customer demands. MOPS lets you fine tune marketing
to support agility rather than starting from scratch every
time customer behavior or expectations change. If 2020
proved anything, it's that agility matters, especially when
it comes to driving digital-first customer experience.
2. MOPS optimizes the relationship between marketing
and technology. We've seen too many marketing teams
randomly purchase technology without having a strategy
or plan in place for its successful adoption and utilization.
It's no accident that (as our new report finds) the stronger
a company's MOPS function, the better they do (1)
deciding on the right technology and (2) integrating that
tech into their organization, meaning, not just systems
integration but also having the right people with the right
training so that the technology actually delivers value.
