In RevOps, the only constant is change—and the only correct answer is usually, “It depends.” (Except, of course, when someone asks what the correct answer always is. Then it’s definitely, “It depends.”)
That said, there are some consistent truths when it comes to managing business systems. Here’s our 2025 take on what’s essential, what’s overhyped, and how to keep your stack lean and scalable—plus a few “it depends” disclaimers because, well… you know the drill.
CRM? Still core.
Spreadsheets? Still everywhere (sorry).
But the expectations, integrations, and scale of tools today? Entirely different game.
A CRM can do a lot—if it’s led by someone who knows what they’re doing. If not, welcome to a Frankenstack.
How end users interact with the CRM will continue to change but its existence hasn’t faced major threats. This could theoretically change if it morphed into a full-on database with other tools that frontline reps prefer to use feeding it information, but that’s a ways off. It’s still the system of record for pipeline, sales activity, and the customer lifecycle.
A CRM can be made to do a lot of things, particularly if the setup and maintenance is led by an experienced analyst. Unfortunately, too many organizations under-invest in resources to support CRM development..
To avoid customer success running off and buying their own tech stack, ensure they have operations support early and ask a lot of questions before purchasing a bespoke solution.
For more on which CRM we recommend and why, check out our recent article on choosing a CRM.
Pro Tip: Invest in good governance early. A messy CRM is a RevOps nightmare. And yes, you should definitely integrate the CRM with your ERP.
Marketing automation platforms are interesting beasts. They can handle orchestrating a massive volume of transactions very gracefully when in the right hands. CRMs simply aren’t capable of handling the data privacy gymnastics and bulk activity management.
Unfortunately, the data structure of leading tools is nothing like a CRM, making data orchestration very difficult – even with skilled professionals.
The only exception is HubSpot, but it isn’t great at tackling every issue – particularly offline event tracking and integrations with other CRMs. If you have extremely complex account hierarchies and live and die by an enterprise sales cycle, you’re going to need a lot of patience and talent to figure out how to manage an integration with a different CRM.
The only tools our team – specifically Camela – warns against are:
Pro Tip: Your marketing team relies on a solid campaign data structure to keep their jobs, so do them a favor and read our article on campaign data best practices.
It’s simply not realistic to expect your frontline reps to double as data entry specialists. They hate it, they’ll get things wrong, and data is too cheap to force an expensive resource to comb through LinkedIn. Data enrichment means better routing, faster prospecting, and clean segmentation.
Ask vendors:
We also suggest datestamping key fields and being very careful about which end user provided data you should or should not overwrite.
You can try keeping a list of projects on your desk or in Excel or Google Sheets – but these methods will not help you when it’s time to argue for additional headcount, software, or contract resources. We don’t care if you use Salesforce, Asana, Trello, Jira, or Notion for project management, but you’ll need something you can report on.
Visualizing data workflows is a great way to minimize integration faux pas and miscommunication across go-to-market operations support personnel. The tool matters less than the clarity of the visual you design, so whether you use Miro, Lucidchart, Canva, or whatever else you get your hands on is up to you.
You’re going to need a way to analyze massive amounts of data. Ideally, you’ll also want to create connections to GenAI tools to help you normalize unstructured data. It’s impossible to do everything in your CRM, so prepare to figure out some kind of solution to transfer massive amounts of data for corrections and augmentation. Remember, clean data is the foundation of any AI use case.
We see a lot of organizations rush to AI to solve their budgetary issues by reducing headcount. They want to scale their communication to their target audience. And every single time we cringe because they forget to address underlying problems first. Start small with data normalization, summarizing call data, and QAing code.
For years, CFOs and CEOs beat the CRM “is the source of truth” drum. The truth? Its reporting capabilities are limited at best by design.
Your CRM can get you through the first stages of your company’s growth, but eventually you’ll need a more robust reporting solution. CRMs are terrible at handling large scale trend analysis and cohorts – which are essential for any advanced revenue analytics.
Whether you DIY, purchase a purpose-built tool, or use a combination is up to you. Our thoughts on the topic are here.
Pro Tip: Don’t build dashboards on dirty data—prioritize improving data hygiene surrounding core metrics and work out from there.
Not too long ago, we advised companies to avoid purchasing call recording software unless they had a dedicated resource to mine it for insights. With the advance of generative AI, call intelligence has too many powerful use cases to ignore.
Just a few use cases include:
Now, you’ll still have to convince teams to actually use the data, but it’s much easier for RevOps to spoon feed insights to their organization.
We’re going to put the caveat with sales engagement software up front because we’ve seen WAY too many people in our community reporting “mysterious” cases of their CEO or other team members’ emails consistently landing in junk mail.
Privacy policies and GDPR adherence has made it impossible for marketing to directly communicate to non-opted in target audiences through any other means but advertising, trade show appearances, and content plays. This has made sales engagement necessary.
But if you do it wrong, you can seriously f*ck up your domain – which is VERY bad news.
For more on what to watch for, check out our article on sales engagement software and domain management.
Pro Tip: Connect it to your CRM—don’t let reps operate in a black box. And for all that’s good and holy, make someone monitor the open and reply rates.
No matter which CRM you use, your marketing team will need to use software that doesn’t mesh perfectly with your CRM’s data structure. Do yourself a favor and convince your CRO to invest in a workflow automation tool that handles automating data transmission across tools (like automatically sending calendar invites out to Zoom Webinar registrants or improving data integrity between HubSpot and Salesforce – HUGE gaps in commonly used tools).
Bonus points if it also can improve lead routing, duplicate management, and lead-to-account matching. It’s always a RevOps win when you can make disjointed tools talk to each other.
While we love any excuse to help sales sell more, sometimes a CPQ solution is overkill. It can also be life changing for organizations that find the right solution to help them manage complex B2B SaaS packing and pricing, streamlining quoting, approvals, and increasing deal velocity.
Find peers in your industry with a similar product and pricing structure and ask them a ton of questions – particularly what they wished they knew before the project – before you speak to vendors.
Pro Tip: Don’t implement CPQ until you’ve nailed down pricing and packaging.
These tools shine when your core data structure is solid.
Sales coaching and forecasting software was thisclose to being a must-have. However, most call recording tools offer features that will bridge these gaps.
There is nothing more embarrassing than going to a customer and asking them for your contract because your first salesperson’s Google Drive is no longer available (another Camela story). Figure out a way to store, mine, and maintain your contract details. A CLM can simplify this for you if you have the time and budget to do it right.
There will be some automations and data transformations that your CRM workflows can’t handle. Having a bi-directional connection to your core RevTech applications can be hugely powerful. Plus, a CDP can bring your ability to use things like Intent Data (first and third party) to the next level.
Anything not listed above. Unless a really smart peer has had success with it and you can see a clear use case in your org. RevOps isn’t the place for shiny object syndrome.
Gone are the days of buying ahead. Today’s advice: build for now, focus on governance, and document like your future admin’s sanity depends on it (because it does).
Oh, and when in doubt? Ask your RevOps Co-op community. Someone’s already tried it—and they’ll tell you what went right, what went sideways, and what to avoid like the plague.
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