6 tips for CROs and sales ops leaders to outpace the competition

Effective revenue performance management is essential for sales leaders looking to maximize go-to-market (GTM) productivity, optimize investment allocation, and drive profitable growth. Industry titans — from UPS Capital to AWS, LinkedIn to Philips Healthcare — have successfully designed, deployed, and optimized GTM strategies to stay ahead of the market and their competition. 

At Anaplan’s global Connect event series, we bring together our industry-leading customers and partners to share best practices for things like GTM planning, incentive compensation, and sales forecasting in an unpredictable market.  

Now that your sales kickoff is behind you and your team has their territories, quotas, and compensation plans in hand, here are six expert-backed strategies — straight out of some of our top Connect sessions — to help you outpace your competition.
 

1. Align sales planning with GTM strategy

Insights from Stripe and AWS: Revenue leaders need to integrate segmentation and scoring, sales capacity planning, territory design, and quota setting into a single, dynamic process, rather than disparate spreadsheets or point solutions. AWS optimized its forecasting and resource allocation by leveraging real-time data insights to match sales capacity with demand. 

Best practice: Use a unified sales planning platform to align GTM strategy with corporate goals, drive more effective revenue orchestration, and adapt faster to market shifts.

2. Optimize sales compensation and incentive management

Insights from Philips Healthcare and Marsh: Sales compensation plans should drive the right behaviors. Philips standardized and optimized its incentive structures to ensure alignment with corporate revenue goals. 

Best practice: Design compensation models that reward performance, balance incentives with profitability, and remain adaptable to market changes. Centralize ICM processes to ensure fairness, transparency, and efficiency in sales incentives.

3. Adopt continuous, real-time forecasting

Insights from LinkedIn and Synopsys: Traditional, static forecasting doesn’t work in today’s volatile markets. LinkedIn moved to a continuous forecasting model that allows for agility and dynamic adjustments based on pipeline fluctuations. 

Best practice: Shift from quarterly or annual forecasting to real-time, rolling forecasts to maintain accuracy and responsiveness.

4. Improve data visibility and measure performance

Insights from UPS Capital and LinkedIn: Siloed data limits agile and effective decision-making. UPS Capital integrated its sales planning and compensation systems to provide a single source of truth across revenue operations. At the same time, LinkedIn focused on leading indicators (pipeline health, deal velocity) rather than just lagging indicators (closed deals) to improve performance tracking and their GTM strategies. 

Best practice: Break down data silos by centralizing revenue performance data in one place. Define clear revenue KPIs and use predictive analytics to identify trends before they impact results.

5. Use scenario planning to stay agile and mitigate risk

Insights from LinkedIn, Philips Healthcare, and Synopsis: Economic shifts, competitive pressures, and industry disruptions demand “what-if” scenario planning. Philips modeled different territory, quota, and compensation strategies to navigate uncertainty. 

Best practice: Use scenario modeling to test different territory, quota, capacity, and incentive compensation plans to assess potential opportunities and risks and adjust strategies accordingly.

6. Integrate finance and sales for revenue accuracy

Insights from AWS and Stripe: Aligning finance and sales planning ensures consistent sales and revenue forecasts, and integrates revenue planning, target setting, and quota planning. AWS integrated its finance and sales planning models to improve financial forecasting accuracy and the allocation of their GTM investments. 

Best practice: Connect finance and sales teams through integrated revenue performance management and financial planning.
 

Top CROs trust Anaplan as their competitive advantage

Revenue performance management is critical for sales leaders to hit their number amidst market volatility, growing GTM complexity, and evolving customer journeys. Top revenue and sales operations teams worldwide are designing, measuring, and optimizing data-driven strategies that boost GTM productivity, optimize investment allocation, and drive profitable growth. How do they do it? With Anaplan for Sales and Marketing.