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Revenue Systems Team Comparison | Dialpad vs. Intercom
We love a good head-to-head comparison of how similar companies are building internal Salesforce / Business Technology teams.
A look into how Intercom and Dialpad are going about it shows that while these companies have a ton of similarities, only one of them has the proper infrastructure in place to scale their business to the next level.
A bit of background ...
Both companies were founded in 2011.
Both have total headcount of 1,200-1,400 employees.
Both have a ~300-person Sales team and 100-person Support team.
Both operate a traditional, Sales-led SaaS playbook / GTM Strategy.
And both have raised a significant amount of outside capital: Intercom has $240m in total funding and Dialpad has $400m in total funding.
We start to diverge as we take a look at the current Rev Ops and Business Systems teams within each organization.
Dialpad has a Rev Ops team of 8 and a Business Systems team of 6 people.
While Intercom has a Rev Ops team of 12 and a Business Systems team of 15 people.
Throughout this post, we will take a more granular look at each team and provide analysis on why we feel Intercom has a better foundation in place - not simply because they have more headcount but because they have a more mature structure and a proactive approach to resourcing.
The Go-to-Market Team at Dialpad
By most measures, Dialpad has decent resource coverage across Revenue Operations and GTM Systems, at least by-the-numbers.
Rev Ops Team
Head of Revenue Operations
2 Directors of Revenue Operations
Manager of Revenue Operations
4 Revenue Operations Specialists
Business Systems Team
Manager of CRM Solutions (Pradeep Guttha)
Salesforce Business Analyst
2 Salesforce Developers
2 Salesforce Administrators
If you look at historical employment data from Dialpad, you will see they have consistently operated with a fairly lean Revenue Systems team and the group currently in place is the minimum resource allocation you'd want for an org of this size.
The biggest negatives from this structure is that they seem to lack a unified Business Systems group, instead being composed mostly of a Revenue Systems team looking after Salesforce.
The Go-to-Market Team at Intercom
Conversely, a look at Intercom's team not only shows a larger group by-the-numbers but also a significantly more structured, specialized group of Business Systems specialists.
Rev Ops Team
The Revenue Operations discipline within Intercom is already a global function with designated Sales Ops Leaders responsible for particular territories:
VP of GTM Strategy & Operations
Head of Sales Ops (North America)
Head of Sales Ops (EMEA)
Director of Sales Operations
Sr. Sales Ops Manager (APAC)
3 Manager of Sales Operations
4 Sales Operations Analysts
Business Systems Team
And the Business Systems team is a centralized function with highly specialized hires allocated to GTM Systems vs. Billing vs. HR etc.
VP of Business Systems
Sr. Director of Business Systems
Sr. Manager of GTM Systems
Sr. Manager, Business Systems Engineering
Product Owner (Billing/CPQ)
4 Salesforce Business Analysts
3 Salesforce Engineers
1 Salesforce Administrator (+1 Open Headcount)
Intercom is moving in the right direction, while Dialpad lags
It's important to note that both Intercom and Dialpad are in far better shape than a lot of companies out there underinvesting in Business Systems; however, we need to acknowledge what Intercom is really doing right.
It all comes down to proactive planning. Does the company understand their Go-to-Market playbook, do they have a roadmap for scaling the GTM Strategy org, and do they understand exactly what the tools infrastructure needs to be to properly enable the GTM team?
Intercom is what an organization looks like when you have figured these things out. And here's the end result:
Composition of current Team: it's not just about hiring a certain number of Salesforce Admins and Developers. It's a methodical approach that gives you the horsepower you need across strategy, stakeholder management, and delivery.
Centralized Business Systems org: a key step in the growth of any Biz Tech team is the move toward centralizing Business Systems under a unified Leader and assigning ownership of individual tools to Managers / Directors.
Specialization of skill sets: after the move toward a centralized team, hiring for specialized skills (be it CPQ Business Analysts, Billing Architects, or NetSuite Administrators) is the next step.
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We've already established the importance of having a good Salesforce team in place. But how do you go about finding the right resources for your company?
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