One of the more significant changes underway in organizations is the shift from a new customer sales focus as the main driver of growth to an equal emphasis on the overall customer experience as a driver of renewal and expansion. Driven by customer demand, more vendors are adopting alternate pricing and revenue models over and above the traditional one-time sales model. For selling organizations, these newer revenue models are being implemented through the addition of new products and services, by modifying existing models or by acquiring new revenue models through merger and acquisition (M&A) activity. We refer to this as the mixed revenue model, where both individual and bundled products and services can be priced or monetized as a flat fee subscription, based on usage, linked to a milestone event as well as the traditional one-time sale.
This growing adoption of these mixed revenue models leads to an increasing need to focus on customer retention to protect that portion of recurring revenue from subscription customers as well as to develop upsell and cross-sell opportunities. For many, the sales department is being superseded by the revenue department with responsibility for a super-set of traditional sales functions to include not only new business sales, but also to include existing customer retention, expansion, and cross-sell. An indicator of this shift has been the growth in the number of organizations adopting a Chief Revenue Officer (CRO) title.
