Clari has extracted and published UK specific data from its revenue leakage report it published earlier this year. The sample of 150 respondents was extracted from a larger survey conducted by Vanson Bourne. Firms in the UK estimate that they lose 25% of their annual revenue due to ineffective use of technology and poor processes.
What is more shocking is that as many as 31% are losing out on 41% of their potential revenues each year. Part of the fault lies with the technology in use. 62% are still using Excel to collect, manage and analyse revenues. In fact, 48% believe that they are losing over £40 million in revenue every year.
Revenue leakage has consequences, with respondents identifying slow or declining revenue growth (22%), reduced budgets (18%) and slow or stalled innovation (15%).
However, things may be changing. The rapid emergence of AI is changing how firms operate. 99% are either using or intend to use AI tools within the next 12 months. The question is whether this becomes a reality. If Clari conducts the research in 2025, will all companies have adopted AI-powered tools? It seems unlikely.
Another technology that is emerging rapidly is RevOps. The survey identified that 49% are directly managing a RevOps team, while only 15% had no RevOps team within their organisation.
Kathleen Hartigan, Group VP of International Revenue at Clari, commented, “We were particularly interested in how revenue operations (RevOps) teams are using AI. Many large UK businesses have already moved away from siloed operations towards thinking of revenue as a process which involves teams working in unison. This is an important first step in making the most of state-of-the-art AI revenue tech.”
Why AI and RevOps Matters
When asked about the top performance indicators for revenue management, respondents identified the top three as:
- Sales Growth Rate – 48%
- Customer Churn Rate – 36%
- Lead to Opportunity Ratio – 33%
A RevOps platform like Clari can assist organisations in managing these and other indicators. Hartigan continued, “A big benefit of using AI is that you can spot where in the pipeline (the revenue process) things are going wrong. Without that information, how do you begin to put things right?”
Respondents believe that RevOps and AI-powered solutions can help reduce revenue leakage. Sales forecasting accuracy is seen as the top priority for improvement (29%). 82% said that sales forecasting needs improvement within their organisation.
What is striking, though, is that most areas identified in the research need some, if not a lot, of improvement. Less than 20% indicated that no improvement was needed across:
- Closing pipeline
- Converting pipeline
- Creating pipeline
- Ability to make fast and confident strategic decisions
- Sales productivity and efficiency
- Sales forecasting accuracy
Of these, creating a pipeline needs the most improvement (35%) and closing the pipeline (32%).
AI-powered technology can help organisations reduce revenue leakage, with respondents seeing various benefits from its deployment, including:
- More accurate sales forecasting – (20%)
- Improved decision-making – (17%)
- Faster time to revenue – (17%)
- Reduced costs – (16%)
The full report has a range of interesting statistics that indicate the next 12 months could see a change in fortunes if the investment is made in RevOps and AI. It identifies what revenue leakage there is in the UK. How revenue is being lost. How AI fits into the revenue process and how firms can reduce revenue leakage.
Enterprise Times: What does this mean
This is a relatively short report with a wealth of data points and visualisations. The content of the report puts the data points in context and is a worthwhile read. What is, perhaps, missing are some additional comments from Clari executives or qualitative insights that might bring further clarity and depth to the insights.
In itself, it offers hope that organisations will find the budget to invest in RevOps and AI-powered tools to assist their sales operations. The big question is whether those investments will occur and whether the deployments make a significant difference. It would have been interesting to identify whether those firms who have invested in AI have seen an improvement in their revenue leakage. Buying technology is just the first step. Applying it effectively is often trickier.
