The Hidden Growth Engine: How Operational Excellence Can Boost Revenue by Up to 30%
For many companies, operations are seen as a necessary cost—a background function to be optimized for efficiency and minimized whenever possible. Commercial teams often get the spotlight and the resources, while operations are pressured to do more with less, sometimes to the point of jeopardizing delivery.
But this mindset is outdated—and expensive.
In reality, operations play a critical role in driving revenue. They are not just support functions; they are growth enablers. Well-structured, high-performing operations can directly increase top-line performance. Neglected or underperforming operations, on the other hand, can silently erode sales, customer retention, and growth potential.
The data backs this up:
McKinsey: Companies with strong operational excellence programs achieve up to 30% higher revenue growth than peers [¹].
HBR: Top-performing operational organizations experience 25% more revenue growth and 75% greater productivity [²].
The New View: Operations as a Growth Lever
To understand how operations drive revenue, it’s helpful to break their impact into five strategic roles:
1. Business Enablement
Operations ensure your company can fulfill what it sells. Product operations (e.g., tech infrastructure in SaaS, fleet operations in logistics) and support operations (e.g., customer service, delivery,etc ) are both fundamental. If you can sell 100,000 units but only deliver 80,000, you’re leaving revenue on the table.
2. Customer Experience Engine
Operational performance directly influences satisfaction metrics like NPS, CES, and referral rate—which in turn affect repurchase, upsell, and churn. For instance, in telecom, a 25-point increase in NPS led to a 3% drop in early churn, directly improving customer lifetime value [⁴].
The link between CX and growth is clear. According to Bain & Company, companies that lead in customer experience grow revenue 4–8% faster than their market average [⁵].
3. Commercial Differentiation
Customers increasingly choose vendors based on operational strengths: speed, personalization, clarity, and reliability. A faster onboarding process, more flexible delivery model, or smoother sales experience can be the deciding factor.
Operations also enable personalization at scale— which 48% of consumers say increases their spending [⁶]. In digital channels, even milliseconds matter. Walmart found that improving page load time by just 100 milliseconds could lift online revenue by 1% [⁷].
4. Niche Revenue Accelerators
Some operational improvements, though narrow, drive very specific revenue outcomes. For example:
A European bank cut loan approval times from 20 days to under 10 minutes, boosting win rates by 33% [⁸].
Mashreq Neo improved debit card activation rates by 16%, increasing usage and fee revenue by offering a differentiated onboarding [⁹].
These types of micro-optimizations—faster activations, shorter wait times, smoother first-use experiences—can unlock disproportionate value, especially in fintech, SaaS, and subscription businesses.
5. Operational Visibility
Strong operations generate actionable data that commercial teams can use to drive smarter decisions. From usage patterns to fulfillment performance, this visibility enables proactive management and revenue protection.
In manufacturing, a chemical plant that applied advanced analytics to furnace data increased output by 18–30%, yielding an additional €5M–30M annually [¹⁰].
From Fragmentation to Alignment: RevOps as a Growth Enabler
As operations grow more complex, many companies struggle with siloed data, disconnected teams, and unclear accountability. This is where Revenue Operations (RevOps) comes in—a cross-functional discipline that unifies sales, marketing, customer success, and ops teams under a shared revenue strategy.
The payoff is clear:
Companies that align go-to-market operations via RevOps see 36% higher revenue growth and 28% higher profitability [¹¹].
Even partial alignment delivers 19% faster growth and 15% higher profits [¹¹].
Supporting RevOps with tools like Qwilr also show how RevOps translates to commercial results: clearer proposals, faster quote-to-close times, and more efficient sales cycles [¹²].
A relevant example is Aerogen, a global medical device firm that revamped its sales operations. By implementing a sales enablement platform and optimizing processes, it cut sales cycle length by 56%, increased deal size by 39%, and helped 54% more reps hit their quotas [³].
Let Your Engine Drive Growth
At Navento, we believe the next phase of growth won’t come from pricing tweaks or one-off marketing campaigns—it will come from the engine room. When operations are designed with revenue in mind, they stop being a burden and become your most powerful competitive advantage.
Unleash Momentum
McKinsey & Company – “The link between operational excellence and growth”
Harvard Business Review – “How Operational Excellence Delivers Growth”
Showpad Case Study – “Aerogen streamlines its global sales enablement strategy”
Bain & Company – “The powerful economics of loyalty”
Bain & Company – “Customer Experience Tools and Trends”
McKinsey – “The value of getting personalization right—or wrong—is multiplying”
Walmart Labs / Amazon – Site speed and conversion impact studies
McKinsey – “Accelerating digital lending for SMEs”
Adobe – “Mashreq Neo boosts engagement and card activation”
McKinsey – “Advanced analytics in chemical manufacturing”
Forrester Research – “The Revenue Operations Imperative”
Qwilr – “Revenue teams using Qwilr close deals 2x faster”