The Rise of GTM Operations (GTM Ops)

Marketing Ops. Sales Ops. Success Ops. RevOps… and not GTM Ops. GTM Operations has been on the rise since 2023. Leading startups such as Mural, Bill.com, Vercel, and Carta have all adopted GTM Operations functions (or similar scope such as GTM Technology or GTM Systems).

They aren’t alone either. LinkedIn shows 622 people with GTM Ops or GTM Operations titles:

Using LinkedIn’s filters, we can better understand these profiles.

• 70% of the profiles are in the US.
• 40% of profiles mention sales operations or sales ops
• 16% mention marketing operations or marketing ops or MOps
• 12% mention revenue operations or revenue ops or RevOps

This leads me to believe GTM Ops professionals are mostly coming from RevOps roles into broader GTM Ops function.

What’s driving this new function?

Fueled by shifts from “grow at all costs” to efficient growth, companies have started to consolidate independent teams - Marketing Ops, Sales Ops, and Success Ops, under a unified team called GTM Operations. The purpose of this team is the same as independent teams - tools / technology, strategy, data, administration, and more.

However, the new charter includes more collaboration across the lifecycle and less management overhead. In one interview, someone said that prior to a unified GTM Ops function, “no one was thinking about the customer.” Prospects/customers would get emails from Outreach, marketing automation, Gainsight, and from Product. There was no unified subscription center or even subscription management across the systems. Additionally data that might be sitting in CS that could be helpful for marketing (hello customer marketing) was never shared or prioritized because it wasn't aligned to CS Ops charter and goals. All that changed when they switched to a GTM Ops function.

In a number of private interviews, GTM Ops said AI is fueling the rapid rise of the function, because AI is placing greater emphasis and need on data sharing across the organization. If a sales rep wants to have an AI-driven account plan, the AI needs to know what that account has done across marketing and success too.

Sangram Vajre of GTM Partners often says “You don’t have a sales problem. You don’t have a marketing problem. You don’t have a success problem. You have a GTM problem.” I think this is true for Operations as well. Unified teams can better support each other and therefore the business.

In short, the difference between GTM Operations and Marketing/Sales/Success Operations is that GTM Operations looks across the entire customer lifecycle and each function on its own is more of a stakeholder to that team rather than the overall GTM efforts.

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