From product to profit: the essence of Revenue Lifecycle Management

Recently, Salesforce launched a new  Revenue Lifecycle Management (RLM) product suite built on Revenue Cloud. Actually, RLM is more than just a product: it is a concept encompassing multiple business processes around the product-to-cash domain.  These processes are often synonymous with the lead-to-cash cycle and involve terminologies such as Configure, Price, Quote (CPQ), and Contract Lifecycle Management (CLM).

In this overview article, I’ll explain RLM’s importance and benefits from business and technological viewpoints.  I’ll begin by addressing revenue lifecycle management’s key concepts, and examining how they integrate with company processes and contribute to business value creation. I’ll look at the RLM process domains and how to transform those with technology. Lastly, I’ll analyse how enhancing these processes can transform your business operations.

Additionally, while Salesforce continues to offer its existing CPQ solutions, I’ll highlight the differences and advantages of the new RLM suite compared to the predominant technologies. This article is the first in a series that will further explore these domains and technologies. In future articles, I will dig deeper into each product-to-cash domain from a different personas (such as product manager and sales) point of view.

What is Revenue Lifecycle Management?

Revenue Lifecycle Management (RLM) is a continuum of processes and solutions that orchestrate the journey from offering products to customers to securing payment (also referred to as the product-to-cash cycle). Ultimately, RLM enables companies to create and maintain product offerings efficiently, sell through omnichannel, fulfil deliveries, manage customer contracts and asset lifecycles,  create invoices, and track payments. Naturally, you can also set up these processes without investments in additional systems or process development but probably less efficiently.

You don’t need to include every process in an initial RLM implementation at the start. For example, invoicing often is not part of the pilot phase, and fully automating the collection process may not suit every industry, company, or use case. The diagram below illustrates how the RLM connects with a company’s systems, sales channels, and core processes.

As you can see, RLM integrates deeply with core business operations such as product management, sales, delivery, and invoicing. The aim is not to re-create these existing processes but to enhance their efficiency by removing manual steps, providing guidance, and generally automating processes while improving employee and customer experiences. Imagine how your company could improve and automate these processes, and how you could interact with customers via self-service channels and personalised communications.

What are the benefits of Revenue Lifecycle Management? 

You can think about investing in RLM from multiple perspectives.  As every situation is unique, the first question is which are the most important areas of improvement for your business? For example, do you want to improve internal efficiency and reduce costs? Or is providing better, more accurate, and more timely customer service more important? Or do you want to enhance customer experience?

Consider the following examples of business value creation:

Competitive situation & business models: To lead the market and offer novel services readily accessible to customers, processes, and systems must be optimised to support these goals. Through process improvements and automation, you can enable the economically feasible delivery of products and services, such as new subscription-based offerings. Just imagine the alternatives of stagnation and adherence to outdated practices that could be costly.

Increased sales: You can boost win rates by enhancing the accuracy of our quotes, providing customised recommendations, and offering self-service options. On the other hand, with improved targeting and white-space analytics based on, for example, the customer’s asset data, you can reach customers more effectively.

Customer satisfaction & value: Customers today expect immediate service and continual updates on their requests. By managing the entire process within one system, you can keep customers informed at every step, improving customer satisfaction.

Cost efficiency & increased margins: Order management, invoicing, and delivery involve numerous parties and systems. What is the total cost of these processes in your company? Imagine the impact of automating a significant portion of these processes. Furthermore, improving accuracy in the sales-to-order process could substantially increase margins by decreasing errors and changes during the downstream processes.

Regulatory requirements & audit trail: In industries burdened by regulatory demands, running the end-to-end process through an RLM system can streamline compliance and reduce costs.

As you can see, Revenue Lifecycle Management’s end-to-end vision covers business processes extensively. Setting the targets and understanding the required capabilities to achieve business value might seem complex and even scary at first. However, it’s crucial not to attempt everything simultaneously. Start with the most critical aspects by evaluating what would most improve your business outcomes.

Moreover, remember that we at Fluido are here to help. We enjoy a challenge: managing these processes and transformations is the core of our expertise. We help you analyse and enable the required capabilities to reach your vision.

How to build RLM from a technical perspective? 

Many technical solutions exist on the market to address Revenue Lifecycle Management processes. Some solutions focus on specific segments of the product-to-cash continuum, while others cover the whole spectrum. Whether these solutions consist of multiple integrated systems or a single end-to-end system, they typically include the following modules:

Salesforce Revenue Lifecycle Management covers the whole spectrum of product-to-cash processes, starting from managing the products, through sales to order orchestration and collection processes.  It  provides product-to-cash solutions for any customer of any size or industry and includes the following modules: