My journey to Loglens & "BigPicture"

As we develop Loglens , I am often asked my motivation behind the mission focus on Operations & specifically RevOps . I figured sharing my career experiences will help set the context . It began with RevOps (even before the concept came into existence) and became enriched over a 7- part journey.

Part 1 : A foundation in industrial engineering

Part 2  : Into CRM and Operations

Post MBA, I navigated into a then nascent world of “Enterprise Solutions” . Web based commerce, FOMO and BPR drove wholesale ERP initiatives. CRM was a very junior sibling and Siebel was still a few years away from being dethroned by Salesforce. As a future leadership hire ; my charter was building and scaling a CRM Center of Excellence. It came with twin responsibilities – operational scaling and revenue accountability(indirect).  In so many ways, it was classical “revOps” . I had overall responsibility of all supporting infrastructure (enablement , methodologies , pipeline tracking, RFP responses, customer onboarding, engagement monitoring, revenue projections…). And hey – all with a team of n(one)!!

It was a “baptism by fire”. I spent the next several years leading & navigating clients through their CRM transformation journey.

I crafted a go-to approach as follows : 

Part 3  : Revenue systems , pipeline and sales team building

I was offered a biz dev leadership charter at a growth stage consulting firm with Tier-1 ambitions. I pitched a 3-tier solution sales model to the CEO – a model in very exploratory stages at the time – consisting of Regional Sales Directors ( Tier 1) backed up by solution sales leaders (Tier 2- Local or Remote) supported up by solution experts / SDR’s (Tier 3- 100% remote). The model provided space for high performing SDR’s to move up the sales value chain.  Over the next 1.5 years; my CEO, Silicon Valley Office VP & I, focused 100% on executing this vision into reality while, in parallel, working the revenue engine to build a qualified pipeline.

Part 4 : Account & Regional Sales leadership

Transitioning seamlessly into quota commit & regional sales leader roles, an “operations” posture helped me exceed goals QoQ even during a recession.  New logo wins driving growth where existing accounts were in de-growth and software-led-solution wins boosting margins where professional services margins were compromised. My playbook : a- thinking and acting like a Quarterback , b – planning 2-3 quarters ahead, c-intense account-mapping, d-cultivating net promoters and e – making the right champion bets. Parallels in RevOps?

Part 5  : A switch to products , bootstrapping , Loglens v1 and then…stepping back

As happens often, a successful on-field game-plan created an off-field blindspot.  Virtualization was breaking new ground, micro-services was not even a phrase and the debate was still public, private or hybrid cloud. So, I made a call to switch gears and stepped into a new startup world – with a twist – solutions as services.  The basis ? I envisioned hybrid enterprise IT to evolve into below. This was mid-2011.

My first foray didn’t pan out . But as always , there emerged a silver lining.  Towards the end of the journey my ideas had evolved from managing cross-cloud risk to a favorite topic – optimizing revenue – through a  project called Loglens .  Using the power of process-mining to optimize revenue lifecycle was a powerful idea..then & now.

Here are 2 images that summarize the Loglens project pitch visually:-

But, I stepped back . Shoot!

Part 6 : Intelligent Notifications 365 and PLG motion

So, for the next 7 years, I wore a new hat. Initially as a strategy principal and subsequently leading and scaling a 0 -1 messaging product at SAP called SAP Intelligent Notification 365. A REST API led omni-channel avatar of SMS (Sybase365, the divison of SAP was a pioneer in A2P & P2P SMS) , this product found its mojo in “email”. Email + SMS made a powerful combination for marketing . Here is a view of traffic & customer growth in the 1st year post launch. The service hit 1 Billion in monthly traffic before the business was strategically divested to Sinch.

Levers for my product success :

A-product ownership and execution, 
B-partner strategy , 
C- an acute focus on SAP Accounts &
D-sales / sales engineering enablement . 

RevOps intersecting with PLG? Perhaps…

Part 7 : A full circle. Back to RevOps and rebooting Loglens

Enter COVID!

And like many amongst us , I took a long hard pause to reflect and re-align. With RevOps finally finding its place in the sun , a wonderful community was coming together So, I resuscitated Loglens , and created a village to learn how to refashion Loglens to serve this community. We discovered – a missing BigPicture . And therein lay our mission – Make everyday simple for RevOps…with BigPicture!

Stay connected as I continue to share our evolution.

Reach me at gokul@loglens.io or check us here >https://loglens.io

Cheers!