Revenue Operations Interview: Anders Nilsson at Aryaka Networks

The Interview

Kluster's Take

Theo spoke with Anders Nilsson, Director of Revenue Operations at Aryaka Networks. He shares what he’s learned on his journey through the Revops space.

Anders had a career in music after college. Once that toned down he started a sales training programme at microfocus. After some time one of the sales operations managers approached him, they thought he was better suited for this area. Anders was sold on it, he began as a regional sales ops guy, inventing a new report which led to more BI work. He explains that as a sales ops person, you end up touching so many departments.

Anders has always enjoyed problem-solving, through his career he’s found no lack of problems to have a go at. Sales never felt quite right for him, but this role struck him as home. 

He explains that you need to get the hearts and minds of management by spending time with them. If they get it, then their teams will be forced to focus on it. Anders believes that visibility is not just putting something somewhere, but making sure people look at it. An important component is building credibility with leadership. He thinks it’s key to ensure that all departments are running off the same terminology.

When building a process, you should never monitor anything that you can’t change. He tells us that you should monitor what you can coach. He believes he is giving the team flashlights to go find their strengths and weaknesses. If you’ve designed your system well enough, you should be able to set up the right sensor.