Sandeep: Welcome to the 24th episode of the Enterprise Monetization Podcast. I’m your host, Sandeep Jain. In this show, we invite thought leaders from the monetization space—covering CPQ, billing, metering, revenue recognition, and more—to share insights, challenges, and best practices.

Today, I’m thrilled to welcome Ruchika Chopra. If there’s ever been an expert on revenue operations, it’s Ruchika. She’s currently the VP of Sales Operations at Illumio and has held leadership roles at Nimble Storage, NetApp, Mist, Juniper, and more.

Ruchika: Thank you, Sandeep. I’m super excited to be here and looking forward to the discussion.

Sandeep: Let’s start with something fun—can you share a quick fun fact about yourself?

Ruchika: Sure! I love baking and I’m part of a nonprofit called Cake4Kids, which bakes for foster children. I also love entertaining and always joke with my kids that if I won the lottery, I’d be a baker by day and a bartender by night.

Sandeep: That’s awesome! I can relate to the bartending part—it’s both creative and social. Have you ever taken a course?

Ruchika: No, I’m self-taught. There’s so much available online now. It’s something I do to unwind at the end of the week—no pun intended!

Sandeep: Let’s talk about your professional journey. How did you get into revenue operations?

Ruchika: Honestly, it was more accidental than intentional. I have an MBA in marketing and finance and was recruited by TCS, where I worked on a CRM project. That introduced me to sales operations. From there, I joined Siebel, then VMware, NetApp, Nimble, and now Illumio. I’ve had the chance to touch everything from sales support to CPQ to GTM strategy.

Sandeep: And tell us about Illumio.

Ruchika: Illumio is a cybersecurity company specializing in zero-trust segmentation—we prevent breaches from spreading. We were founded in 2013, are headquartered in Sunnyvale, and have around 800 employees globally.

Sandeep: What’s your role like at Illumio?

Ruchika: I lead sales operations. Our mission is to drive growth and simplicity across GTM functions. My scope includes sales ops, partner ops, deal desk, go-to-market budgeting, comp design, metrics, and customer success ops. I report to the CFO and work closely with the CRO.

Sandeep: It’s unique that you report to the CFO. What’s the reasoning behind that?

Ruchika: Sales ops today is highly cross-functional. Gartner even said we spend only ~21% of our time directly with sales. We’re integrated with product, finance, marketing, IT. Being under the CFO helps with broader visibility and neutral alignment. I often say we sit in “Switzerland.”

Sandeep: Do you manage billing too?

Ruchika: No, billing and invoicing sit with our corporate controller and accounting team.

Sandeep: What’s your product catalog and business model like?

Ruchika: We operate with subscription models—both SaaS and on-prem. We use a single currency (USD), though we’re exploring multi-currency. Our core SKUs are relatively simple, but we offer flexibility through bundles like platform subscriptions. We also sell services and support.

Sandeep: Quickfire: How many sales reps?

Ruchika: About 65 enterprise sellers. We’re also building out a commercial team.

Sandeep: Are usage-based models relevant to you?

Ruchika: Yes! Especially with platform subscriptions, we allow customers flexibility between server and cloud usage. We track overages and usage, but we still need to streamline how we bring that data back into Salesforce and surface it for reps.

Sandeep: How about self-serve capabilities?

Ruchika: That’s a growing focus—particularly for partner transactions and marketplaces. We’ve invested in partner programs and tools like Impartner. Public offers through marketplaces are a priority this year.

Sandeep: What systems are part of your quote-to-cash stack?

Ruchika: Salesforce CRM, Clari for forecasting, Salesforce CPQ (moving to Revenue Cloud), NetSuite for billing. We don’t have a CLM yet, and usage is tracked manually.

Sandeep: What are your key challenges?

Ruchika: Usage data and visibility are top challenges. We also need to streamline our provisioning processes as customers migrate between product types. Simplification is a huge goal as we scale.

Sandeep: Any friction between CPQ and billing?

Ruchika: So far, not really. CPQ handles renewals and opportunity creation well. Deal desk also helps reps navigate complex scenarios and ensures finance understands ARR and ACV implications clearly.

Sandeep: What are your key priorities this year?

Ruchika: AI is a big one—both for internal efficiencies and enabling reps. We’re also working on enhancing self-service through partners and marketplaces, and we’re evaluating Revenue Cloud vs. other modern CPQ platforms.

Sandeep: Thoughts on unifying CPQ and billing?

Ruchika: It’s necessary for efficiency, visibility, and automation. But simplicity and maintainability are essential. Integration with RFP tools, rev rec, and forecasting systems is also important for a truly unified platform.

Sandeep: Any resources that have inspired you?

Ruchika: The 4 Disciplines of Execution—we recently adopted the “WIGs” (Wildly Important Goals) framework. Also, I’ve been inspired by Japanese philosophies—Ikigai and Wabi Sabi—about purpose and embracing imperfection.

Sandeep: Thank you so much, Ruchika! This has been an insightful and inspiring conversation.

Ruchika: Thank you, Sandeep. It’s been a pleasure!