How big a typical Deal Desk team?
The size of a Deal Desk in a SaaS company can vary depending on the size of the Sales organization and complexity of the business. In some smaller SaaS companies, the Deal Desk may consist of just one or two people handling all aspects of deal management, pricing, and contract negotiations - in these cases, it may not even be the full-time job of these individuals and it's likely they sit in the Finance or Revenue Operations org.
In larger companies, the Deal Desk may be a dedicated team of 5-20 Deal Desk Analysts and Managers, who work collaboratively to manage more complex deals and provide specialized expertise in areas such as Legal, Finance, or Product. The size of the team can also depend on the volume of deals, the range of product SKUs and services offered, the geographic scope of the company's operations, and the complexity if your pricing, discounting, product bundling, and renewals strategy.
Ultimately, the number of people on a Deal Desk will depend on the specific needs of the SaaS company. But regardless, organizations have to be looking at adopting Internal Tools and GTM Systems that create a more efficient and scalable Deal Desk model.
This is undeniably a function that can be operationalized with proper implementation of processes and systems.
Overview of 6 Deal Desk Teams
Let's take a look at 6 high-growth SaaS organizations to get a glimpse of their Deal Desk team size as it compares to the overall Sales organization.
While headcount alone doesn't tell the full story, you can spot some big differences in team size that lead us to conclude which Deal Desks have been properly setup and enabled with technology.
Cloudera
A team of 16 Deal Desk Analysts for 600 Reps in Sales and Business Development.
Cloudera is a confirmed Salesforce CPQ Customer with a 15-person Salesforce / GTM Systems team in-house.
Procore Technologies
A team of 14 Deal Desk Analysts for 1,200 Reps in Sales and Business Development.
Procore is a confirmed Salesforce CPQ Customer with a 28-person Salesforce / GTM Systems team in-house and one of the more well established, centralized Business Systems Leadership structures we've seen in the market.
Five9
A team of 15 Deal Desk Analysts for 600 Reps in Sales and Business Development.
Braze
A team of 14 Deal Desk Analysts for 585 Reps in Sales and Business Development.
Samsara
A team of 8 Deal Desk Analysts for 1,100 Reps in Sales and Business Development.
Snowflake
A team of 8 Deal Desk Analysts for 2,200 Reps in Sales and Business Development.
Deal Desk is one of those areas that Revenue Operations teams should use as a way to justify further investing in Revenue Systems teams.
Just look at the data! Snowflake has only 8 Deal Desk Analysts for an org of 2,000+ Sellers, while Five9, Cloudera, and Braze have 2x the number of people on Deal Desk with 25% of the total headcount in Sales.
This is a 7-figure savings Snowflake can point to based on the heavy investment they've made in the GTM Systems stack that automates and streamlines the entire Deal Desk process rather than simply throwing headcount at the problem.