Manage your Your B2B Pipeline as a Financial Asset

In B2B, everyone acknowledges that the pipeline is the lifeblood of growth. While pipeline management has traditionally been viewed from an operational lens, CFOs should start considering pipeline as a key financial asset. 

When a company invests in its brand, that investment creates goodwill, an asset that can be quantified and is listed on the balance sheet. Goodwill includes aspects like customer loyalty, brand recognition, and overall market presence. These are intangible assets that don’t immediately result in revenue but create long-term financial value for the company.

Just as brand spend translates into goodwill, GTM spend—on marketing, sales, and other activities—should be viewed as creating a Pipeline Asset. This asset represents future revenue-generating opportunities currently in the pipeline. By recognizing this, CFOs and finance teams can better quantify and track the financial outcomes of their GTM strategies.

Characteristics of Pipeline as a Financial Asset

In finance, an asset is a resource that a business or individual owns or controls that can be used to generate value or converted to cash. So what characteristics make Pipeline worthy of consideration as a financial asset?

1. The tangibility of Pipeline: Pipeline is the key tangible artifact of the handoff between marketing and sales. It represents the direct output of your GTM spend, indicating how much of that investment has been translated into qualified opportunities, and ultimately future revenue. Treating it as an asset brings greater accountability across GTM teams and helps to ensure alignment with company-wide financial goals.
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2. Leading Indicator of Revenue: While sales forecasts provide insights into expected revenue, the pipeline is the most objective and leading metric of future revenue. When treated as a financial asset, it becomes easier to evaluate the health of your future income and allows for more precise planning and adjustments to GTM strategies. Gartner research shows that companies that focus on enhancing sales pipeline quality are twice as likely to surpass their customer acquisition goals.
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3. Asset for Generating Future Revenue: Just like other financial assets (e.g., goodwill, intellectual property, real estate), the pipeline’s primary role is to generate future revenue. By looking at the pipeline through this lens, CFOs can evaluate its role in sustaining long-term growth and make informed decisions on where to allocate resources. The pipeline becomes more than just a sales metric—it’s a critical driver of financial health.

New Avenues & Metrics by Thinking about Pipeline as a Financial Asset

Traditionally, companies measure pipeline with operational metrics like Win rates, $/Count Pipeline, Pipeline coverage, and sales velocity, breaking them down by dimensions such as region, channel, and segment. While these metrics are very useful, they only tell part of the story. 

The asset approach to Pipeline can open up new avenues for applying Financial Metrics to Pipeline Asset Management. One can apply traditional financial metrics to gain deeper insights and drive better decision-making. A couple of examples are provided below:

‍Return on Pipeline Asset (ROPA)

In finance, ROA measures how efficiently a company uses its assets to generate profit. Applied to pipeline management, Return on Pipeline Asset (ROPA) can evaluate how effectively your pipeline is generating revenue relative to the investment made into building and maintaining it.

• ‍Formula: ROPA = (Revenue Generated from Pipeline) / (Total Investment in Pipeline)

• Insight: A higher ROPA indicates that your pipeline investments are yielding significant revenue, highlighting the efficient use of resources.

Pipeline Asset Turnover Ratio

In finance, the Asset Turnover Ratio measures how efficiently a company uses its assets to generate sales. For pipeline management, the Pipeline Turnover Ratio can indicate how quickly pipeline assets (leads and opportunities) are converted into revenue.

Strategic Implications for CFOs

Elevating pipeline management to the status of a financial asset has several strategic implications:

• Strategic Importance Across Teams: Treating the pipeline as a financial asset elevates its importance across departments—finance, marketing, and sales—and ensures that GTM alignment drives both short-term and long-term revenue.
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• Better Collaboration Between Marketing and Finance: CFOs would work closely with marketing and sales to ensure pipeline targets are aligned with financial projections.
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• Long-Term Planning: CFOs can make better strategic decisions by understanding the financial value of the pipeline. It helps answer questions like: Should we invest more in lead generation? How efficient is our current sales cycle? Are we making the right GTM investments?
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• Informed Budget Allocation: CFOs can make more informed decisions about where to invest in GTM efforts based on the pipeline’s potential to drive revenue growth. This is particularly critical in a time of tightening budgets, where resource optimization is key.

Conclusion

Viewing your pipeline as a financial asset shifts how you manage and optimize your GTM efforts. Much like brand goodwill, the pipeline represents future value that can be quantified and tracked. This approach offers a forward-looking financial view that informs budgeting, resource allocation, and strategic planning. As CFOs, considering pipeline as a core financial asset will provide better insights into revenue forecasting and overall business growth, driving smarter financial decisions across the board.

Start treating your pipeline as an asset today, and see the long-term benefits unfold.