A conversation for finance, RevOps, and systems leaders on quote-to-cash transformation, cross-functional operations, and what it actually takes to connect the front office to the back office.
- Jen Larco joins Continuous as Product Manager with deep experience across Sales Operations, Finance, and IT
- Her background spans Salesforce CPQ, Salesforce Billing, BigMachines, Oracle ERP, RevPro, and complex end-to-end quote-to-cash architecture
- Her core belief: if you can explain your revenue model clearly, you can operationalize it. If you can't explain it, you never will
- She's spent her career translating between business teams and technical teams. Now she's translating customer pain into product
- On complex revenue models: complexity is fine. Exotic is not. Know the difference
You've worked across Sales Operations, Finance, and IT throughout your career. How has that shaped the way you think about quote-to-cash?
Jen's experience across these three functional areas provided a unique perspective. "If I'd only worked in one area, I'd have a sales perspective or a finance perspective," she explains. Working across all three roles taught her that quote-to-cash is fundamentally about translating go-to-market strategy into financially valid transactions that connect every organizational function.
A lot of your recent experience at UKG focused on CPQ, Salesforce Billing, and complex downstream integrations. What were you solving most often?
The primary challenge involved implementing integrated solutions that worked end-to-end across functions. As Larco notes, "if Sales can quote something that Finance can't properly bill or recognize, the whole thing breaks down." Individual process optimization means little without complete system integration across sales, billing, and revenue recognition.
You've worked with Oracle ERP, RevPro, Microsoft Dynamics, Salesforce, and more. Where do quote-to-cash processes tend to break down as companies grow?
Larco highlights a fundamental issue: stakeholders often skip crucial planning steps. "Getting stakeholders to define clear business requirements before trying to automate anything" remains critical. Cross-functional misalignment causes cascading failures across departments, even when individual components function properly.
What attracted you to Continuous?
Three factors drew Larco to the company: the expertise and translation abilities of the leadership team, Continuous's understanding that quote-to-cash involves strategic business transformation rather than simple integration work, and the company's commitment to Salesforce partnership.
Tell me about your role as Product Manager at Continuous.
Larco describes her role as continuing her career-long work as a translator. Now she translates customer problems into product solutions. "Success looks like working with customers, understanding how their problems evolve over time, and making sure what we build simplifies complexity instead of adding more of it."
Why is fixing quote-to-cash becoming more urgent for modern businesses?
Two primary drivers exist. First, AI initiatives fail without solid operational foundations — "AI on top of bad process is an even worse process." Second, business growth through new products and acquisitions creates complexity that unconnected systems cannot manage efficiently.
What advice would you give companies trying to modernize their revenue models without overcomplicating them?
Larco distinguishes between acceptable complexity and problematic "exotic" models. The critical test involves clear explanation: "If you can explain your revenue model(s) clearly, in plain language, to any person in any role at your company, you can operationalize it." Standardized complexity enables scaling; unexplainable models create perpetual rebuilding cycles.