First 90 days — diagnosis and trust
The first 90 days should establish credibility through visible operational wins and build relationships with the heads of sales, marketing, and customer success. Conduct a structural assessment of the current operating system — what is documented, what is not, where the integration gaps are. Inherit existing tools and processes; do not replace anything yet.
The goal is diagnosis and trust-building, not restructuring. New implementations that try to drive major structural change in the first 90 days typically produce functional resistance that undermines the rest of the year. Restraint matters more than ambition here.
First 180 days — operational baseline
By 180 days, the operational baseline should be in place. Standardise forecasting cadence. Define and instrument the core revenue metrics. Document lifecycle handoff processes. Establish a single source of truth for revenue data. This is the Stage 1 to Stage 2 transition in the maturity model — the operational foundation that everything else builds on.
Visible operational wins from this phase: a forecast that holds, a data warehouse that reconciles, handoff processes that reduce friction measurably. These are the credibility-builders that earn the function the right to take on Stage 3 work later.
First 365 days — toward Strategic Partner
By 365 days, the function should be beginning evolution from Service Provider toward Strategic Partner. Take ownership of cross-functional cadences. Contribute to strategic decisions on segmentation and compensation. Formalise enablement programmes. Start instrumenting customer experience outcomes explicitly to close the customer experience blindspot.
Evaluate whether the team composition is balanced across the four specialisations. If not, plan the hiring required to close the gap in year two. The first year sets up the function for the multi-year transition to mature capability.