The handoff is where the work goes
The failures that cost the most in a good operation are rarely dramatic. They happen quietly, in the handoff between one step and the next: the place no one owns.
Nobody owns the gap
Every step in an operation usually has an owner. The handoff between two steps usually does not. That is why work waits there: not because anyone failed at their job, but because the space between jobs was never anyone's job.
It does not look like failure
A dropped handoff does not announce itself. It looks like a slightly slow week, a lead that went cold, a thing someone meant to do. Individually, none of it is alarming. In aggregate, it is the difference between a good quarter and an ordinary one.
The fix is ownership, made into a system
You close the gap by making the handoff explicit: giving it a defined trigger, a defined next step, and a system that does not depend on anyone remembering. That is most of what operational infrastructure actually is.