Strategic sales compensation management
Companies are striving to invest their incentive dollars
The results of a recent survey of over one hundred US sales executives and managers, conducted by one of Centive’s partners, indicate a serious gap and a lot of room for growth in the strategic use of sales compensation.
The purpose of the survey was to determine to what extent companies leverage sales compensation to drive sales performance, and what tools they are most effective with.
Findings:
- 88% of respondents use spreadsheet or homegrown systems to manage sales compensation.
- Only 40% of respondents consider that their company successfully uses incentive compensation to drive sales performance. 60% believe there is more work to be done to accomplish that goal.
- When asked specifically about tools, respondents were even less pleased with their status. For example, 61% are dissatisfied with the ability of their sales incentive management system to support financial reporting and compliance initiatives.
- 64% of companies need to do more work to enable their sales compensation management system to model plans in order to forecast commission costs and study the impact of key changes on that cost.
- 68% report a gap in their ability to provide sales executives and managers with real-time visibility into performance and results to help them better manage their teams.
- 70% are dissatisfied with the quality of reporting and analytics in their sales incentive management system, critical for pro-active management and fact-based decision-making.
These results validate findings of two earlier surveys; one in January 2006, the other in May 2005. Results continue to indicate that the majority of mid-size companies today fail to manage sales compensation strategically or to invest their sales incentive dollars effectively. In other words, most companies waste a significant portion of their commission investments by failing to achieve meaningful improvements in sales performance or revenue growth.
As the leading strategic, on-demand sales compensation management solution, Centive Compel™ enables companies to effectively drive sales performance. Compel achieves that by providing real-time visibility into performance and results, plan modeling to improve plan effectiveness and forecast commission costs, and robust executive reporting and analysis tools. Compel also helps companies achieve financial compliance goals by keeping audit track of all changes made to plans and data, ensuring consistent processes, and accuracy.
To learn more about strategic sales compensation and Compel, follow the links below.
