On April 7th, Centive announced the Spring 2008 release of Centive Compel. As an on-demand, multi-tenant solution, all of Centive's customers gained instant access to this new release.

The Spring 2008 release of Compel adds powerful new enhancements to support the design, modeling, managing, reporting and analysis of effective, optimized sales compensation programs. Key new enhancements include:

• Adjustment Analysis - provides users with a powerful tool for researching, analyzing and viewing the impact of prior period adjustments, such as drill down into adjusted transactions and before and after results detail
• Enhanced Dashboards - provides customers additional options for customization and control over how dashboard content and data are configured for sales representatives and managers
• New Administrative Privileges - enhancements to "super administrator" privileges to provide additional controls for managing user access and security profiles, and for providing administrators with mirrored executive dashboard views
• Enhanced Performance Analytics - includes options for customization to transaction-level analysis on earnings and performance data and for display options on performance ranking

To learn more about the Centive Spring 2008 release, follow the links below.

Do you have a need for practical, accurate and broadly applicable formulas to use throughout the design and implementation of a sales incentive plan? Do you face challenges with developing a clear and accurate linkage between performance and pay, including accurate formulas and appropriate calculation techniques?

Sales Compensation experts Jerry Colletti, Mary Fiss, and Mark Davis have combined forces to create a book that applies appropriate techniques and formulas related to each factor of sales compensation (determining pay levels, pay mix, incentive design and calculating payouts) that is consistent with both best practices and generally accepted principles.

Peter Drucker famously stated that "You can only manage what you can measure." For most sales managers, measuring subordinate performance at a granular level - by customer, territory or product, for example - is extremely difficult. Most sales managers are essentially managing by looking in the rear view mirror instead of using analytics to better predict future performance.

To be an effective sales manager, you need access to information to help you analyze trends, spot outliers and better forecast expectations. And, you need this access to be as close to real time as possible, while there is still time to make adjustments before the close of a period.

In Centive's Sales Compensation Best Practice series on sales analytics, you'll learn about the four key types of analysis you should be monitoring, at a minimum, to ensure you have your figure on the pulse of the sales organization, including:

• Forecast Analysis: Executives and managers should model various forecast assumptions then analyze the results to evaluate impacts to revenue and commission costs.
• Attainment Analysis: Monthly attainment analysis is required to ensure that attainment results meet expectations.
• Trend Analysis: Companies need to identify and capture data for those key measures that will be relevant over time.
• Top and Bottom Analysis: Analysis of top and bottom performance can uncover productive sales practices that can be replicated or a variety of issues that need to be addressed.

As the leading on-demand solution for sales performance and sales compensation management, Compel offers real-time performance visibility and graphical sales analytics. These tools are part of the core Compel solution - no additional modules are needed. Compel provides strategic value by enabling customers to run in-depth analysis, model and forecast sales incentive expense, optimize plan effectiveness, and drive sales performance and top-line revenue growth.

To learn more about sales analytics and Compel, follow the links below.