Top 5 Incentive Compensation Management Pain Points Solved
Whether you are a Compensation Administrator, Account Executive, or Sales Manager, the process of paying people commissions and tracking their performance can be frustrating. I spent several years as an Administrator and worked with sales people, sales operations team members, executives, and many others. The following are the top 5 incentive compensation management pain points that I have discovered during those interactions:
– Lack of Efficiency
– Lack of Accuracy
– Business Enablement Issues
– Audit and Risk Management
– Reporting
All of these issues can be addressed by a proper Incentive Compensation Management (ICM) software solution. An ICM solution can bring needed visibility to all stakeholders while alleviating the challenges listed above so you can drive the desired results. Well-designed plans can still fail if implemented poorly or if an ongoing process is deficient. Using software, companies can customize a model that works for their needs, alleviate compensation management pain points, and keep their process on track.
The examples below show how ICM solutions rectify the most common incentive compensation challenges:
Lack of Efficiency – current process is manual and time consuming and communication is disappointing. Using ICM, you can create automated processes using business-friendly wizards and schedule the processes to run at the right intervals for your organization. Information sharing becomes easy through hierarchies managed by rules and workflows to determine access which provide the ability to email individuals or teams.
Lack of Accuracy – numerous spreadsheets are hard to maintain, which lead to erroneous results and a lack of trust. ICM software allows you to create rules and update tables, therefore results are consistent and easy to reconcile. Data can be refreshed often and details can be shared so sales people do not have to keep manually checking on results or calling the Administrator with questions.
Business Enablement Issues – company goals change, however plan changes are difficult to implement. ICM lets you work in conjunction with HR and the Sales team to tweak plans, quotas, or territories. Together you can stay aligned to business objectives. Account Executives and Managers particularly like the dashboards with visualizations for fast feedback and extra motivation.
Audit and Risk Management – is there more than one version of the truth? By using ICM, not only can you calculate commissions accurately and efficiently, but also get audit capabilities satisfying regulatory and compliance concerns. In addition, with proper design you can be sure that all reporting uses the same information. Consistent, accurate and transparent results reduce your legal risk.
Reporting – there is never enough time to get all the detailed reporting that each person wants or needs. Software provides a powerful reporting module. Instead of being limited to high level reporting, individuals can receive customized reports with graphs and gauges updated as often as the business requires. Additional features allow for users to provide corrections when enabled, as well as make inquiries and resolve issues either through a workflow or using detailed reports. All of this occurs while also considering speed, security, and ease of use.
Incentive Compensation Management pain points don’t need to stop you from delivering what your sales team needs to succeed. Using IBM Cognos ICM, formerly Varicent, you can turn Incentive Compensation into a true asset. In the past, my team and I received praise and support from our key stakeholders, account executives, and sales managers due to the ICM solutions we implements. Now, I am here at Ironside to help others with the pain point of ICM. I look forward to hearing from our clients regarding their pain points and helping in any way possible. Please let us know how we can best help you with this crucial business practice.
About Ironside
Ironside was founded in 1999 as an enterprise data and analytics solution provider and system integrator. Our clients hire us to acquire, enrich and measure their data so they can make smarter, better decisions about their business. No matter your industry or specific business challenges, Ironside has the experience, perspective and agility to help transform your analytic environment.
