Preparing for an Incentive Compensation Audit

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For many, the word “audit” brings a range of negative emotions such as fear, anxiety, and uncertainty. But does it need to be that way? After all, an audit is essentially a diagnostic or check of the business processes and results that exist in a company. Hence, it should be viewed as essential to business success.

Before we joined Ironside’s consulting ranks, we went through multiple audits as compensation administrators and found that preparation and good software were essential to our success. Both the preparation and software are vital to providing auditors with what they love to see — namely, a record of activity. In the example shown below, the software being used provides key details of what changed in updated records. Read more

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Ironside Recognized as Strategy Consultant

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BOSTON, May 25, 2017 /PRNewswire/ — Ironside, a data and analytics firm headquartered in Massachusetts has been named a Strategy Consultant in Customer Analytics in Forrester’s Vendor Landscape for Customer Analytics Services Providers, Q2 2017. Read more

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The Cost of Technical Debt in Analytics

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In the world of data and analytics, technical debt is what happens when organizations make conscious decisions to solve short-term problems, even when they know there could be long-term and potentially negative implications around their actions. It exists in every organization, including yours. Not all technical debt is bad, as long as it is strategically planned and tactically paid off. Read more

Words of Warning: 5 Dangerous Dashboarding Terms

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When planning your next dashboard project, watch out for these 5 dashboarding terms that could possibly jeopardize its success. Read more

Why Is the Quota Setting Process Important?

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A recent Alexander Group survey showed 59 percent of participants reported quota setting as the top challenge among over 20 choices for their sales compensation program. Accenture research tells us that about 90 percent of companies leverage some quota-based incentives. Clearly, quota setting and management is a major focus for most sales teams. Read more

Purposeful Persona Building: Design Thinking Part 2

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Remember our friend Empathy from the previous article? Well, now that you’ve interviewed, observed, and worked alongside your end-users and fully understand what it means to walk in their shoes, it’s time to leverage that new knowledge.

You’ve likely interviewed people in many different groups or roles within your organization. While analyzing your notes, you may begin to notice that certain people have similar needs, pain points, goals, etc. You can use this information to start persona building. Read more

Why an Incentive Compensation Health Check Matters

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Squeaky wheels usually don’t go away; they just get louder.

Imagine you purchase a new car. The car is shiny and runs great, but after a year maybe there are few things you wish were different – the seat design could be more comfortable or the road noise is louder than you expected. Maybe you just bought the standard model. Now you wish you researched a bit more or requested a few more accessories. Or maybe in reality you just need a quick tune up. Read more

Analytics End User Adoption: Rethinking Our Engagement Strategy

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In the last few weeks, I’ve spoken with three different clients who are struggling with the issue of end user adoption. Each described a routine set of activities, either completed or in process, that you would expect to see in a thoughtful change management program. Nonetheless, all three customers expressed frustration at the lack of user adoption.

Why is this? Do we need to rethink our traditional process for engaging users as we embark on our data and analytics journey?

In a word, yes. Read more

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Building Your Data & Analytics Roadmap One Use Case at a Time

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IT and business leaders share a common goal – to leverage the data available to them in order to make more informed business decisions. The first step to achieving that goal is to create a data & analytics roadmap, a task many companies find daunting. Where do you begin?

 

“Most organizations are ineffective in communicating data & analytics-related concepts across departments, resulting in suboptimal management and utilization of information.”

– Doug Laney, Gartner Blog Network

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The CIO and Analytics Strategy: Ironside’s Take

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CIO and IDG released the 2017 State of the CIO report this week. Their findings are useful not just for the CIO role in general but also for exploring the connection between the CIO and analytics initiatives. Looking at the report through the lens of data and analytics, I had three reactions to the survey results:

  1. CIOs should consider using analytics to drive business innovation, backing up their transformational and strategic activities with concrete resources.
  2. CIOs and line of business leaders should consider communicating even more and syncing expectations through data and analytics.
  3. CIOs should consider investing in a data and analytics roadmap to enable themselves as both business strategists and technicians.

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