Best-in-Class Organizations Seek to Increase Sales Productivity through Improvements in Sales Compensation Management
BURLINGTON, MA– Centive, the leader in on-demand sales performance management, commented today on the findings of a new benchmark report by Aberdeen Group entitled “Sales Compensation Management: Coin-Operated Productivity.” According to Centive, the report validates the business value companies’ gain by automating the design and administration processes involved in sales compensation management.
Aberdeen Group surveyed over 138 companies in a diverse set of enterprises to examine their use, experience and intentions in relation to sales compensation management. Aberdeen’s benchmark report on Sales Compensation Management indicates that “best-in-class” companies deploy automated solutions for sales compensation and recognize tangible benefits related to:
• Improving alignment of performance targets with business objectives;
• Establishing a formal, centralized process for plan design and administration;
• Providing accurate, actionable reporting to all constituents, from field sales to executive management
“The findings of the Aberdeen report, especially those related to best-in-class organizations, are corroborated by the success Centive’s customers experience after deploying Compel,” said Michael Torto, president and CEO, Centive. “Our customers have shared with us results that indicate substantial, measurable improvements in designing, modeling and deploying sales plans, in operational efficiency related to day-to-day plan management, in providing timely access to reports and performance analytics, and perhaps most importantly, in sales performance and related increases in revenue and profitability.”
Additional findings in the Sales Compensation Management report indicate that within those companies leveraging best-in-class sales compensation processes, 90% improved plan alignment with strategic goals, 70% improved payment accuracy, 45% improved sales force annual turnover, and 41% improved sales force non-selling time.
“Aberdeen’s research reveals that companies are pressured by increasingly complex sales compensation plans, developed out of the need to increase market share and sales productivity. Sales management wants the sales force to sell in line with corporate objectives, but the sales force wants to sell where they gain the biggest impact to their commission checks. The resulting compensation plans present challenges to the sales force in predicting their commissions and understanding their pay statements. Back-office administration time skyrockets with endless calculations and questions from the field,” said Gretchen Duhaime, senior research analyst, Aberdeen Group. “However, best-in-class companies have adopted technology and implemented business strategies to develop plans and automate calculation and reporting, and for those companies, success has followed.”
The full Aberdeen Group Sales Compensation Management report can be downloaded free at: http://www.aberdeen.com/link/sponsor.asp?spid=30410674&cid=4562
About Centive
Centive, headquartered in Burlington, MA, is the recognized leader in on-demand sales performance management. Companies use Centive Compel, hailed by CIO Magazine as the “most widely used choice for sales compensation management,” to accurately model and forecast commission costs, calculate commission and bonus earnings and gain real-time visibility into sales performance metrics. Compel, a salesforce.com AppExchange certified solution, is a winner of the CODiE award for “Best Financial Software,” the CRM Excellence and Product of the Year awards from Customer Inter@ction Solutions, and the CRM WizKids Award from Beagle Research. Centive is the first and only on-demand sales compensation / sales performance management vendor to be recognized as a SAS-70 Type II service provider. To learn more about Centive, please visit www.centive.com or call 1-877-CENTIVE.
