How to extend your planning solution with Sales Performance Management
In our first post in this blog series, we discussed the benefits of automating Sales Performance Management and the related challenges. Sales Compensation Management is the most critical business function within Sales Performance Management. In this post, we will discuss the capabilities needed in a modern planning solution for effectively handling Sales Compensation processes and why Jedox is uniquely suited for it.
Flexibility is an absolute must for your planning solution to support a Sales Compensation Model, as well as extensive analytic and reporting capabilities. The unrivaled flexibility of Jedox is just one of the reasons it is an ideal solution for automating your sales compensation processes. Let’s dive deeper:
Data integration
The challenge with current Sales Performance Management tools often comes from their lack of ETL (Extract, Transform & Load) capabilities. Data for sales compensation come from varied sources and almost always, before it can be fed into the calculation engine, it needs to be transformed per complex business rules. Jedox comes with a built-in ETL functionality (no third-party tool needed) making it super easy to bring in the data from multiple sources – through a data feed or with a direct real time connection.
Commission Analysts spend lot of time in ensuring that the incoming data is consistent and accurate. They need auto generated data validation reports showing data inconsistencies and inaccuracies, which is something your planning solution needs to have. This is an “out of the box” feature with Jedox.
When inconsistencies or omissions are found in the data, it is not possible to correct it at the source. Jedox provides an easy to use and intuitive interface for commission analysts to make changes in the data online or through Excel uploads – all with complete audit trail.
Calculation and Automation
Off the shelf compensation solutions support a variety of crediting and calculation methods. While these methods cover a significant majority of the business requirements, they can still be limiting in some ways. Among them is applying caps or limits or having crediting based on a multi-step process.
Jedox does not force a linear flow for the calculation stream, allowing results from downstream calculations to be brought back into earlier steps. This flexibility allows building of all types of commission calculation rules without writing external scripts.
Reporting and analytics
Paying sales teams accurately is the primary objective of any sales compensation software. No wonder most off-the-shelf tools have their engineering focused on building a robust calculation engine, while their reporting and analytical capabilities became an afterthought.
The built-in reporting capabilities of your planning solution should not require specialized skills or licenses. If your analysts know Excel well, they can easily build graphical and interactive reports with Jedox.
Modeling and What-if capabilities
Modeling by nature is a dynamic process and planning solutions such as Jedox were built to deliver a robust set of modeling capabilities. As such, it is easy to create multiple models (versions) of compensation plans to analyze forecasted sales and sales compensation. The multi-dimensional architecture and in-memory database makes such analysis easy and fast in Jedox.
Workflow and Collaboration
Sales compensation processes require data sensitive workflow rules, for instance VP level approval if the commission payout is more than a pre-defined amount. Whether it is handling commission disputes or getting plan document approvals, Jedox can customize and automate the workflow exactly the way business needs. No custom code or IT resources required.
Pre-Packaged Model
Leveraging all the features described above, and with our ten years of experience in sales compensation, our team at Spectrum built a Sales Compensation Model, available on the Jedox Marketplace. This model is designed to automate the business processes for Sales Compensation such as Data Integration, Crediting, Incentive Calculation, Payments, Workflow, Reporting and Analytics – all with appropriate controls and security. Its fully configurable user interface optimizes system interaction for Commission Analysts, HR Analysts and Sales.
Flexibility and well-developed reporting capabilities are a must in a planning solution to work well for sales compensation automation. Whether you already use Jedox in your organization or not, it is an obvious choice to improve these processes. The “ready to go” model on the Jedox Marketplace makes it easy to improve your sales performance management and sales compensation administration.
