LeapComp - Sales Performance Management Blog

Michael Dunne, the VP of research and sales incentive compensation analyst for Gartner, released the new marketscope research on July 30, 2008.

One of his key finding; the sales ICM market grew by 20% in 2007, up from 15% in 2006.  Another interesting fact: collectively, the vendor community only captured 300 million in revenue worldwide. Finally, less than 10% of sales organizations with more than 100 persons receiving variable compensation have deployed prepackaged sales applications, with North America representing more than 80% of the world market.

My interpretation of this is that the ICM market is still very small, still has a lot of room to grow, and has an accelerating growth.  That’s great news for me!

The biggest changes in the overall marketscope rating since 2007 is Varicent which moved up a position, from “promising” to “positive”, and Practique Associates (recently acquired by Merced Systems) which moved up from “Caution” to “Promising”.  This year, ACTEK and Westport Software (now Enterprise Incentive Software) did not meet the inclusion criterion for signing new customers.  There is also a new name on the list - ZS Associates.

I asked Gartner if I could share their ICM Vendor Matrix on this blog, but they refused.  However, I collected the related press releases:

• Callidus received a positive rating
• Centive received a promising rating
• Oracle received a posive rating
• Practique Associates received a promising rating
• Synygy received a positive rating
• Varicent received a positive rating

I did not find publicly available information regarding Xactly, ZS Associates and SAP’s ranking.

The rating is based on overall viability, customer experience, products and services, market responsiveness, track record and geographic strategy.  Gartner’s definition for a positive rating is “Demonstrate strength in specific areas, but execution in one or more areas may still be developing or inconsistent with other areas of performance”.  A promising rating is defined as “Shows potential in specific areas; however, execution is inconsistent”.