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I was a bit puzzled regarding the reasons why my blog has seen a significant increase in traffic over the past few days. Upon reviewing the keywords used by my readers to find LeapComp, I realized that there were 3 old posts in particular that were getting a lot of attention.
Super Bowl XLIV:
I wrote my first Super Bowl post last year with an analysis of how much football players participating to the Super Bowl received in bonus ever since the first Super Bowl. With yesterday’s great performance of the New Orleans Saints against the Indianapolis Colds, many people are intrigued by the player’s bonus once again.
Oscars:
But the Super Bowl was not the only thing on my reader’s mind. With the Oscar season quickly approaching, and with great movies in 2010 such as Avatar, District 9, Inglourious Basterds, and Up, my article about how much Oscars are worth is also seeing a surge in popularity.
2010 Winter Olympics
And that’s not all the excitement. On top of the Oscars and the Super Bowl, the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver are starting in a few days on February 12. My article “Olympics Pay-for-Performance, Cash-for-Medals” was a hit when I wrote it two years ago, and it is still a hit this week.
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Yesterday, CSO Insights released a summary of the results of their 16th annual Sales Performance Optimization study. The survey of 2,800 companies revealed that the number of reps making quota in 2009 dropped to 51.8% from 58.8% in 2008. This caused plan attainment to drop to 77.9% from 85.9%… And this is after 86% of the firms surveyed increased quotas for 2009.
This year, 85% of the firms surveyed have raised their sales rep quotas again.
Without seeing the entire survey, it’s hard to come up with good conclusions, but this seems to indicate that many companies failed to adjust their quotas mid-year. I am convinced that the 8% of the sales reps not achieving their quotas because of the economy was not the most motivating experience.
The press release concludes by saying: “higher quotas need to be accompanied by increased investments in sales in 2010 or we may be looking at even worse sales performance numbers next year”.
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Gartner released a market overview specific to the insurance incentive compensation industry. For those who haven’t seen it or don’t have access to it, here is a summary of what I found to be the most interesting facts:
- There are 9 main ICM vendors in the life, property and casuality (P&C), and health insurance industry: ActekSoft, Callidus Software, CSC, CSSI, MajescoMastek, SAP, SunGard, Synygy and Versata.
- 2009 saw 30 new ICM insurance deals, 27 of which were in North America.
- Callidus Software closed 10 of these deals, while CSSI closed 7 and ActekSoft closed 5. (Callidus acquired ActekSoft two weeks after the release of this research).
- Gartner predicts another 30 deals for 2010.
- ActekSoft/Callidus received a positive rating, and so did Versata.
- I was surprised to find out that MajescoMastek only has customers in Europe and Asia.
- Of the 9 companies that made the list, Synygy received the lowest rating (caution).
The report notes that there is no clear leader in the insurance ICM space. However, now that Callidus Software and ActekSoft are one, combining their clients in the insurance industry yields an impressive count of 55. The runner-up in the list is SunGard with 32 clients.
If Callidus / ActekSoft manage to get their fair share of new customers in 2010, it looks like the space has found its leader!
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Two weeks already, and no time to talk about our latest Influence Insiders webcast about incentives (listen to recording here). Fortunately, Paul took the time to write a good recap on his blog.
The topic which I found the most interesting was “can additional responsibility / more work be a good incentive for top performers?” I believe that for most top performers it is, if the added responsibilities provide opportunities for recognition, advancement and/or learning. However, we should note that not everyone will be happy to get ‘more work’, so this incentive should be used carefully.
I recently heard the story of a very driven and talented person who would have LOVED to take on more responsibilities, but her manager wouldn’t assign her any additional work because if she did, the employee would be in a position to complain to her union and try to have her position re-classified to a level where she would earn more money. While this might be a valid concern, I don’t agree with the philosophy of not challenging employees and not offering them learning opportunities to keep them from being promoted! In my opinion, it’s better to have an employee learning new skills and looking for new positions internally, rather than having an employee feeling under valued and looking for new opportunities with competitors.
What do you think?
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I was talking with a colleague about a client for which we both worked earlier this year. This client is a large health insurance company. They recently moved into a new headquarter, and along with the new building came a new cafeteria and a new health incentive program.
Studies suggest that as the price of a food increases, consumption of that food decreases. In this client’s new cafeteria, everything ‘healthy’ is discounted. For example, a veggie burger with a salad is about half the price of a regular burger with fries. Water or diet pops are also one dollar cheaper than regular soft drinks. In my opinion, this is a better approach than restricting food choices or introducing a ‘fat tax’.
What a great concept for consultants; when forced to eat out five days a week for every meal, having healthy and affordable options is a welcomed changed from having the choice between McDonalds and a greasy Asian fast food place!
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Wow, it’s been almost an entire month since my last post! Things have been really busy trying to wrap up a consulting engagement, starting a new one, getting ready for the Holidays, trying to finish a few internal projects, and studying to officially become a professional engineer. I took the test last Saturday and it went well. Now I only have to wait a few months before they finish grading it and call my references.
Now that “I’m back”, I’ll start blogging regularly once again. Also, I’ll be in Philadelphia for the next few months if you’d like to connect in person.
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