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Makana Solutions Launched Web Portal

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I reviewed the new SPM solution Makana Motivator Pro earlier this year, and noted that there was a big piece missing; the portal.

One of the main advantages to implement an SPM solution is to increase visibility. Sales reps should perform better if they know exactly how they are performing, what they need to focus on, how much commission they have earned, etc. Managers also need to know how their team is performing, what could be done to improve their performance, who are the top/bottom performers, etc.

I also noted that the Makana portal was planning for the end of January… And it was delivered, as promised, on time. Before the portal, Motivator administrators had to send reports by e-mail. Now, users can just log in and access all of this information.  Not only does this reduce the burden on the administrator, it also provides more timely information to the reps.

As with the dashboards of other solutions I have reviewed, the Motivator Pro reports are interactive and allow to “drill down” the results to the transaction level. This is what the portal and the reports look like (click to enlarge):

Commission and Incentive Pay Statement – Transaction Detail

Commission Statement – Summary Information

Team Summary Report

Team Ranking Report

The portal still lacks some functionality observed in other solutions such as the ability to customize the reports to display company-specific information, a modeling feature to allow reps and administrators to play “what-if scenarios”, an “issue resolution” tool for reps to report problems with their commission, a plan communication feature to distribute plans to the reps through the portal, etc. But even with these pieces still missing, the web portal is a great step in the right direction!  It’s a great addition for Motivator Pro users and provides neat reports out-of-the-box at no additional cost.

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Non-Cash Rewards Solution: IncentOne Review

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Once you have determined that it would be nice to offer non-cash rewards to reward a good performance, the challenge becomes to manage those incentives.

That’s where IncentOne comes in. IncentOne offers simple solutions that can help a business drive results. The concept is simple; employees earn points for completing various activities. These points could be tied to an employee evaluation, or directly to sales performance. Employees then redeem those points for a reward which they can select from IncentOne’s portal.

When the employees log in, they will have access to information about the things they need to do to earn points. And, they can see how many points they can earn for each of the pre-defined activities. More importantly, they will also see how many points in total they can Receive.

Once they are ready to redeem their points, they can visit the “Rewards” section. This section is pretty intuitive; there are many categories from which they can pick various rewards. Gift cards, merchandise, travel packages… even charity donations!

The IncentOne’s portal is customizable; the content , layout, colors and the company logo can all be changed from the administration tool.

The milestones and related award values are also configured within the administration interface.

As one could expect, IncentOne provides role-based access to the incentive program. Different “roles” are created, with various access levels for each of the roles. For example, an administrator could change everything, while the program manager could be restricted from creating new programs.

Finally, IncentOne provides many reports, both standard and customized. If you want a summary by program, an activity report by gender, by age group, etc, it’s all there “out-of-the-box”.

Many companies already have an incentive compensation system in place. I have seen many of these solutions used to calculate who deserved a certain non-cash reward. The most common incentive program I have come across is a recognition award for top performers, sometimes tied to a trip or award ceremony. However, managing more complex non-cash reward scenarios, and figuring out where the rewards are coming from while giving the employees the flexibility to choose what they want is often a big challenge.

IncentOne can integrate with sales performance management systems. The number of points could be calculated by the SPM system, and received by IncentOne for redemption. IncentOne is also an attractive solution because as with other solutions, its cost is based on the number of employees in the system per month. The standard configuration is also fairly quick and intuitive, which is different than the relatively high price-tag of an SPM solution implementation.

If you are looking at introducing non-cash rewards in your incentive strategy, I think that IncentOne is worth looking at.

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Makana Motivator Pro Review

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Last November, I briefly talked about the newly released Makana Motivator Pro. Motivator Pro is an on-demand Sales Performance Management application which like Motivator Express helps with the design of compensation plans, but which also offers new payment and reporting modules. Unlike most SPM solutions, Motivator Pro is a self-serve solution (no additional implementation costs) designed for companies with a sales force with less than 100 payees.

I reviewed the planning features of Motivator (now called Motivator Express) already, so I will focus on reviewing the features that are new with Motivator Pro in this post.

Once logged in the administration interface, it is easy to see at a glance how to get started. We see 4 items in the top menu; Home, Planning, Payment, and Setup. The dashboard consists of 3 options; Take the Tour, Launch Plan Wizard, and Join Your Peers.

Planning
Creating a new plan using the step-by-step wizard is simple and straightforward. First, you select a category of positions which Motivator calls a job role. This will be the title of the plan document.

Step number 2 consists of specifying the target pay at 100% and the base salary. As with Motivator Express, some planning tips are provided during the configuration. Similarly, goals are defined in step 3 and goal payments are defined in step 4.

The design of the plans is very similar to how planning was performed in Makana Motivator Express. A green star in their top left corner indicates if the plans are in “production”.

Building the organization and hierarchy is done through the “Build Your Org” tab. Payee information can be uploaded, or created via the user interface.

Cost modeling is also straightforward. Projected payout is based on a percentage of historical attainment. and attainment assumptions can be changed globally, at the participant level, and even for each goal for an individual Projections are automatically rolled up to show total sales and incentive costs.

Many useful graphs can show information such as the quota attainment distribution.



Payment

The “Your Plans” tab in the Payment section displays all the plans currently designed. Each of the plan sections can be expanded to display more information (Measures, Formulas, and Payouts). The dates for which a plan is effective is displayed at the bottom of the plan. Once the plans are designed and ready to be used, it’s time to visit the “Assign Credit” tab and to import the orders. This is done via a simple file upload and the credits are automatically assigned based on the rules created during the planning phase. With another click, you can calculate the incentive payments for those credit assignments

Once payments are calculated, reports are automatically generated. These reports can be downloaded in an Excel or PDF format.

A web portal will also be available by the end of January, where payees will login and view their personal performance, their team’s performance, their ranking, and detailed reports on a dashboard.

The “Pro” in Motivator is a great addition which will benefit existing and new Makana customers alike. The main question, I was hoping to answer as a result of the demo was, is that solution really simple and intuitive enough for self-service. I think I can safely answer that yes it is, but it will take a bit of practice if the administrator is new to the comp world. However, the wizard and the online help, as well as the detailed “tips” displayed throughout the configuration should make it very quick to learn. Priced at $29 per month per payee with no implementation fee, this could be the right solution to finally replace those inaccurate spreadsheets and ineffective compensation plans.

For more information, click here to take a quick tour.

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Sales Performance Management Vendors List

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If you did some research about potential sales performance management / enterprise incentive management solutions for your company already, you will have read about some of the top players in that space.  However, there are dozens of SPM solutions that are not as easy to come across, because they are very focused on a specific industry, because they are new in the space, or simply because their web presence may not be what it should be.

I recently worked on a vendor’s guide for OpenSymmetry, profiling 15 leading solutions, many of which I have reviewed on this blog.  These vendors were included based on their client base, corporate recognition, and their contribution to the field of SPM.  They are:

  • ACTEK: ACom3
  • Callidus Software: Callidus Product Suite (TrueComp)
  • Centive: Compel
  • CSSI: Vue Software
  • Enterprise Incentive Software: CATS
  • Glow Teknologies: GloCent
  • Merced Systems: Merced Incentive Management
  • nGenera: nGen Comp
  • Oracle: Oracle Incentive Compensation (OIC)
  • SAP: HR Enterprise Compensation
  • SunGard: iWorks EIM
  • Varicent Software: Varicent SPM
  • Versata Software: Versata Commission
  • Xactly Corporation: Incent
  • ZS Associates: Javelin

I mentioned before that the Sales Performance Management market is seeing an explosion of new solutions to satisfy everybody’s needs.  I also listed 39 additional vendors offering a flavor of incentive compensation within their solution.   With a total of 54 Incentive Compensation solutions, a number which I suspect will keep growing - especially if the economy recovers - it can be a real challenge to find the best solution for your needs.

I can’t share the guide on my blog, but since I put some effort into it, if you send me an email at julien.dionne@opensymmetry.com or call me at 713-819-3979, I will be glad to send you a copy.

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“New” Sales Compensation Solution – Makana Motivator Pro

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I knew about this since a few months, but I was impatiently waiting for the official news to come out before announcing it.  For those of you thinking “wait a minute, you reviewed Makana Motivator already on your blog”, well this is not the same beast.  Makana Motivator was only for plan planning, but Makana Motivator PRO is a self-service solution to not only plan, but also calculate commissions and bonuses.

So with the market starting to feel saturated with SPM solutions, is there place for another one?  I think that there is a place for this one at least…  why?  Because rather than trying to do the same thing as the other SaaS/on-demand solutions, Makana Motivator Pro is for smaller companies.

At $29 per month, and with no implementation fee (it’s supposed to be easy enough to be implemented by anyone), maybe this is the kind of application which is required to convince smaller companies to replace their spreadsheet.

Review coming soon…  I think…

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SPM Vendor Selection Part 5: Reference Calls

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As I mentioned in a previous post, the vendor selection process can be very similar to hiring someone.  After the screening interview (RFP), and the in-person interview (demo), it’s now time for the reference check of our top two candidates.

SPM Vendors are usually quick to provide the required references.  I think that in general they are pretty honest, but be concerned if they tell you that the entire implementation was very smooth and if they have nothing bad to say about the solution at all.   When applying for a job, I never provided a reference who would say anything bad about me, and I’d usually prep them about what they should say.  I’m sure these arranged references could be scripted as well.

To avoid the potential for a biased reference, many choose to talk with other companies who implemented the solutions being considered.  Whether you are looking at the vendor’s press releases, or if they provided a client list in the RFP, figuring out who is leading the implementation, or who is responsible for compensation at a certain company is usually not such a hard task.  Conferences are also a good way to meet people who have been through the implementation process, with all the pains involved.

Some reference call questions…
The goal of the reference call is to find out if the experience of others is as rosy as what the vendors may have described it.

This is your chance to find out more about the product, if they are happy with the functionality and usability, some of the pros and cons, upgrades, etc.  It is also a great opportunity to find out more about the actual implementation of the solution; how long did it take (and how long was it supposed to take), any lessons learned, etc.  Finally, a very important piece if to find out how well the vendor is supporting the application post implementation; can they resolve issues and answer questions in a timely manner, where there many issues, how was the experience in general?  Finally, after the RFP and demos, there are probably some areas in which you would like to confirm or validate what the vendors mentioned; is the plan communication tool really worth while?  Are the upgrades really THAT easy?

Evaluation
Some people like to factor in the reference calls in the total evaluation score.  Others use it to validate that a vendor/solution is as good as they think it is.  I don’t think there is a good or a bad way, but there is a risk to think “the reference check will be worth 5% of the overall score and the highest score wins”.  Why?  Because if every person you are calling complain about a horrible product and a horrible experience, it could be a deal breaker!

Next Steps…
The next step is to negotiate pricing with the two vendors.  Usually, the top two vendors are still in the process, because obviously pricing can be a major decision factor, but also because a vendor might be more willing to negotiate pricing and other factors knowing that they still have a competitor.

That’s it!  Smile!  At the end of the negotiations, you should be ready to draft a contract with that vendor to provide the incentive compensation solution!

In my next post I will talk about how to get ready for the implementation of the solution, and where to get help for the entire vendor selection process.

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