Xactly Does Incentive Management for SMBs

Sales performance management vendor Xactly today announced the availability of a service catering to the compensation needs of small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs). Xactly Incent Managed Service is an outsourced version of Xactly Incent without the technical and administrative overhead of the full version, according to the company. It's also scaled down to better fulfill the needs of small companies with up to 25 payees. "Companies with 10, 15, or 20 payees want to automate but don't have the expertise to administer a compensation management system in-house; often, smaller businesses have to outsource whatever is not core functionality," says Karen Steele, vice president of marketing for Xactly. "Incent Managed Service is the same software as our regular offering, but removes the management burden from our SMB clients." Incent Managed Service is an offering in three tiers, based on the specific level of support the client needs. Each will process commissions and bonuses; generate payroll files; create statements and reports; and help sales operations and finance to investigate and make changes to any issues that occur. Customers will also receive management reporting, auditing, and tracking of adjustments, according to the company. Xactly Incent Managed Service Basic provides for one payment cycle and one payment file per month, with two standard reports for payees. The customer's administrator will provide Level 1 support to payees, while Xactly will provide Level 2 support to the admin, who validates transactions before sending them to Xactly. Basic service includes up to 15 compensation adjustments and 30 support calls from administrators per month. Premium-level service adds a second payment cycle, Level 1 help-desk support for payees, and allows 25 adjustments per month. Managed Service Deluxe builds upon Premium service with a second payment file, a team ranking report for management, and revenue and commissions analytics by product. Xactly validates transactions before they are processed, and creates plan documents up to twice per year for review and approval by management and payees. The client may make unlimited adjustments and support calls. "Xactly is taking the right approach, showing businesses it can help get them beyond the spreadsheet, giving them not only a tool but technical support to sort out compensation issues," says Jeff Kaplan, managing director of THINKstrategies. "Everybody thinks their problems are unique, and the one-size-fits-all model has been ridiculed; three-tier models like Xactly's provide appropriate service levels, so Xactly can win satisfied customers as early as possible." Kaplan points out that the human touch is still present in the software-as-a-service (SaaS) market, and wisely so. "One of the common misnomers of SaaS is that it's an on-demand business model in the purest form," Kaplan says. "Successful vendors must apply human expertise and flexibility, especially to new clients. Incent Managed Service isn't too far removed from Xactly's existing offering in that regard." Related articles: Xactly Adds Breadth and BI Xactly Ties SCM to Data Management and Analytics More Than Just the Money Money is a prime motivator when it comes to compensating a sales force, but a new study finds that there are incentives--and barriers--other than Uncle Sam.

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