Life sciences companies align sales commission practices across continents
Reduced 1 to 3 percent variance in payment forecast
75% reduction in support calls from field reps
Easy plan adjustments with comprehensive plan performance reports
Situation
A group of life sciences companies spans 15 countries and two continents. All of the companies had been attempting to use a single shared system for sales commission management; however, each of the different business units followed their own business processes, their own commission rules, and their own ways of managing exceptions to crediting of sales and payment of sales commissions.
Challenges
Considering the disparities in processes and business rules, it became increasingly difficult to assess sales performance across all operating companies, globally. The leadership at the parent company was facing several major challenges and the head of sales in each business unit was demanding autonomy over processes:
- The exceptions based on local leadership style, rather than company-wide standards, was creating an atmosphere of mistrust;
- There were no defined processes of knowledge continuity and information sharing best practices;
- The desire for local business rules made it very difficult to make changes to supporting systems; and
- The system in place only handled sales commission management; other key initiatives, like alignments and crediting, were handled manually by each country outside of the system.
The parent company wanted a fair and unified structure to continue with the regional variations, but with overarching standards rooted in sales performance best practices. IT executives desired a centralized sales commission management system to ensure global IT best practices.
Solution
Following a competitive review process, they selected the Optymyze unified, no-code platform to redesign their sales compensation strategy and processes. After defining a new strategy, they designed a set of core business processes to support both unity and flexibility in a single solution. These new processes were automated using a secure and auditable hosted technology platform that included a unified data repository and enforced data-handling best practices.
Outcomes
With the Optymyze unified, no-code platform, the company met its objective of giving the salesforce the most accurate information and top-of-line service. These changes resulted in the following:
- By using analytic models provided by the Optymyze platform, the company able to project payments to individuals, teams, and channels. As a result, payment variances fell to just 1 to 3 percent of the forecast;
- Online monthly commission statements were transformed reducing calls from the field by 75 percent and giving reps a new level of confidence in payment accuracy; and
- New, comprehensive plan performance reports provided management with the information to identify trends, make adjustments, preview impacts of plan changes, and more effectively coach and train the salesforce.