InsideView Sees More Efficient Sales Compensation Management with Xactly Express

Testimonials & Case Studies / InsideView

Download the PDF

“Xactly Express allows InsideView to alter compensation at the speed of business and drive maximum value from our compensation programs. The system has delivered huge returns and given me back countless days each month that can be invested back into other strategic initiatives.”

- Lisa Bailey, Vice President of Operations, InsideView

About  
InsideView, the leading provider of sales intelligence, increases productivity and revenue by delivering relevant business and social insights to the point of need. The company’s award-winning technology gathers and analyzes information from the most relevant social media, user-contributed and traditional/proprietary editorial sources to provide compelling insights about companies and contacts directly within a customer’s CRM application, browser, or mobile device.

Challenge
Lisa Bailey, InsideView’s vice president of business operations, wears lots of hats – sales compensation being only one of them. As InsideView rapidly expanded, it was clear that continuing to manage commissions the traditional way, in spreadsheets, was no longer feasible.

“Our spreadsheet-based process for managing compensation was error-prone, labor intensive, and made it impossible to provide sales reps with regular compensation statements,” claims Bailey. “If we were unable to fix this situation, we would soon be in a fix ourselves in respect to business process scalability, and keeping up with the compensation demands of our growing sales team.”

Benefits at a Glance

• Accelerated compensation processes
• Reduced compensation errors and disputes
• Increased visibility into sales compensation
• Increased business agility
• Cost-effective, multi-tenant hosted solution   

The Solution
To eliminate its spreadsheet drain, InsideView standardized on Xactly Express to reduce the time demands and complexity of its sales compensation management processes. Compensation for all its sales reps – small business, mid-market and enterprise – is now managed month to month through the cloud-based platform.

“We provided sales reps with brief training on Xactly Express, showed them how to use its compensation dashboards to see how they are being paid, and then turned them loose with the solution,” says Bailey. “They quickly caught on to the self-help aspects of Xactly. Meanwhile, the operations team is now able to quickly and accurately calculate commissions, giving the right credit, to the right person, at the right time.  The system has delivered huge value and given me back countless days each month. ”

Accelerated Compensation Processes
Before Xactly Express, Bailey estimated that she would spend a full day each month grappling with sales compensation issues. As the company grew, this only promised to get worse. But with Xactly, monthly compensation calculations are run in a matter of just a few hours.

“When we had fewer reps, spending a day a month shuffling through spreadsheets and answering questions was bad enough,” explains Bailey, “But now that we’ve grown, I know I would be spending at least twice that much time. Xactly saves precious time in my schedule every day, every month that can invested back into other strategic business initiatives.”

Reduced Compensation Errors and Disputes
With commissions now determined and calculated within Xactly Express, compensation payouts are now both on time and accurate. And commissions disputes and rework are now largely things of the past.

“With Xactly – we see less disputes and questions from the sales team – freeing them up to spend more time selling effectively,” claims Bailey. “At the same time, I’m able to sleep better, knowing we got compensation right the first time.” 

Increased Visibility into Compensation
In the past, InsideView’s sales reps had no visibility into how they were being compensated until they were actually paid. Now, with Xactly Express, reps have real-time visibility into compensation plans and attainment via the system’s personalized online dashboards..

“Prior to Xactly, reps would simply get a commission check at the end of the month,” added Bailey. “They shadow accounted if they wanted to try to figure it out in advance. And if things were different, they would dispute it.  But now, the can see where they stand and compensation has become more of the sales performance motivator it is designed to be.”

Increased Business Agility
With Xactly Express, InsideView can easily alter its eight different compensation plans on a quarterly basis, flexibly modifying compensation to meet changing business needs and strategies. And as the company continues to grow, reps can be added to the system and to particular new plans with just the click of a button.

“We have dynamic compensation, every quarter we change something in our plans,” says Bailey. “With Xactly, we have the agility to easily alter plans and test changes prior to production. This was difficult, if not impossible, to do in spreadsheets.”

Looking Ahead
With its core set of compensation needs now taken care of, InsideView is looking to extend its use of Xactly Express in new strategic ways. For example, the company is very interested in using the “what-if” capabilities of the solution so that reps can take live opportunity data from Salesforce CRM and model what their commissions would be if they structured a deal in particular ways, or to see where they can most profitably focus their selling efforts. On a macro-level, Bailey is interested in using the system to L“look at comp; differently,” including modeling the impact of new corporate strategies and plan changes on payouts.

Concludes Bailey, “Xactly Express allows InsideView to alter compensation at the speed of business and drive maximum value from our compensation programs.  Combined with the time and cost savings provided by the system, we are getting our money’s worth many, many times over.”