Home-grown sales compensation databases may be one step above Excel spreadsheets, but not always by much. Being tethered to an SQL database makes companies inflexible and slow-moving. With it, many companies use software that is ill-equipped for their needs. Ariba, pioneer of B2B web commerce, knew these growing pains well. They were ahead of the curve when they developed their own sales compensation system in 2004. But the platform couldn’t keep up with the company’s rapid growth. Ariba needed more juice for its 60 different compensation plans, 567 employees who work in 20 currencies. They decided to move their sales compensation to the cloud with Xactly Incent. In the past, it took up to nine weeks for Ariba to approve new compensation plans. Now, 60 percent of plans are electronically signed off on within a week. Instant access to data has replaced static Excel commission reports. Because sales reps can drill down into exactly how their commissions were determined, Ariba has fewer disputes between sales and finance. Many departments are also more efficient. Management no longer waits for IT or finance to generate sales performance reports; they can log into their dashboard and see results in real time. Why put a cap on sales performance when there’s software available that will grow with your company?