BOARD is a business decision-making platform for organizations of any size. BOARD hosts several business modeling, planning, and analysis all in one cloud-based platform.
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Varicent Incentive Compensation Management
Score 7.7 out of 10
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Varicent (formerly IBM Cognos Incentive Compensation Management, or IBM Sales Performance Management) is presented by the newly reformed vendor as a Sales Performance Management (SPM) Solution that will accurately track, manage and report on sales-related data and processes to reduce administrative costs and provide insight into key performance metrics. The solution encompasses Incentive Compensation Management, Territory Management, Quota Planning and Channel Management.
Varicent was acquired…
Board is a useful tool with a great set of features. We migrated from human apps to board and we find it relatively fast in search results and better-managed threads and forums. There are some areas, such as UI and interactions which could be improved but overall a great product. The learning section is also pretty good.
Varicent is well suited across all the domains (Finance, Insurance, Hi-Tech etc.) for sales incentive calculation. It can tackle the difficult scenarios/conditions provided by the client. This tool may not or should not be used in incentive forecasting. It's not a planning tool. Small scenario modeling can be done here but not on a large scale.
Zions Bancorporation takes security very seriously. While we have NOT had any security issues with ICM, with it being a cloud application, our internal infosec team really wants some kind of MFA (multi factor authentication) support for off corporate network access.
The ICM internal workflow manager is not as flexible as we would like. For what it does, it works extremely well. However, for our purposes, it would not fit our process so we created our own workflows using presenter reports, scheduler and automated data imports. We'd love to be able to use the internal workflow and I think with recent improvements we're getting close but it's just not there yet.
In order to send emails to users (ie. payments need approval) we had to write an external python script. It works well but for most admins, they are not able to support it. It would be nice to have the ability to send emails based on defined triggers. The built in workflow can do this but as mentioned previously, we are not able to use it.
I'd like to have the ability to run a partial calculation. Currently, there is only an option to run a full system calc or a single calculation. I would like the ability to run a stream of calcs (ie. from a parent down to all children only).
Board is a fantastic product for swift BI solution delivery when compared with its peers. Ease of use, support and integration with Microsoft Office Addin open a wide horizon of opportunities for further enhancements to solutions. Easy bespoke app development capabilities make it a winner for us. BOARD is just like a white canvas, it lets you explore your creative side while designing and delivering a solution
Customer support from IBM is impeccable. They are quick to respond and they don't nickel and dime you for every request you make. Their goal is to ensure your success and as a user, I really feel like they listen to my concerns. That's not to say there are no problems. All software has its issues, but I don't feel like those issues fall on deaf ears.
From a user perspective, Board is quite simple to use. You can evaluate the presentation of the data, the navigation, the configuration of the users, the selection of the data etc ... It would have a better rating if it were even more intuitive as regards the construction of a project, starting from the database, to the info-cubes, to entities, to data acquisition procedures from other servers.
It was extremely difficult to create reports. We had to download data and create them in other applications. This was very limiting and required a great deal of time and effort. Drag and drop functionality is needed so we can self serve in the product.
All is fast, but with API's it is sometimes slower due to the application we are pulling data from. Reports are loaded directly or within seconds and our reports are very detailed with many columns and rows.
The only time I needed assistance was due to a problem in the prints: the colors of the brochures as they were on the screen were not reproduced in the print, but a series of standard colors were reproduced. This fact made colored numbers on a colored background illegible. From the assistance they confirmed that it was a problem of version 10.2 that occurred when leaving the brochures with the default colors proposed by Board. To obtain the desired colors, they had to be personalized ... I didn't like the solution very much and the technician who recommended it didn't like me either, but they would have solved the problem with the following versions. In any case, the assistance was quick and effective even if not exactly efficient.
Giving a 10 would suggest there is no room for improvement. I don't feel like their support is perfect. However, I have never met another team that was more dedicated to making sure we get what we want and need.
Board is fairly simple and straight forward. Advance training on workflows and procedures is a good one but the training content only touches through the interesting areas. training content needs to cover a few areas more in-depth
The problem of user profiling in our context is certainly quite complex. The complexity is given by the fact that the company is divided territorially into logistic points of sale, but at the same time they are virtually divided into divisions (or specific implementation areas) and points of sale of competence. The same operator can have access to data at different logistic sales points, sales points of competence and divisions.
Test test test. Make sure that the product is calculating everyone 100% correctly. DO NOT accept a 70% pass rate as some companies would like to have you believe is acceptable. This means conducting thorough testing by providing 100% of all expected results, but it will be worth it when you know that the compensation plans are working entirely as expected.
Board has been more complete when compared to Anaplan. Although I didn't participate in the buying decision of any of those products I have used both and by far Board just has more features. It's more than a CPM, it's BI and CPM put together. If I had to make a choice now it would be Board.
Out of all of the products I have ever evaluated for this space, Varicent is head and shoulders above the rest in my opinion. For me, I think of Varicent as akin to building an Access database while the other programs are like building an Excel data model. In Varicent you control everything from what tables are built to how they are leveraged with the calculations that you build. In the other tools, you are pushed into finding ways to leverage their pre-built mechanism of action and any deviation from what you build necessitates you to build a brand new plan. This is the key differentiator of a table driven system as opposed to a rule based one. The flexibility and usability is wholly unmatched.
Varicent Incentive Compensation Management is a tool that allows [users] to implement the specific rules applying to the business, [without] any technical constraints from the tool. The reports would, however, need to be a little bit less rigid and add more controls regarding what has been entered by users.
Board facilitates proactive decision making - it gives all the insights of the company's needs, which includes predictive analytics and manipulation of data to make different types of reports.
Easy to use for non-programmer and integration with other software is seamless. It has [the] ability to handle large amounts of data.
Fewer calculation errors as previous solution was manual based.
Ability to build tailored solutions in ICM to entice Brokers to write business for ANZ.
Allows the Broker Managers to easily to see what commissions they are going to pay in the next Commission Run payment cycle and make changes if required.
