PayScale Insight Lab is a sales intelligence software solution offered by PayScale, Inc.
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Varicent
Score 7.3 out of 10
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From quotas to sales and compensation, Varicent helps revenue leaders in enterprise organizations chart a more effective, connected path to revenue by providing vital data, insights, and sales go-to-market planning tools.
If you have a large employee base and you are trying to remain competitive from a compensation perspective, this tool is well suited to help you accomplish this goal. If you are not a comp expert, they have experts on hand that can help you through projects or just answer basic questions.
For the use cases we have at the bank, ICM is a perfect solution. For any bank or institution that has similar requirements, ICM would be a perfect solution. But I also think for any use case that has any sort of incentives based on Sales done, this would work amazing, as both Calculations and reports are handled by ICM very well; it's an all-in-one solution, I feel like.
Their customer service is fantastic. I absolutely adore my Relationship Success Manager, I still have a great relationship with the Account Executive that brought us on board.
The tool has some hiccups but overall, of the three tools I demo'ed, it is the most user friendly. PayScale is transparent about the issues they are experiencing and what is on the horizon for improvements of the tool. We all expect some things to go a little wrong or not be the as user friendly as WE THINK it should be, and I appreciate that PayScale acknowledges that and is transparent about what's in the works for improvements along the way.
I like the ability to customize pay structures, create favorites, and create new jobs on the fly. I've really enjoyed working in the tool and I'm excited to get our data cleaned up so that we can use all PayScale reporting and dashboards have to offer.
Job titles can prove to be a challenge as they sometimes do not connect as well as you'd hope. This may require some extra work on our part to fit our needs into what Payscale provides. Generally, this is a small concern, but it is still something that should be updated to keep with some of the changes in titles/roles.
It would be great if Payscale offered an online tool/area for watching recorded webinars or training sessions rather than having to do it live. As others have mentioned, with a busy schedule, it is sometimes challenging to find the time to watch live. Having a database would help ensure that the training can be accessed at any time.
Options to perhaps break down some of the data in reports to provide to others who are less versed in the contents of the report and the overall system. I'd prefer to have to explain less of what is presented and let the data speak for itself where possible.
As [the] model gets more and more transactional data, the calculation time increases. This should/can be handled internally with better model optimization.
Migrating from one env to other sometimes is challenging. There can be better 'Alerts' or 'Explanation' provided to handle it or at least to give a hint of the error.
For managers viewing their rep's report, the access part can be made easier. It should be linked to Payee hierarchy and access can be done automatically.
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.
Any calculations can be implemented as there are hardly any limitations on complexity. However, online real-time usability is lacking - a simple user enters, and the system calculates work in a way that it is in the browser and hence still needs overnight to be properly reflected in the batch calculations and backend tables.
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.
Never had any issues with customer support as they are very responsive. The system is very reliable, therefore, we rarely interact with their customer support.
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.
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.
Both PayScale and Paycom were pretty comparable, but I liked the detail and sophistication of PayScale a little more. Because PayScale has a place to enter in info on both the job and the market, we went with this software. The other factor I took into consideration was that I was already using PayScale and didn't have to enter the entire company's data
In 2015, we used a scorecard containing 80 attributes in our review of Oracle, Callidus, and Xactly & Varicent. Oracle did not have true self serve capabilities- programming was heavily required, not intuitive, out of the box functionality was limited. Callidus & Xactly could not provide us a demo using our data, statements could not be sent out in bulk form, difficulty in importing/exporting to CRM. Varicent excelled in most areas and was the clear winner.
It is very scalable and adaptable to changing complexities of calculations and business rules under a variety of different scenarios. It does not get full points because in large data loads the time needed to calculate and import the data increases exponentially and may cause issues related to timing potentially.
PayScale has allowed us to better target our compensation strategy, which has reigned in managers who were increasing pay MUCH quicker than necessary.
The changes we've made over the past couple of years have allowed us to pinpoint areas of need. For example, we adjusted our starting pay for our primary job class and reduced turnover from over 60% to under 30% in 18 months. Reduced turnover is a clear positive impact on ROI.
Compliance - with a central system used for calculation incentive payments and commissions, we are able to provide reports and data showing every detail of how payments are calculated and why they are justified. We can also identify anomalies and outliers.
Integration with our payroll system is seamless. Except for regular pay, nothing goes to payroll without going through ICM. The process for paying incentives/bonuses/commissions is now very structured and efficient.
