A very powerful tool
November 05, 2020
A very powerful tool
Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Overall Satisfaction with Xactly Incent
Incent is used in EMEA to display target achievements and calculating sales commissions. It's streamlines the Commission Target setting process for general mangers and helps the sales employees to see on a daily basis what they achieved already. It enables sales managers to see over periods how their employees achieves their targets. Another benefit is the automated commission calculation. Next step is to get insights how target setting could be done better. Also to forecast how the commission payout will be.
- automated calculation of commissions for hundreds of employees without using big Excel files
- setup is very flexible and you can create a lot of different logics for the calculation
- one place for Targets, Achievements, Commission payments for whole EMEA
- The advantage of flexible setup is at the same time a Con. Everything need to be setup and will be programmed from the scratch. When you miss a scenario in the FRD phase or did not foresee it costs effort and money to get it later added. Due to the complexity there are a small errors in the starting phase until the system runs well. We needed nearly a year to get it working as expected.
- The functionalty is not intuitive and sometimes very complex to use. E.g. to create adjustments several steps in different menues are needed.
- the desgin was updated recently in the menue structure but most of the parts are still some kind of old fashioned
- Positive: change in the mind set of managers and employees how to set targets, how to achieve them and that they are always measurable and visible for higher management
- Negative: It takes a long time and tons of employee hours until all is setup and running smoothly
We're sharing and discussing the data on different management levels to drive the sales performance of employees to the best.
Also target setting is frequently under review and Incent helps to predict what could be the correct target for next period.
Also target setting is frequently under review and Incent helps to predict what could be the correct target for next period.
Sales planning and the territory and quota setup are under frequently under review to allow the management to foresee the best target and quota setting for their employees.
Sales Forecasting is a interesting topic which could be also used in the future.
Sales Forecasting is a interesting topic which could be also used in the future.
Sage People deliveres the employee details and contractual Commissions information to Incent. It's updating frequently automatically Incent with the latest data. That is a great benefit as a lot of manual work is only done once in Sage People from HR.
Finance is using it for Commission Forecast.
Xactly was choosen as a flexible and international solution to provide best sales performance management.As a cloud solution and also with an App it's always accessable for employees.
Xactly Incent Implementation
- Implemented in-house
Yes - After discussion and evaluation of the project with Xactly we did first an UAT in London. Our EMEA superuesers fly in but the Xactly team was not well prepare. We spent nearly 3 days waiting and looking on screens how data was loaded to test the limited functionality that was available in that time.
After UAT some changes were done in the Incent & AQP and adopted to our usage.
We set up the system and prepared it with a lot of data. We did also Xactly Trainings which were sometimes very fast and too generic.
The go live needed to be postponed because the system was not ready and too much data needed to be uploaded to AQP/ Incent.
After the launch in the company sales employees were trained from us how to use the system.
As it was new from everybody and also managers had some doubts about the data displayed in Incent it was not accepted straight forwared.
After 9 months the acception was better and superusers and employees learned a lot to administrate Incent.
After UAT some changes were done in the Incent & AQP and adopted to our usage.
We set up the system and prepared it with a lot of data. We did also Xactly Trainings which were sometimes very fast and too generic.
The go live needed to be postponed because the system was not ready and too much data needed to be uploaded to AQP/ Incent.
After the launch in the company sales employees were trained from us how to use the system.
As it was new from everybody and also managers had some doubts about the data displayed in Incent it was not accepted straight forwared.
After 9 months the acception was better and superusers and employees learned a lot to administrate Incent.
Change management was a major issue with the implementation - All managers needs to understand fully new commission plans and needed to be well trained.
They also need to learn to trust the data in Incent in comparison to their formerly used Excel sheets.
It's a mind change. They need to think forward. Give out of their hands the control over commissions and achievements to a measurable, automated system where everybody can see what results employees have is not an easy step for a lot of managers.
This takes quite a while to get everybody on the same line in an EMEA organization.
When the managers are convinced, they will convince their sales employees to use Incent.
They also need to learn to trust the data in Incent in comparison to their formerly used Excel sheets.
It's a mind change. They need to think forward. Give out of their hands the control over commissions and achievements to a measurable, automated system where everybody can see what results employees have is not an easy step for a lot of managers.
This takes quite a while to get everybody on the same line in an EMEA organization.
When the managers are convinced, they will convince their sales employees to use Incent.
- UAT was not well organized
- System is very complex - every tiny thing needs to be programmed - this takes time
- Superusers needs to learn a lot to administrate Incent
Xactly Incent Training
Configuring Xactly Incent
We struggled in the beginning with the AQP - Incent integration.
As a best practice I can suggest that you get an extensively demo what might be possible to configue and what not. Depending on your needs it will be setup.
As a best practice I can suggest that you get an extensively demo what might be possible to configue and what not. Depending on your needs it will be setup.
Some - we have done small customizations to the interface - The dashboard mainpage is very good with the self customizable POD's. You can select what sales employees can see.
We needed to customize also the Team Incentive Statement to display only necessary info and to understand better the achievement and attainment sections.
We needed to customize also the Team Incentive Statement to display only necessary info and to understand better the achievement and attainment sections.
Using Xactly Incent
| Pros | Cons |
|---|---|
Like to use Easy to use | Unnecessarily complex Requires technical support Not well integrated Inconsistent Slow to learn Cumbersome Lots to learn |
- Team Incentive Statement
- the main dashboard
- POD structuring
- manual adjustments
- AQP Quota Export to Incent is manually
- maintain rate tables
Yes - I got feedback from sales employees that it works well to have a fast look where they are with their performance. Drill down etc. is a bit tricky as all is very small.
Xactly Incent Reliability
Integrating Xactly Incent
- Company Single Sign On (SSO)
Both needed some time investment and there were in the beginning some smaller issues with the SSO. But these have gone away after some more testing. Sage People is integrated via a weekly upload. After the format was agreed it's most of the times working straigth forward
- File import/export
- Single Signon
Do your own homework and evaluate with the Xactly representatives what and how you could best integrate your software.