SPM news weekly wrap up

Two stories of note this week - 

First –

Xactly www.xactlycorp.com announced that their flagship product Incent, a SaaS Sales Performance Management solution, achieved Oracle validated integration With Oracle CRM On-Demand. (Read more here) This is the 2^nd year in a row that Xactly has recognized this achievement.  Xactly also is very tightly integrated with SalesForce.com. 

Data integration on SPM projects are almost always a potential flash point and rarely go without a hitch.  Drawing a line in the sand between IT and Implementation Vendor responsibility is something that should be addressed very early in the Sales Proposal cycle, not after the project has been kicked off.  

Different vendors have went done various paths to provide integration flexibility, functionality and risk mitigation.  Some of the solutions have fixed schemas to map to while others allow “on the fly” configuration of target tables within the system.  Some vendors have partnered up with best-in-class ETL (extract, transform, and load) solutions and others have built the tools into their core systems.  

When companies like Xactly go the extra mile to pre-build the connections to source systems it helps lower the costs, lowers the time to deploy, and lowers the risk associated with integration.   

Second –

Callidus Software Inc. www.callidussoftware.com announced Lenovo, one of the world's leading personal computer manufacturers, has successfully implemented Callidus Software's Quota Management solution to help manage sales goals and coverage for 1,900 members of its sales force world-wide. (Read more here)  Quota Management software to me is a somewhat underutilized enabling technology that I think many companies can take advantage of.

In my experience leading Sales Organizations successfully approach the quota setting process by –

·                               Having a clearly articulated process

·                               Model Quotas using historical data, market input, field sales inputs and take in consideration the competition

·                               Setting Attainable Quotas

·                                Effectively communicating Quotas in a timely manner

What does the recent research show? In 2009, on average, sales representatives achieved only 52% of quota, sales departments achieved only 79% of plan and sadly most companies do not plan to invest in more sales training or technology in 2010. When will companies realize that hope is not a strategy! In addition most companies plan to raise sales quotas in 2010 by 10% or higher. (Source: CSO Insight’s 16^th annual, Sales Effectiveness Research Project, 3,000 participants.)

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