Sales Performance Management (SPM)
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Overview
SPM solutions provide executives and sales management with a clear view of critical sales data, such as what products were sold where, by whom and to whom, that enable quick and informed course correction to ensure the alignment of sales strategies to desired business outcomes. These solutions are unique in their ability to solve the “one-two punch” of insight and action (i.e., knowing what business strategies need to be changed and having the tools to make the required changes). Together, these products and services offer medium-to-large enterprises in a multitude of industries the ability to transform their incentive payment systems into strategic business weapons to drive profit growth.
Difference Between EIM and SPM
EIM, the platform on which SPM solutions are built, gives enterprise finance departments the ability to align incentives with corporate goals and effectively administer even the most complex compensation plans. SPM solutions extend EIM to give sales executives the ability to manage their sales investment as they would an investment portfolio. This includes the ability to strategically plan, optimize and measure sales compensation strategies and key program components such as compensation plans, bonuses, quotas, territory assignments and headcount to enhance sales performance and profitability.
The Relevance of SPM for Corporations
Today’s forward-looking enterprises are investing in SPM software solutions to maximize the return on their sales-related investments in the same way that companies maximize their investment in the supply chain through Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) software.
SPM in the Context of Software Applications
EIM, Customer Relationship Management (CRM), Human Capital Management (HCM), Sales Force Automation (SFA) and SPM solutions address important, but different, business functions. CRM, HCM and SFA systems typically don’t do any transactional processing of data and don’t contain data that pertains to closed sales deals. Also, CRM data is largely input by sales and services representatives, so it is not considered a system of record in terms of auditable results. ERP systems address transactional and mission-critical business areas, but those that don’t require the flexibility of SPM systems, since they are tightly controlled by laws and regulations.
SPM systems utilize data from outside systems, and often, that data comes from ERP, CRM and HCM systems. Common examples of ERP, CRM and HCM data used by SPM systems are transactional feeds from Order Management, new hire feeds from HRMS, and feeds out to Payroll and Accounts Payables modules.
Vendors
The choices for SPM solutions include best-of-breed vendors such as Sales Resource Group [1],Forcelogix [2], Callidus Software Inc. [3], Xactly Corporation [4], Centive [5], Epista Software [6], Excentive [7], Practique Associates [8], Synygy [9] and Varicent [10]. Enterprise resource planning vendors such as Oracle [11]and SAP [12]offer some SPM functionality as well.
References
Introducing the Concept of Sales Performance Management; Michael Dunne; Gartner, June 2006
Predicts 2007: Diversity Persists in the CRM SFA Market; Michael Dunne, Gene Alvarez, Robert P. Desisto, Kimberly Collins, William Clark; Gartner; November 2006 SPM Vendors http://www.ventanaresearch.com/research/vendor.aspx?id=1687
SalesPerformanceOnline - An industry resource [13]
