Incentive, Compensation and Sales Performance Management

It seems to be a good year for Enterprise Compensation Management application vendors, particularly in the on-demand/software-as-a-service (SaaS) fields. In my two previous posts I created links to press releases from Xactly, Synygy and Centive.

Today, it’s Callidus who reported their fourth-quarter results, exceeding Wall Street’s expectation. Their total fourth quarter revenues were up 4%, partly due to a 850% increase of on-demand bookings Annual Contract Value (ACV).

So far I have only talked about some of the major vendors previously identified in the 2007 Gartner Market Scope research. With the growth in the sector, it is no surprise that many software firms will try to enter this market.

A quick surfing on Google revealed several other players in this field. I have heard about a few of them and I’m sure there are many more, but here is a quick list in alphabetical order:

Authoria
EIM Software
GloCent
Halogen Software
LaserBeam Software
Salesforce.com
Strategix Performance
Success Factors
Vue Software

If you have experience with any of these offerings or any other ICM applications, please share your experience.

Xactly Hits Triple-Digit Revenue Growth in 2007

In the 12 months ended December 31, 2007, Xactly achieved a triple-digit year-over-year increase in revenues. The company also doubled its customer base -- and in doing so, has tripled its subscriber base. During the same period, the company achieved an enviable 94.4 percent customer-renewal rate, surpassing the industry average of 90 percent and underscoring Xactly's ability to deliver sustained customer value. And in March, Xactly completed its third round of financing, raising an additional $15 million to fund further expansion.

Synygy Celebrates 17th Anniversary and Announces Strongest Financial Position in the Company's History

Synygy Inc., an authority on sales performance management, celebrated its Seventeeth year in business and announced that the company is in the strongest financial position in its history. [...] This marked the third anniversary of Synygy's strategy to shift its business model to focus on providing sales compensation and sales performance management solutions to companies with at least 1000 salespeople, brokers, or agents (rather than smaller-sized companies) for a fixed subscription fee (rather than an up-front software license fee).

There was an article in the Boston Globe today regarding how Centive, a provider of software that automates the payment of sales commissions, was expecting to be profitable this year. Centive managed to turn around by selling their old product in 2006 and building a web-based application instead.

Because of major product changes, the 11-year-old company is only now seeing the financial benefits of its restructuring, said chief executive Michael L. Torto. "We grew by 100 percent last year," he said.

Callidus Software just acquired Compensation Technologies, a leading provider of services for planning, implementing and supporting incentive compensation processes and tools. This acquisition adds 9,000 payees to Callidus SaaS business; the cumulative number of payees is now 44,000, up from 4,900 a year ago.

Mitel is one of the companies headquartered in Ottawa which we are proud of. We are also proud of Varicent's success not far away, headquartered in Toronto. I might be able to work in my hometown some day...

Mitel examined its ICM procedures and processes and realized the company needed a better way to drive the behavior of, and communicate incentive compensation plans to its sales force. After a competitive evaluation consisting of product demonstrations and customized Proofs-of-Concept, Mitel selected Varicent SPM.

Read the original news release