In today’s dynamic business environment, organizations need highly efficient sales teams to generate revenue and stay ahead of the competition. But while advances in AI-powered tools have accelerated the sales process, they have also increased the value of soft skills and the relationship-building acumen that talented salespeople bring to their jobs. That’s why savvy organizations are more committed than ever to keeping their sales teams engaged and productive.
High-performing sales teams are using sales performance management solutions from SAP SuccessFactors to manage and optimize sales compensation and incentives – rewarding sales reps for their performance – while streamlining sales processes and using real-time insights to improve operational efficiency and drive revenue.
“There’s this renewed emphasis on efficiency,” said Rahul Iyer, general manager, Sales Performance Management, SAP SuccessFactors, speaking to SAP customers at the SAP North America Sales Performance Management Customer Summit, held February 13-14, 2024, in Dallas, Texas. “Customers want faster, simpler outcomes – and they want to provide a great seller experience, as well. At SAP SuccessFactors, we’ve threaded the intelligence of connected cloud applications throughout the SPM solution portfolio. This allows us to deliver the efficiency, transparency, and rich experience of SAP in a comprehensive platform that covers a full range of end-to-end processes in sales compensation.”
Together for Success
Under the banner “Together we can make it better,” the summit event provided a venue for SAP customers – some of whom came from as far away as South America – to meet one-on-one with experts and gain valuable knowledge from product road maps, demos, and deep dive sessions, as well as learn from one another’s experiences in customer sessions.
Iyer affirmed SAP’s commitment to deliver the advanced innovations customers need to be competitive: “As a strategic partner to our customers, we have the moral responsibility to help them receive progressively more out of technology innovations, while accelerating with the best-in-class capabilities SAP has to offer. We are simplifying from every angle to make it easy for our customers to adopt, so they can achieve business outcomes faster.”
Barbara Rubis Linning, SAP SuccessFactors global vice president, Product and Engineering, presented the latest innovations and features across the sales performance management solution set, which includes SAP SuccessFactors Incentive Management, SAP SuccessFactors Territory and Quota, SAP SuccessFactors Agent Lifecycle Management, and SAP SuccessFactors Agent Performance Management. With features like territory planning and incentive compensation, SAP sales performance management solutions enable organizations to optimize their sales performance for better business results. The solutions use advanced features – for tasks such as drive time analysis and mapping to optimize territories – to streamline processes and make workflows easier so that customers realize value faster. The ongoing introduction of the Horizon visual theme on key administrative pages delivers a fresh, modern user interface (UI) for an elevated user experience.
“We want our customers to have winning sales teams,” said Linning. “Their success is why we continuously look for new ways to build innovations and relevant features into the portfolio to accelerate business outcomes. SAP is building intelligence that is relevant, responsible, and reliable because we believe it leads to smarter, data-driven decision making and results in better sales performance. Our new intuitive UI helps simplify tasks and puts people at the center of business for improved productivity.”
SAP SuccessFactors solutions deliver Joule, SAP’s natural language processing AI copilot, to help people be more productive in their jobs using SAP business solutions.
The integration of sales performance management solutions with SAP Business Technology Platform and SAP Datasphere enables seamless access to real-time data and analytics, empowering organizations to make informed decisions and drive sales success.
Winning with Sales Compensation
As the all-important link between an organization’s products and services and its customers, the sales team is a principal driver of bottom-line growth for the whole organization. Correctly incenting sales teams requires the use of proven strategies and solutions to align the pay program with organizational goals, said David Cichelli, revenue growth advisor at The Alexander Group, who presented “Leading the Sales Design Compensation Project.”
He advised sales compensation leaders adopt an annual review process that includes assessment, strategic alignment, taskforce design, and comprehensive communication phases. “Sales compensation design needs to reflect the consensus of key stakeholders: sales, finance, product management, and HR,” he said. “By following a proven design process, you can develop a strategically aligned, effective, and motivational pay program.”
Supporting Customer Success for Better Outcomes
The summit showcased the SAP ecosystem with sponsorships and informative sessions from SpectrumTek, Canidium, OpenSymmetry, Cahaba Consulting Group, The LC Firm, and Aspire Digital.
SAP experts highlighted SAP’s message of ongoing support for customer success: “We’re here for you,” said Tak Kusano, global chief operating officer of SAP SuccessFactors. “SAP has a tight-knit community of sales performance management experts that bring deep domain knowledge to this niche space. That’s why we’re able to work so closely with customers to gain consensus on the road map and product innovations, like AI. We’re passionate about bringing the best of technology to SAP customers.”
