Supernova Award Category
Marketing & Sales Effectiveness
The Problem
Echo’s sales management system, which encompasses an intricate set of business rules for sales crediting, was inefficient in boosting the sales team’s performance. Its sales compensation team was spending too much time manually calculating and managing sales compensation payouts.
Echo knew they had to streamline this process so that they could free up time for their sales compensation team to focus on more strategic sales opportunities, such as being able to rapidly respond to changing acquisition events. By reducing the amount of manual calculations in their sales compensation system Echo hoped that this would increase the productivity of the sales team as a whole.
The Solution
Echo identified four goals for the program: Simplify the complexities around calculating compensation rates; reduce the amount of manual calculations; Free up time for the sales compensation team to focus on more strategic tasks; Boost productivity of the sales team
To help address these problems Echo integrated Optymyze’s sales performance management (SPM) software across their business processes.
Optymyze’s solution provided the sales team with daily updates around sales results & automated management of compensation packages for approximately 1000 sales reps on a weekly, bi-weekly, & monthly basis. Optymyze's tools seamlessly fit into Echo's business processes & assured Echo that they would achieve error free results.
Echo also receives consultation services from Optymyze’s strategic engagement team who helped create processes for calculating fair incentives -- transforming Echo's sales organization.
The results
With the help of Optymye’s SPM solution, Echo Logistics was able to harmonize their sales compensation strategies to create a more strategic trajectory for their sales team.
Before implementing Optymyze’s SPM solutions Echo struggled with the complexities around calculating sales compensation due to different variations when calculating commission rates. With the help of Optymyze, Echo streamlined these processes and can now calculate incentives that are fair and accurate based on the financial value of each sale – empowering the sales management team to drive positive selling behaviors and establish strict guidelines around the amount of compensation.
Calculating compensation was not the only task that Optymyze was able to automate, the solution can also agilely integrate new acquisitions into the compensation system. As Echo experiences frequent acquisitions, Optymyze helps smoothly incorporate these additions into the sales organization without disrupting day-to-day business
Overall, Optymyze automated processes that were once both tedious and time consuming. By providing real-time updates and automatically monitoring for changes in compensation payouts, Optymyze helped Echo move from a reactive approach to compensation to a proactive approach. Since they no longer have to monitor and manage these changes, Echo’s compensation team is able to focus on more strategic tasks that will positively impact the sales organization as a whole.
Metrics
By partnering with Optymyze, Echo Logistics has been able to turn a manual process for calculating sales compensation into one that is automated and easily incorporated into the sales process without disrupting the day-to-day business activities.
With the automation of so many manual processes the sales team has gained back a large percent of their workday,allowing them to strategically think about creating compensation plans that best fit the needs of the sales team and the company’s bottom line.
Additionally, Optymyze’s SPM software has enabled Echo to proactively catch 98-99% of payout discrepancies.
The Technology
Optymyze’s comprehensive set of sales performance management solutions use data science to help sales organizations transform and streamline their entire sales process – from sales compensation, quota, and territory management.
Optymyze’s strategic engagement team leverages their knowledge of the sales industry and trends in SPM data to work with each client to create sales objectives that will motivate the sales team and truly transform the sales organization.
Disruptive Factor
Partnering with Optymyze represented a shift in Echo's mindset. Rather than react to the consequences of the market, Echo began to think and act more proactively. Dynamically updating sales reports provided Echo leadership with vital information earlier in a sales cycle, allowing their sales teams to alter behaviors to adapt to customer and industry changes. While other competitors worked to react to industry change faster than their peers, Echo was working on predicting the changes before they even occurred.
Echo also proactively prepared their teams and business processes for competitive acquisitions. With parameterized data repositories, streamlined compensation plans, and extensible staffing blueprints, Echo went from spinning plates to setting the table. Echo leveraged their own experiences as well as Optymyze's expertise in process design to ensure every new employee (either new hire or acquisition) would enjoy a seamless transition into the Echo family.
Shining Moment
The acquisition of a large competitor represented the culmination of the partnership between Echo and Optymyze. Acquiring 600 new employees is never easy, but the groundwork laid in the months prior made the process as smooth as could be.
New employees were eased from legacy comp plans to Echo plans over a period of months. New geographies and products acquired were quickly added to the menu du jour of all Echo employees. Once-fierce competitors became family and part of the one Echo.