Considering the costs and potential revenues associated with sales teams, high-tech companies can no longer take a “set it and forget it” approach to their sales compensation plans. The impetus to change is real, and you can start small.

Our research surfaced four barriers to successful sales compensation plans:

• Accurately forecasting sales and determining the value of each deal as customer transactions are moving from one-time licensing to subscription and more usage-based, “pay-as-you-go” models
• Over-reliance on incentives to change sales behavior to drive sustained, profitable growth versus strategy, governance, leadership and discipline
• Setting accurate and motivating quotas
• Sales organizations’ inability to assess ROI or their plans’ performance

As we see it, and as our research indicates, this is a four-part problem. We’ll offer a four-step approach to develop and implement an incentive program that drives the sales engine to deliver profitable revenue growth in a changing industry.

Generational differences in sales compensation