5 Reasons to Try Incentivate instead of Outdated Spreadsheets

Introduction

For many years, spreadsheets have been the powerhouse for managing data in sales organizations. In fact, data suggests that about 70% of companies still rely on spreadsheets for their sales compensation management. However, the question is, can traditional spreadsheets keep up with the ever-growing competitive business world? The answer is No!

There is an alternative to using spreadsheets for sales commission management: automation technology. Many sales organizations are unaware of incentive compensation solutions; some lack the resources, and others are reluctant to step outside their comfort zones and adopt new technology.

These 5 reasons will make you believe why it is time to discard spreadsheets and adopt automated solutions instead:

1. Prone to Errors

Did you know that almost 88% of spreadsheets contain errors? These errors can exist in the form of a typing mistake, improper formula, formatting errors, misalignments, and more. Ever considered the consequences that your business may face if these errors go unnoticed? A recent spreadsheet error led to more than 16,000 missing coronavirus cases. There is no way to avoid these errors, as they are manual and humans make mistakes. However, according to a study, when organizations abandon spreadsheets and adopt incentive compensation solutions, they reduce errors by more than 90%. Isn't that great?

2. Labor Intensive and Time Consuming

Using spreadsheets is like wasting your resources, not specifically in terms of money, but time and your employees' capabilities. Your staff spends hours manually performing calculations and entering data. The last thing you want is to pay your employees for mindless labor tasks when they are capable of much more. This is where incentive compensation solutions come into play. They not only put your employees' capabilities to better use but also provide deeper insights and automatically and accurately generate reports and information.

3. Lack of Analytical Capabilities

The past year has shown that change is a constant, especially for sales organizations. Ever-evolving dynamics mean an increased need for Sales Analytics to assess the effectiveness of your IC plans and quotas. Spreadsheet's analytics capabilities do not meet these requirements, leading to the rollout of suboptimal commission plans for your salesforce. This may result in a lack of motivation among sales reps, ultimately leading to revenue loss for the organization.

4. Delays and Disputes

To centralize efforts, organizations typically grant multiple users access to the spreadsheet. While it helps with multitasking, the owner is still the only person who understands the complex rules/macros/functions. There is too much reliance on a single individual, who becomes a bottleneck, slowing the entire process. It further escalates the inefficiency problem, causing incentive calculation and processing delays. Ultimately, this reduces sales rep productivity, creates disputes, and increases employee attrition.

5. Lack of Scalability and Growth

When a company grows and expands, so does its team and customers. Spreadsheets can't keep up to that. Managing the information of 100s of people becomes a nightmare. You will find yourself swamped with numerous spreadsheets and endless data. Even though spreadsheets can do the job for the time being, they fall short compared with alternative automated solutions. Once your sales processes begin to scale, scalability becomes an issue because as your organization grows, spreadsheet complexity increases.

Conclusion

Spreadsheets aren't well-suited to real-time updates and become inflexible at scale. Apart from this, they are often used for sensitive information; hence, even a single error can cost you everything. So, it's not worth the risk.

So now comes the most important question: If not an Excel Spreadsheet, then what should I use?

Even though there are many good reasons to stop using spreadsheets, your needs won't just go away. So what to use instead? When it comes down to it, the answer is pretty simple. A specialized software! With the right solution in place, you no longer need to do manual work. Automation really can save you from all the extra work. Therefore, your best bet is to choose a one-stop software service or solution that best meets your company's specific needs. We can help you with this. Feel free to drop us a note at sumeet.shah@incentivate.in.