The Sales Performance Management software market is a vibrant, growing industry. There are dozens of software offerings available to businesses looking to automate their sales incentive plans, provide accurate performance insights, and align sales behavior to the company’s strategic goals. Each software offering has unique features, capabilities, strengths, and weaknesses that can be difficult to benchmark against the needs of your organization. 

A Sales Performance Management (SPM) consultancy will help you select the best solution for both your team and your company by providing SPM expertise, knowledge, and market insights. Here are some key considerations for leveraging a third party to help choose your SPM vendor. 

The right SPM consultancy and partner will: 

Share the ins-and-outs of leading SPM solutions 

A third-party SPM consultancy often has experience across a variety of software solutions with extensive knowledge about how they work and what they can do. A consultancy will know the good, the bad, and the ugly of each solution and how these characteristics could benefit your business objectives. 

Determine what features are important to your company’s sales operation 

Each company is unique and it i’s important that the features within the SPM solution

align with what your company needs, both now and in the future. An SPM consulting firm will be able to guide you through those capabilities that are necessary for your company’s sales and operational strategy through your unique lens. 

Address important questions regarding your solution approach

Your SPM consultants should guide you to determine the right approach, considering build versus buy, on-premises versus SaaS, or suite versus “best of breed.” As important questions come up throughout the vendor selection process, you will need a trustworthy, unbiased source of truth to provide you with answers that relate to your unique needs.  

Know the configuration or customization that is possible for each solution 

When purchasing enterprise-level SPM software, understanding the line between configuration and customization is critical to getting the job done correctly, and within budget. A consultancy can share the cost/benefit to multiple deployment approaches. 

Advise on which integrations will be necessary to run with your existing software 

A third-party consultancy will know the system and common data integration points and methods that will be necessary to make your SPM solution run seamlessly with your existing application environment (CRM, HRIS, ERP, etc.). 

Keep the software application roadmap in mind 

Choosing an application that is poised to grow along with you is one way to avoid having to replace it. The right consultancy will know which SPM solutions are innovating, investing in customer success, and continuously improving their products for their customers’ benefit. 

Help you make the investment justification to your leadership 

The investment to stand up and support a new SPM solution can be

significant. Building a realistic business case, supported by real-world examples, is often the difference between securing budget approval or being pushed into next year’s prioritization and review cycle. The right consultancy has the methodology, results, and stories to help guide your leadership team to make an investment in SPM. 

Save your time and energy 

If you have gone through the steps of choosing a software solution before, you know how long and tedious the process can be. Vendors can be relentless in their pursuit of your business, leading to time spent managing their expectations versus focusing on the critical aspects of the selection process. An expert third party can take the task off your hands with the assurance that you find the right software for your company. 

Argano partners with clients to choose, design, implement, and support

Sales Performance Management solutions that automate the management of variable incentive plans. As consultants, we believe in enabling our clients to achieve their strategic objectives by creating solutions that align sales behavior with key business goals. 

Contact us to learn more about how you can transform your business with an SPM solution.