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Broadcom: Enhancing Sales Performance with Real-Time Compensation Insight
Technology Category
- Analytics & Modeling - Real Time Analytics
- Platform as a Service (PaaS) - Application Development Platforms
Applicable Industries
- Electronics
- Finance & Insurance
Applicable Functions
- Sales & Marketing
Use Cases
- Inventory Management
- Real-Time Location System (RTLS)
Services
- System Integration
The Challenge
Broadcom, a global leader in semiconductor solutions, faced a significant challenge in managing its sales compensation. The company's compensation plans were becoming increasingly complex, and the lack of real-time visibility into compensation was causing dissatisfaction among its highly skilled sales team. The salespeople, most of whom are qualified engineers, were unable to monitor their performance and predict their compensation, which was affecting their motivation and productivity. The company's compensation reporting processes were manual, labor-intensive, and could only produce reports once per quarter. This lack of timely insight into compensation was affecting the sales team's performance and the company's ability to motivate them effectively. Furthermore, Broadcom needed to make compensation more transparent without significantly increasing the headcount in the compensation team.
About The Customer
Broadcom Corporation is a global innovator in semiconductor solutions for wired and wireless communications. The company specializes in state-of-the-art system-on-a-chip and embedded software solutions. It is estimated that 99.98 percent of internet traffic crosses at least one Broadcom chip. Founded in 1991, the company employs 12,400 people, 77 percent of whom are engineers. In 2013, it generated revenues of USD8.31 billion. Broadcom's products are so technically advanced that most of its salespeople need to be qualified engineers. The company's compensation plans cover payees in 22 countries across 15 different currencies.
The Solution
Broadcom implemented IBM® Incentive Compensation Management to provide its sales team with real-time, deal-by-deal insight into their compensation. The solution, part of the IBM Watson™ Foundations portfolio, enabled salespeople to analyze their compensation down to the level of individual deals and use what-if capabilities to predict the rewards available for closing future deals. The system was entirely self-contained and owned by the business, eliminating dependencies on the IT team and allowing the company to focus on developing compensation plans that truly addressed the needs of the business. The solution also provided a built-in 'dispute' button, allowing salespeople to raise queries with the compensation team directly to correct any problems. Furthermore, the solution included a what-if analysis tool, enabling salespeople to model the outcomes of potential deals in their pipeline and understand the effect of closing specific deals on their compensation.
Operational Impact
Quantitative Benefit
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