Case Studies
ZIM Integrated Shipping Services is one of the 12 leading companies in the global container shipping industry. Since its establishment in 1945, the company provides logistic and operational solutions to its customers and operates a network of global shipping routes that reach over 120 countries worldwide. ZIM encourages advanced technology and excellence in its entire activity domains.
Incentives Solutions implement the commission models at ZIM Integrated Shipping Services, for calculating commission and incentives, utilizing their solution JOOPY. The tool provides a solution to the entire sales organization at ZIM, which employs hundreds of people worldwide. The financial scope of this deal is estimated in the hundreds of thousands of Shekels. The solution was branded ZIMCENTIVE at ZIM, and was officially launched to the company’s employees in early December.
The commission models and target management of ZIM’s salespeople were implemented in JOOPY within 8 weeks, in a process that included the full automation of sales performance transactions data loading daily.
The solution provides ZIM’s salespeople and management with an updated daily overview of the performance versus targets, as well as the commission payment. In addition, the system provides the salespeople and all the different management levels, a forecasted sales performance, and expected commission payment until the end of the quarter. Beginning in 2018, the salespeople and management at ZIM will be able to follow their sales performance and expected quarterly sales using the mobile application GO JOOPY. The solution also helps salespeople by guiding them on where to focus their efforts to meet their sales targets. In light of the global distribution of ZIM’s sales organization, the system supports multi currencies and allows each salesperson and different management levels to see their financial information in their local currency.
The quarterly sales and commission payment forecasting capability of the system serves as a significant financial tool for ZIM which assists the company in revenue planning throughout the year. The tips and information which the solution provides to the salespeople and management, regarding their target attainment, drives the organization effectively to achieve their sales goals.
Eli Glickman, CEO, ZIM: “In the past year, we have launched a revolution at ZIM, to improve the company’s performance. A significant part of this revolution is the deployment of the commission and incentive models for the salespeople. The deployment of these models signifies a significant breakthrough at ZIM and serves as an example in the entire shipping industry. We found a real partnership with Incentives Solutions. The solution which the company provides, as well as the professional implementation process, which was truly efficient, together with ZIM personnel, allowed us to deploy our commission and incentives models effectively and reach the entire sales organization, which is distributed worldwide. The availability, transparency, and up-to-date visibility of information allow the entire sales network to have a ‘finger on the pulse’ and attain their sales targets.”
Amir Fishslevich, CEO, Incentives Solutions:“We suggest the management team at ZIM for significant change on how managing this process. There aren’t many companies of this caliber who can decide they need a solution and within a month select a vendor, and within two months complete a complex implantation project. The solution, JOOPY, is intended for sales organizations, and we are proud that ZIM’s sales network, which is spread across the globe, selected JOOPY to improve their business performance. The transparency and real-time visibility of sales performance and target attainment, as well as updated quarterly forecasting, allows each salesperson and management significant control, and significantly increases the ability to improve performance and to attain targets and sales expectations.”
Checkmarx, a multinational software security company headquartered in Israel, required a dedicated solution for elaborate planning and managing incentives that appealed to high-tech companies with numerous and diverse commission models.
To supply that need, Incentives Solutions has introduced among its leading products, JOOPY Tech, which has already been adopted by multiple technology companies including Amdocs, Kenshoo, and others.
The dynamic nature of the high-tech industry induces continual adjustments in sales targets, incentives, and in including new products and services, and the use of spreadsheets was found to be extremely inefficient and led to extensive manual work and inaccuracies.
Implementing JOOPY tech had provided Checkmarx with powerful, flexible, and user-friendly capabilities to manage the incentives and different commission models of hundreds of sales reps and customer support employees in 70 branches around the world.
The JOOPY Tech system was developed to address the complex challenge of managing incentives of salespeople at companies that develop and commercialize technology products and services. Often, several employees are involved in each deal, including the sales manager, a salesperson, a pre-sale employee, the regional product manager, the regional manager, and others. Splitting the credit for any sale between the various employees is both complex and dynamic.
JOOPY Tech offers Checkmarx an end-to-end solution for managing the incentives of its sales force. The system initially produces a “Goal Sheet” that presents sales targets of each relevant employee as well as his or her incentives based on various scenarios. Secondly, the system’s rules calculate the incentives while considering the relationship between all the various employees, including the territorial factors. Finally, the incentives determined by the platform are fed into the Workflow system for approval by the relevant managers.
The system presents in real-time to each member of the Checkmarx sales force the complete and exact picture of the employee’s sales performance and incentives. The employee can also track in real-time the accumulation of incentives and how they were calculated, as well as verify the meeting of targets and other factors. Checkmarx managers are able to produce reports that present the macro picture of both performance and incentives, understand trends, and gain various insights. The system can adjust the parameters resulting from changes in the market, new targets, new products, and services, and more. Implementing the changes is done automatically throughout the system and every salesperson in accordance with his or her personal ‘Goal Sheet’, without any need for manual input.
Amir Fishlevich, CEO and founder of Incentive Solutions said “Dedicated incentives management systems can improve motivation and trust of the sales and service force and lead to substantial increases in sales. Surprisingly, 90% of the high-tech companies still use manual tools, which lead to waste of resources and inaccuracies and failure to take advantage of the full potential of the sales force. The hidden excess commissions can comprise 3-5% of all paid incentives and amount to hundreds of thousands of dollars per quarter at some companies. Companies that fail to present to an employee in real time his or her performance and the expected incentive are in essence working against the rationale behind the use of incentives. Checkmarx and other leading high-tech companies in Israel and globally are heralding a turning point for the industry regarding the impact of this important field to their future.”
Calculating volume commissions of insurance agents is one of the most complex challenges for insurance companies, due to the high level of competition in the sector and the need to implement intricate business models over a short period and with maximum transparency. Incentives Solutions, the leading company in Israel in planning and managing incentives and commissions for sales, services and distribution channels, is launching for the first time in Israel an advanced system that enables the implementation of complex business models for insurance agents. The technological solution, JOOPY Insurance, was developed by Incentives Solutions in cooperation with Clal Insurance and Finance. Starting in 2020, the system was installed by Clal Insurance and Finance and gives the company a means of managing work agreements with its agents and the calculating of volume commissions while at the same time offering a solution to complex models.
The Incentives Solutions solution is defined by the Gartner research firm as one of the most innovative in a new global market niche of Sales Performance Management (SPM) software that is growing rapidly. The market for SPM software rose by 14% in 2019 with sales topping $1 billion. According to research estimates, by the end of 2020 about 40% of the companies who pay commissions to more than 100 employees will institute this kind of solution. These kinds of systems increase sales by agents by 10-12% and hence their commissions.
The JOOPY Insurance system supplies end to end management capabilities, including the defining of an individual work agreement of an agent (including his specific conditions in each insurance segment and type of policy). It also installs the agreement including all its conditions as resulting from the commission calculating system. Any regulatory or other change can be quickly adopted, in agreements or as part of the system used for calculating commissions and can be carried out without any manual work.
Agents will be presented with a unified picture in the insurance company’s website, up to date and detailed of all data related to commissions, the volume as calculated by the JOOPY Insurance system, in all segments of activity. The agent will be able to track commissions and the way they are calculated as well as checking the meeting of targets. The system includes analysis tools and management reports.
Amir Fishlevich, CEO and founder of Incentives Solutions: “We are bringing good news to the insurance industry and its ability to effectively and transparently manage relations between large insurance companies with agencies and agents. The manual work using Excel or outdated software programs is no longer suitable for competitive markets like the one that exists in the insurance industry and now requires the automation of the related processes. The solution not only proposes unprecedented savings and efficiency, it also serves as a stimulus for increasing sales, profits and growth.”
Sharon Pipano, a senior VP in charge of agent agreements and commissions at Clal Insurance and Finance: “Managing commission agreements of agents, calculating volume commissions and dealing with frequent business and regulatory changes in the insurance sector present a significant challenge. Incentives Solutions supplied our company an effective solution to the challenges and gave us a competitive advantage. The system enables us to implement new models and solutions quickly and at a low operating cost. We found the necessary professional know-how and the technological solution required at Incentives Solutions, as well as a deep understanding of the challenges with which the insurance industry is dealing with. This was underscored during the high quality and professional installation process that is currently taking place.”
For the press releases: Walla Finance, Founder, Polisa, Sponser, IT News, Anet
AIG, the world’s largest international insurance company with headquarters in the US and branches in over 140 countries began operations in Israel in 1997. AIG Israel Insurance Company Ltd. offers insurance services (P&C, life and healthcare insurance) and operates as a subsidiary of American International Group Inc.
The company’s structure includes profit centers divided by various insurance products as well as by departments: customer service, claims, IT, human resources, accounting, marketing, sales, etc.
The Need for Change
The Israeli branch employs large numbers of salespeople and customer service representatives, whose salaries are largely structured on achievement-based incentives. These incentives packages are an integral part of the company’s sales activities, but the systems and the processes involved in it were complex, lengthy, labor intensive and sensitive to human error.
Compensation in the insurance industry is applied to many different products, packages, and distribution channels, but it must also take into consideration long-term sales, up-sales, cross-sales, and cancelled orders. In addition, some sales are “closed” by more than one person, and the compensation for that sale needs to reflect the level of contribution of each person.
AIG was using multiple Excel sheets based on information from various sources to calculate compensation: information from the operating system, manual data submitted by the accounting department, etc. Complicated calculations were embedded in the Excel sheets, making it difficult to track the calculation process.
As a result of all of these complications, calculating monthly salaries demanded a lot of time of various senior and mid management personnel. Changing the compensation system was nearly impossible, and it was necessary to implement internal controls to prevent mistakes in calculations.
Project scope and criteria
AIG was aware of the need to find a solution to these problems. They defined the following criteria for a new compensation management system:
Closed financial supervision of planning, management, and payment of incentives
Flexible incentive management with a wide range of parameters
Independence for key company users of the system so that they may set the incentives’ logic without turning to the IT department for assistance
“What If” simulations to help determine the optimum incentive model for every situation
Create greater efficiencies in the monthly salary calculations
Automatic allocation of salaries between the three profit centers
Transparency of the calculation process so that employees can see it in an easy and convenient way.
Implementation Process
Following a successful Proof of Concept project with Incentives Solutions, complete operational capacity was implemented at AIG. Most of the effort in implementing the system was invested in analyzing and defining the needs for the system’s data that are necessary for calculating incentives in support the sales strategies of AIG.
Initially, the key users (System Managers) were from the Sales Department. Once the system had been successfully implemented in Sales, other departments began to use it as well.
Reaping the Rewards
The following benefits became apparent once the system had been implemented:
Highly flexible – it is simple and fast to change the various modules used to calculate incentives, and as a result this feature is widely used. The Sales Managers have displayed a lot of creativity in calculating compensations, and therefore have added a lot of interest and challenge to the work environment. The reality shows that the calculating modules are changed almost every month.
Supervision and sound business processes – the system enables the presentation of the original calculations and easy analysis of the results.
Supports SOX and division of authority. Today, the Accounting Department manages the incentives program. There is transparency regarding the cost of incentives and their significance through the division of authority for organizing the sales that defines the incentives method from the Accounting Department that implements those methods.
Increased excellence – the system allows the activation of a variety of measurements and incentives simultaneously. Employees are confident in the results since they can see them in real time. The time needed to deal with salary clarifications has been significantly reduced.
AIG Maximizes its Investment
Ms. Levit, COO and VP IT at AIG, says, “The system has definitely proven itself. The system has contributed significantly in increasing the motivation and performance of its “clients” in Customer Service and Sales and helped increasing the level of control and supervision at the Accounting Department. Since its deployment, Incentives Solutions is a provider and contributor to AIG’s growth and development. “
Israeli company Incentives Solutions is in its final stages of implementing the models at Lease4u, for commission and incentive calculations, for the sales team nationwide. Lease4u is the leasing channel of the Carasso Motors Group, and one of the leading leasing and car rental companies in the country. The financial information of this contact has not been released; however, it is estimated to be in the hundreds of thousands of Israeli Shekels.
The solution, INCENTIVES-SPM, will allow Lease4u to increase motivation among their salespeople, by showing them updated competition information relating to their personal rank within their team, their personal sales progress in relation to the set of personal sales targets, forecasted end of month sales, and the ability for salespeople to create personal simulations in order to optimize their sales commission payments. The system categorizes the incentives into quantified and qualitative based incentives, and when presented to the salesperson, they are presented with the corresponding category, thus, allowing the sales reps to better understand their personal performance.
The implementation project was notably a rapid one. In two months, seven models were implemented for the sales team at Lease4u, which is comprised of tens of sales people. In addition, an automation process was built for the entire data loading process, commission and incentives calculation were set up, and the results were exported from the SPM system to the corresponding salary systems at Lease4u. The solution which was set up at Lease4u is expected to support the next phase—implementing the Go JOOPY mobile application, which will bring an additional level of control and monitoring, and will allow salespeople to increase their personal performance.
Erez Cohen, VP Car Sales, Lease4u: “The implementation project at Lease4u, by Incentives Solutions, was a very rapid and efficient project. The solution provides the salespeople at Lease4u with significant and qualitative information which highly contributes to the salesperson’s improvement of personal goals, thus improving the overall business results of the entire company. We believe that the more a salesperson understands his/her commission model and is aware of their achievements, he/she will be more focused and achieve better goals.”
Amir Fishslevich, CEO, Incentives Solutions: “From our experience, a personal, qualitative and up-to-date view, which is provided to the salesperson during his/her busy, daily activities, effectively enrolls them to the organization’s business targets. I want to take this opportunity and thank the Lease4u team which effectively cooperated with our implementation team and significantly contributed to the rapid implementation process of this project”
About Lease4u: Lease4u is the leasing channel of the Carasso Motors Group, one of the earliest companies established in Israel in the car importing business, as well as a leader in promoting the branch of vehicles. They have 30 years of experience and reputation in this field. Lease4u offers commercial leasing, private leasing, vehicle finance, new car sales, and car rental services. Lease4u has clients from all market sectors: private, commercial, nationwide.
The Council of Sports Betting implement an Incentives system that incentivizes and compensates 1,600 TOTO stations and a network of distributors across the country.
The Incentives system will serve as a central platform for incentives management based on targets and performance for the entire TOTO sales network. The system will centralize the entire planning process, the ongoing management of agent compensation, the sales, and the marketing network. With the aid of the system, the council will manage all of the target models, as well as the monthly and annual sale specials, to boost sales. Eli Ben Simon, the Chief information officer for the TOTO: “The system offers new and innovative capabilities for building incentive models for sales agencies across the country, defining sales targets for all points of sales, for different products, with full integration. The system enables the planning and monitoring, with full transparency, together with the council partners, using channels such as the internet and mobile. The system integrates with the architecture of other systems efficiently, and uniquely handles all of the measuring processes, the incentives process of the sales network within the council, and down the line, the service departments, business partners, and management of/by targets.” Tal Frank, Co-CEO at Incentives Solutions: “Reaching sales potential in a job which has distributors and agencies poses a challenge that many companies face. The deployment of an Incentives Solutions system is a growth engine that is in constant contact with agents and distributors. Commission and incentives are the fuel for this relationship. With the right management, sales growth is the result! Companies that have implemented the system, have seen significant streamlining in all of their business processes, due to this mechanization, and significantly save operations and development costs. We are appreciative to the projects team at Toto for the quality partnership work they have done in implementing the system.”
