In today's efficiency-focused business landscape, revenue teams are adapting their compensation strategies to align more closely with profitability goals.

To help compensation, revenue, and finance leaders better understand how they stack up against their peers on the path to more efficient growth, we’re excited to share our Sales Compensation Benchmarks report, which reveals how top organizations are structuring their incentive programs – and where they’re finding opportunities to improve.

The Current State of Sales Compensation

The comprehensive report shows that most organizations follow the industry standard 50/50 split between base and variable pay, providing sellers financial stability and maintaining strong incentives for performance, all at once. The report also shows that today’s teams are focusing on just 2-3 key metrics per plan, allowing sellers to maintain clear priorities rather than diluting their attention across too many objectives.

The report also digs into today’s OTE (On-Target Earnings) and sales performance trends, including quota attainment, retention rates, and more.

Operational Challenges in Compensation Management

Unfortunately, operational inefficiencies within incentive compensation workflows continue to persist. 

Organizations typically update their compensation plans just once per year, which may not provide enough flexibility as business priorities shift, and even more concerning is the time investment required for commission management – teams spend an equivalent to 4 full business day processing commission payouts, and they report spending even more time on other manual tasks including triaging payout approvals and troubleshooting errors.

This represents a significant opportunity for automation, as companies that have implemented ICM (Incentive Compensation Management) solutions such as CaptivateIQ report dramatic reductions in processing time.

Technology's Role in Sales Compensation

The use of emerging technologies to improve tedious compensation processes continues to grow. For example, research from the Alexander Group shows that around 41% of companies are currently using or actively deploying AI in their compensation workflows, and another 38% plan to implement it soon.

The top applications for AI improvements include cost modeling, analytics and reporting, and quota setting – areas where more innovative tech can provide both time savings and strategic insights.

Addressed in the full report, B2B companies today are leveraging technology in several key ways, including:

1. AI-Driven Opportunity Discovery: Uncovering growth potential within existing markets and in untapped areas
2. Tailored Customer Engagement: Using generative AI to customize offerings based on specific customer needs
3. Software Automation: Integrating digital solutions to prioritize opportunities and accelerate value delivery

These and other innovative solutions are helping revenue teams align their efforts more precisely with organizational goals while reducing administrative burdens.

Opportunities for Optimization

While progress is consistently being made on the path to efficient growth, there are plenty of opportunities for revenue teams to improve in several key areas, including:

1. Fine-tuning Quota Attainment: Many teams are falling just short of optimal quota attainment levels. Identifying underlying causes for missed targets—whether unrealistic quotas, insufficient training, or lack of motivation—can unlock greater revenue potential.
2. Automating Manual Processes: The significant time spent on manual commission calculations represents an opportunity to leverage technology for greater efficiency and accuracy, freeing up valuable time for more strategic activities.
3. Maintaining Agile Compensation Plans: As business objectives evolve, compensation plans must be regularly reviewed and refined to ensure they motivate behaviors that directly contribute to financial goals.

For more insights and the complete findings, download the full report.