Bandwidth is a publicly traded cloud communications software company that has long been a CaptivateIQ Incentives customer, utilizing the platform to support their usage-based model to payout on a wide set of commission variables tied to minutes, credits, and adjustments. While their commissions process was handled, their revenue and commissions expense forecasting process was “a hot potato” without a clear owner. When CaptivateIQ launched its Catalyst product, Bandwidth saw an opportunity to make forecasting more efficient and optimized.

The Hero

Meet Bandwidth's RevOps Leader

Hannah Ray, Manager of Revenue Operations
She started as a Compensation Analyst and even spent a brief stint on the sales team. Eventually, she expanded her scope to broader revenue operations before being promoted to the leader of the team. As the system owner of CaptivateIQ, she is always looking for new ways to make better use of the platform and save her team time.

The Challenge

A manual, month-by-month
modeling process

Bandwidth relied heavily on Excel to forecast its revenue and commission expenses. Before CaptivateIQ, the process was manual, with the team inputting projections from individual sales leaders into an Excel file, filling out multiple reference sheets, and painstakingly stitching together a full forecast model. The work was slow, heavily reliant on data imports and exports, and the sheer number of manual steps increased the risk of human error.

The bigger problem? Time. The workload limited the team’s ability to explore forecasting methods that would have provided clearer insight into their commissions and payout process.

Key constraints before Catalyst

• Forecasting logic lived across several spreadsheet files
• New scenario models required manual calculations and analysis
• The lengthy process relied on multiple teams

[QUOTE
| quote: We do this whole process manually each month and it’s insane. CaptivateIQ literally has all this data and can do it. Why am I wasting so much of my time on this?
| name: Hannah R.
| title: Manager of Revenue Operations, Bandwidth
| image: https://cdn.prod.website-files.com/5e20acf46e0215232a00fa2f/697d1ef0dff51714b6d20b6f_Mask%20group%20(2).png
|]

The Turning Point

From fragmented to unified

Bandwidth had been a long-time CaptivateIQ Incentives customer, relying on the solution to manage a complex commissions process. The team trusted the platform, but modeling and commission expense forecasting still lived in manual files that were difficult to manage.

When the Bandwidth team first heard of Catalyst, they were instantly intrigued. Their experience with Incentives gave them confidence that CaptivateIQ could support the modeling work that gave their Compensation and RevOps teams headaches each month.

The Results

Faster, more powerful commissions expense forecasting and a cleaner monthly process

After just a few months of use, Catalyst has changed how the team approaches revenue and commission expense forecasting by giving them a faster and more powerful way to combine actuals with projections, test multiple scenarios, and review outputs without manually rebuilding models in spreadsheets.

Reduced manual work

Catalyst removed a large portion of the month-end math, including the complicated scenario logic that created the highest workload.

Faster scenario modeling

Catalyst supports new projections and scenarios without the need to duplicate sheets or formulas. Hannah’s team now connects updated, live data into Catalyst and shares model outputs in one connected workspace.

Connected data sources

Catalyst gave Bandwidth an intuitive and reliable method for joining related data sources into one forecast, strengthening predictions so they contribute to their analysis in a meaningful way.


More time freed up for strategic work

With a streamlined forecasting process, the team could now focus on solving more strategic problems. This extra capacity paired with Catalyst helped them spot new use cases they had not considered before and unlock new opportunities, such as:


• SDR commissions forecasting based on seasonality and role
• Revenue by account family by year analysis
• Compensation plan cost analysis

[QUOTE
| quote: It helped us see where there are other opportunities for forecasting. CaptivateIQ gets 
it right the first time. I’m not having to override data or confuse the reps. It’s clean, it’s concise, and it’s correct.
| name: Hannah R.
| title: Manager of Revenue Operations, Bandwidth
| image: https://cdn.prod.website-files.com/5e20acf46e0215232a00fa2f/697d1ef0dff51714b6d20b6f_Mask%20group%20(2).png
|]

What's Next

Expanding Catalyst models across more teams

The Bandwidth team plans to:

• Extend Catalyst forecasting to XDR compensation
• Continue replacing manual steps with automated system logic
• Explore additional monthly forecasting models that previously required heavy Excel work

With Catalyst, the team finally broke through years of manual processes, completing long-standing initiatives and eliminating the Excel forecasting that held them back. They’ve only scratched the surface, and are now looking to expand their usage to continue building value for their team and organization.