Harness, the software delivery platform that helps developers “get ship done,” uses CaptivateIQ to align its sales team with its high level business goals and to provide insight to its reps on commissions calculations.

[QUOTE 
| quote: CaptivateIQ allows me to have reliable and accurate commission calculations. I decreased the amount of time I spent on calculations themselves and it gives me confidence in the accuracy of the results.
| name: Jeff M.
| title: Head of Strategic Finance at Harness
|]

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Company

Harness knows what it’s like to optimize processes and enable teams to operate as efficiently as possible. Their mission is to allow developers to “get ship done” by automating the entire CI/CD (continuous integration/continuous delivery) process. They leverage machine learning and automation to reduce the time to deployment from hours to minutes. It’s no wonder that Harness turned to CaptivateIQ to optimize operations for its own team, specifically the finance team.

Goals

Harness is a fast-growing company with almost 100 commissionable employees. According to Jeff Merlin, Head of Strategic Finance, the company knew that its previous method of using Google Sheets would not cut it given its continued growth trajectory and growing sales team. 

Jeff had a few major goals for himself and for the team:

• 1. Decrease the amount of hours spent on commissions calculations
• 2. Leverage a platform that could optimize the entire lifecycle of commissions
• 3. Stay flexible in the face of constant change
  

Solution

Commissions calculations now happen in seconds. We went from spending a few days calculating and sending statements to reps to spending just a few hours on this.

After about a month of working closely with the CaptivateIQ Implementation team, Harness was able to experience the benefit of having a flexible commissions platform that was designed to implement complex, customized commissions plans.

Results

Increasing Transparency

I wanted to be more transparent with the sales team. We used to share statements on a quarterly basis, but with CaptivateIQ, we are able to share statements monthly before payouts go out.

Jeff understands that better real-time feedback on sales rep performance and pay can help incentivize the right behaviors. For example, he works closely with the Sales Operations team to try to design compensation plans that will drive business results. If they want to drive multi-year incentives or accelerate time to close, they choose appropriate metrics and implement compensation plans to reflect those metrics. Showing sales reps how they are performing against those metrics on a monthly vs. quarterly basis allows sales reps to stay motivated, or to course-correct if they see that they are not on track to meet their goals.

Managing the Full Lifecycle

I want to spend 80% of my time on analyzing impact vs. calculating commissions.

Jeff’s vision is to have CaptivateIQ serve as the single source of truth for the entire lifecycle of commissions. Moving forward, he would like to share compensation plans, perform calculations and distribute statements all on CaptivateIQ. This was a key factor in Jeff’s decision to partner with CaptivateIQ. 

Leveraging a platform that can handle the full lifecycle of commissions will free Jeff up to spend more time on critical tasks that impact the business.

Staying Flexible

With COVID, we had to make a lot of changes to keep our sales team focused and motivated.

Jeff knows that change is the only constant at a fast growing company like Harness. That’s why it was important for him to find a solution that would empower him to make plan changes without incurring exorbitant consultation fees or causing him to file multiple support tickets. CaptivateIQ was built to accommodate evolving companies like Harness. If you wish to make compensation plan changes and see the financial impact, you can easily run a scenario analysis on our platform. 

The Experience

CaptivateIQ had a great implementation process. Jacob did a wonderful job. We were up and running in a month. That was probably an ambitious goal, but we achieved it!

Our team’s goal is to empower our customers by adding accuracy and transparency back into the complex world of commissions, from Finance team members who are spreadsheet wizards, to Sales Reps who have never performed a VLOOKUP in their lives.

We have not run into any issues and CaptivateIQ was able to educate me in a way that I haven’t had to open up any odd support tickets.

If you're looking for a better way to manage your sales commissions, check out our buyer's guide on what you should look for.