In the March issue of CIO Magazine, Laurianne McLaughlin, reviews the 3 SaaS solutions that midsize CIOs consider most often, including Salesforce.com, Centive Compel^® and NetSuite. Says Laurianne, “Centive’s Compel, the most widely used choice for sales compensation management, handles the accounting, compliance and reporting aspects of this chore.”

In the same issue, John Edwards reviews the benefits of the newer software-as-a-service (SaaS) model for finance organizations. He provides examples of companies successfully leveraging that model in accounting, CRM and sales compensation management.

In the area of sales compensation, John shares an interview with Mitch Cox, vice president of sales at Trex, a decking and railing manufacturer, who recently deployed Compel, the leading on-demand sales compensation management solution from Centive. Says Cox, “Managers love it [Compel] because they’re able to focus their time where it’s needed most. They can understand right away who’s winning and who’s losing on a sales rep basis – and there’s no disputing the data.”

More companies continue to choose Centive Compel to automate their commission processing. In Q1 2007, Centive increased the total number of Compel customers by 27%. New customer acquisitions increased by 220% over the same period in 2006. A sample of the many new customers managing sales commissions with Compel includes well known brands such as ChoicePoint, Obagi, Trend Micro, Anritsu, Salary.com and C-COR.

In addition to record bookings, Centive supported a record number of customers in making their first commission payroll using Compel in Q1 2007, increasing the number of live customers by 38% over the prior quarter. A sample of live customers leveraging Compel to automate sales compensation in Q1 includes Insight/Software Spectrum, VeriCenter, InfoGenesys, SPX and Drager Medical.

Mike Torto, CEO of Centive, speaks about sales performance management on the second day of the SaaScon Conference (April 18th) in Santa Clara, CA.

Sales is the lifeblood of any company. Ensuring sales effectiveness is a paramount issue to staying competitive. Why then have the business processes to automate sales – with the ultimate goal of increasing revenues and improving sales productivity – historically been either non-existent, broken, or islands of disconnected point solutions? Shockingly, the answer lies in the fact that many companies historically have labored under the yoke of spreadsheets to manage the complexities of sales performance. This archaic approach, fraught with errors and risk, is no longer acceptable or viable from either a sales or finance perspective. Additionally, spreadsheet-operated companies are finding themselves at a significant competitive disadvantage and risk of non-compliance with the Sarbanes-Oxley Act and other regulatory standards.

On Demand is in demand and SaaScon answers the call by announcing its second Software as a Service (SaaS) conference. SaaS is no longer a question of “Should we?” Now, its a question of “How?” Recent studies have found that 61% of North American companies with revenues over 1 billion dollars plan to adopt one or more SaaS applications in the next year. SaaS is about moving business online, but which parts? And how do you accomplish that with scalability, reliability and the metrics necessary to understand if you're succeeding.

SaaScon will be the gathering place for all participants in the SaaS community and the only place that provides practical case studies and real-world SaaS deployments presented by SMB and enterprise users who implemented them. Attendees of SaaScon will discover how to accomplish and implement SaaS objectives now, while seeing what’s just around the corner. SaaScon will cover application focus areas like CRM, HR, ERP, Billing, Collaboration and Business Intelligence, while navigating the larger issues of:

• Business services and SaaS
• How to pick a vendor and measure SaaS success
• What applications should go SaaS?
• Understanding the pay-as-you-go model
• Components as a Service: SaaS and the web services marketplace
• Platforms and ecosystems: vendor lock-in or open marketplace?
• Which vendors will succeed at SaaS?
• Overcoming the customization and integration hurdle
• Understanding the intersection of SaaS, SOA, Web 2.0, Enterprise 2.0 and Office 2.0