IBM - Best New Incentive Management Solution

Company: IBM, Armonk, NY
Company Description: IBM is a values-based enterprise of individuals who create & apply technology to make the world work better. Today, more than 400,000 IBM employees around the world invent and integrate hardware, software and services to help forward-thinking enterprises, institutions and people succeed on a smarter planet.
Nomination Category: New Product & Service Awards Categories
Nomination Sub Category: Incentive Management Solution – New

Nomination Title: Pool Plan Management Tool (PPMT)

IBM employs nearly 25,000 sales professionals compensated on a combination of base and variable commission elements. In the past, quarterly pool plan commission expense calculations were executed through spreadsheets and notes. Payments were subject to error and omission in this manual process.

Given the manual, error-prone nature of the process and high focus on commission expense, analysts spent significant time verifying manual calculations, fixing data entry errors and reconciling scores to ensure accuracy. Additionally, there is a tight 3-day scoring window. This combination caused analysts to work significant overtime hours, resulting in poor employee morale and an inability to balance workload.

To address the challenges on pool plans, GSI Finance and Transformation teamed up and executed a complete transformation of the pool plan management system. The goal was to improve efficiency and productivity by automating manual tasks and enabling a shift to higher value activities. The key to the transformation vision was the Pool Plan Management Tool (PPMT), an automated cloud-based, business intelligence enabled solution for pool plans.

The Pool Plan Management Tool was deployed in four iterations. The Checklist Module (Nov 21, 2019): Captured all the required information to administer the pool plans. Assessment Module (March 2, 2020): Captured financial information for an accurate accrual; Scoring Module (March 25, 2020): Captured scoring of each individual pool for quarterly funding. Funding Module (August 19, 2020): Information required on each pool to determine funding parameters for the pools to properly allocate the funding. An enhanced user interface revision was completed 3Q2020.

PPMT provides accurate and timely plan scoring to ~8,000 sales professional. PPMT provides a common platform for ~250 users managing the pool plans process. By standardizing and automating, late pool funding notifications went from ~7% per half to <0.5%. Reducing the number sales personnel impacted from ~600 to less than 35, a reduction of greater than 94%.

PPMT is a Cloud Based Application built on the concept of microservices and hosted using Red Hat's Openshift which is a Kubernetes based solution for container-orchestration, automating computer application deployment, scaling and management. PPMT uses different modern technologies in its services like Angular 10 for the front end and NodeJS for the main app service. Services that handle data are built on python for better data manipulation / Data Science techniques applicability. As a database it uses Cloudant, a NoSQL IBM Cloud product, which allows a lot of flexibility regarding the data structure and readability, greatly increasing the capabilities of the tool.

Major benefits from the tool:
-Streamlined overall process.
-Organized a disparate set of processes and created a standardized and organized flow of information.
-Created single source of pool plan information and will allow for historical analysis.
-Provides a complete inventory of pools and has allowed for analytics on the pool metrics
-Automated notifications as the pool moves through the process.
-Simplified the headcount allocation and assignment process for funding
-Pool Plan administration has significantly improved and prevents missing or incorrect information

Pool Set up requirements:
-PPMT contains ~250 pool checklists and produces ~5mb of unstructured user input data, creating over 30k fields of data input per year automated.
-Locking and Unlocking functions to manage different time periods
-User administration, ensuring authorized access and viewing
-Easy addition or removal of pools; easy addition of new pool type
-Updating metric elements, data sources, and other required information
-Accrual management parameters
-Progress dashboard – ability to monitor a pool through the process
-Export function provides consolidated data

Outline the market performance, critical reception, and customer satisfaction with the product or service to date. State monetary or unit sales figures to date, if possible, and how they compare to expectations or past performance. Provide links to laudatory product or service reviews. Include some customer testimonials, if applicable (up to 350 words):
The time saved by tool has been estimated at over 7,500 hours across multiple organizations. Resulting in ~$500k savings.

PPMT was designed using input from the intended users of this tool. Design workshops were held with each user group per module. After each initial module was deployed a retrospective was held. Below are quotes from the users that was shared during the retrospectives:

“Tool was quick and easy to use!”
“Great tool and process enhancement, easy to use, upload function saves time”
“Wonderful tool …. Very helpful tool. I will never go back to the old/prior manual process”
“PPMT Scoring status tracking and export to FMS scoring template also reduce workload”
“User Friendly tool and with the use of system it will have a record locked for audit”
“PPMT Instructions were excellent. Tool was easy to use”
“Having an online tool instead of using spreadsheets was incredibly helpful”
“PPMT assessment export to CEA tool is a positive improvement on prior manual process”

Reference any attachments of supporting materials throughout this nomination and how they provide evidence of the claims you have made in this nomination (up to 250 words):

PPMT Overview: https: //ibm.box.com/s/pktkqmr13lv9ulnoxgtskfyxgfa1ados

PPMT Announcement Communications
PPMT Scoring Announcement: https: //ibm.box.com/s/pyuy0mwaah6xxubxbgw358vp95xxinr7
PPMT Assessment Announcement: https: //ibm.box.com/s/it9wsj6b81mud1i9jis0bt8gquj899vp
PPMT Checklist Announcement: https: //ibm.box.com/s/t9j6jx273o9cfrd3ifeme45f68d1j8yk
PPMT Data Flow: https: //ibm.box.com/s/b16uuuxv3a3ccnp7jheizz7b5rg3qt7z

PPMT Educational Materials
3Q 2020 PPMT Education – Scoring, Approvals Module: https: //ibm.box.com/s/ug7c3egpt4f0zu1j1fe5icz5rpy8tlqr
3Q 2020 PPMT Education – Assessment Module: https: //ibm.box.com/s/a2raqzhv70afupgzhwvw22ytohti2kzk
2H 2020 PPMT Education – Funding Groups: https: //ibm.box.com/s/rfm74v4wr7u261ejz0eee4egaant8ui6