IBM Partner Paves Way for Automation

Looking to automate the design, administration, reporting and analysis of sales-incentive and variable compensation for its sales force, the California State Automobile Association (CSAA) has implemented a joint open-standards-based Enterprise Incentive Management (EIM) solution with help from IBM and partner Callidus Software.

The integrated solution brings together San Jose, Calif.-based Callidus' TrueComp and TrueInformation products, which run on IBM's WebSphere Internet infrastructure software, IBM DB2 Universal Database and eServer pSeries system. The CSAA had previously relied on spreadsheets and paper reports that were mailed or delivered to its 600 field agents across more than 60 locations.

With the solution in place, the CSAA aims to bring new insurance products to market faster while also making sales information available to field agents on demand. The CSAA estimates the time it takes to make strategic changes to compensation to be reduced by more than 50 percent. In addition, the CSAA aims to analyze and track transactional information more efficiently to help improve customer retention and increase sales productivity.

The EIM implementation is part of the CSAA's Strategic Transformation for Accelerating Results (STAR) project--a multiphased business and technology initiative led by IBM that aims to help the CSAA better serve its members and support other AAA partnerships by improving its systems, operations and business processes.