When do we begin the planning process?
You have successfully rolled out the new plans, territories and quotas for the year. You begin to review how the process went and the inevitable question comes up “When do we begin the planing process for next year?”. Here are some things to consider when outlining the planning process and timeline.
Begin with “Drop Dead” dates and then work backward from there:
Communication and distribution of the plan, quota and territory for the given year to the commercial team
Confirmation of the changes that need to be reviewed, implemented and tested in your CRM, Incentive Compensation Management and HRIS system.
Considerations for your timeline:
Senior Leadership Team :
Update the SLT throughout the process so the SLT member is not reviewing a significant plan change all at once at the end of the planning process.
Build extra time for traveling and conflicts from the SLT if they are the gatekeepers to getting your plan signed off
Stakeholders: Determine which stakeholders should be providing input, their level of engagement and if they need to provide any approval
“Down Stream Impacts”: This should be covered by your Stakeholders consideration but it worth repeating. If you are making changes you need to consider how this impacts other processes and resource allocation on when these changes are being made. There could be a long line for the next SPRINT release from your Enterprise Support team that you are currently not even on
Commercial Training: Depending on the level of change or system updates it is important to build materials that the commercial team can leverage and also a training campaign such as webinars/team meetings. Sales Kickoff meetings offer a great opportunity to meet with the commercial team to provide training.
Sales Operations/Sales Compensation Team:
Review bandwidth and multiple priorities to ensure timing is not overloading the team. Build additional time into the planning process to not overwhelm the team.
Consider the level of involvement from the team on the changes and try to be proactive with closing out items ahead of time prior to the usual busy times such as year end or the first month of the year.
Vendor/Sytem Updates: CRM/HRIS/ICM
In House Team/Shared Resources : Assign a project manager and build out a standard discovery, build, test and implement timeline to be used for any possible changes.
Managed Services/Consultants: Reach out to this team early to ensure you have their commitment and receive an SOW for the anticipated work.
Overall, the earlier you start your planning process the better but you need to build flexibility into your timeline as well to accomodate multiple priorities and stakeholder input. The ability to communicate clearly the end goal and track progress along the way will be crucial to ensuring you meet your objectives.
Best of luck.