Ribbon Communications, a publicly traded telecommunications company headquartered in Plano, Texas, had spent years growing organically and through acquisitions. Each acquisition brought new sales reps, compensation plans, and data to manage. As the business scaled, the manual process used to manage sales commissions became harder to maintain.
"Prior to moving to Varicent, we were managing the sales commission process in spreadsheets. Literally one tab per employee," said Ken Brennan, Global Controller at Ribbon Communications.
The challenge went beyond calculating commissions. Ribbon needed a process that could support growth, maintain confidence in the numbers, and give leaders visibility and the opportunity to act on what the data was telling them.
Today, the team runs commissions for the entire global sales organization with one administrator, has never failed an audit, and has reduced sales disputes by 30%.
Getting there started two decades ago, when Ribbon moved off spreadsheets and onto Varicent.
As Ribbon expanded, spreadsheets became harder to maintain. Compensation data influenced forecasts, financial reporting, seller earnings, and executive decision-making. Every manual calculation introduced another opportunity for error, while every new seller added complexity to the process.
For Brennan, accuracy was non-negotiable. “One of our largest objectives was accuracy. Spreadsheets can leave more room for error. It leads to the possibility of somebody miskeying a number or has a bad formula while aggregating data.”
Calculating sales commissions became increasingly difficult to support as the business grew.
“One of the issues we also saw ourselves having when we were using a more manual process is that it was not a sustainable process for our employees.”
Before Varicent, sellers often waited for the commissions team to calculate and distribute payouts before they could understand how they were tracking against quota. Questions surfaced late in the process, which created additional work for sales and finance teams.
With Varicent, sellers gained access to real-time commission and attainment data. They could see how transactions affected quota attainment, understand how performance translated into pay, and raise questions while activity was still fresh.
“Once transitioning to Varicent, the sales team on a regular real-time basis can go in and see, well, I made this sale two weeks ago. I can see it's in the system. I can see that my attainment's calculated correctly. My commission looks good. So then when they get to the end of the period, there's nothing to dispute,” Brennan explained.
Instead of handling a surge of questions at quarter end, Ribbon's commissions team now addresses questions as they arise. Finance has more time to investigate concerns, and sellers have more visibility into how performance translates into pay.
“One of the big benefits of Varicent was the ability to reduce our level of disputes by 30%,” Brennan said.
Finance, HR, payroll, FP&A, sales leadership, and compensation administration now work from the same data instead of reconciling competing versions of the numbers.
Many organizations add administrative overhead as compensation programs become more complex. Ribbon took a different approach.
As the company expanded, the commissions process continued to support new sellers, compensation plans, and acquired teams without needing additional headcount to manage it.
“When performing more manual calculations, you would need a team of our company size, of at least several people. We have one person now as our system administrator for Varicent,” Brennan said.
That model has remained in place through years of growth.
Some companies acquired by Ribbon had multiple employees dedicated to managing commissions for organizations much smaller than Ribbon. By consolidating those processes into a single platform, Ribbon avoided adding administrative overhead every time the business expanded.
“When performing more manual calculations, you would need a team of our company size, of at least several people. We have one person now as our system administrator for Varicent.”
For Ribbon, visibility into compensation data created benefits well beyond commission administration.
Varicent's attainment reports gave finance and leadership visibility into seller performance throughout the quarter. Teams could monitor attainment, understand the impact on commission expense, and update forecasts using current information. Leadership needs to understand what is happening inside the quarter, not after it closes.
That visibility changed how the business operates.
“Varicent allows us to be more proactive rather than reactive, in that we can see on a real-time basis how we're doing compared to the quarter forecast,” Brennan explained.
Now, instead of discovering issues after the quarter closed, leadership gained the ability to identify risks and opportunities while there was still time to respond.
“The biggest benefit in my mind is the access to the real-time data that allows decision-makers to potentially take corrective action throughout the quarter, rather than waiting until the end of the quarter to see, at which point it's too late.”
For Brennan, one of the most important outcomes is confidence.
As a public company, Ribbon operates under annual audits and Sarbanes-Oxley controls. The commissions process sits under scrutiny from auditors, internal controls teams, and finance leadership.
Managing that process through spreadsheets required significant effort. Auditors had to trace calculations through multiple tabs and validate results against source data.
Today, the process is easier to support, easier to audit, and easier to trust.
“We've never had an audit adjustment, an audit issue, an internal control discrepancy come up around this process,” Brennan said.
Varicent also helps prevent issues before they create downstream problems. Duplicate transactions can be identified before they trigger duplicate payouts, reducing the risk of overpayments and manual corrections.
For Brennan, the value is simple. “It has definitely allowed us to be more effective from an audit perspective, which gives us less risk, which from a controller perspective, obviously, helps me sleep at night,” Brennan said.
“It has definitely allowed us to be more effective from an audit perspective, which gives us less risk, which from a controller perspective, obviously, helps me sleep at night.”
When we did not have Varicent in and everything was tracked in Excel, it could be the end of the quarter before you realize that there was a problem. And at that point, it's too late to react. Hi, U. I'm Ken Brennan. I'm the global controller here at Ribbon Communications. As global controller, I have teams globally that report to me from the general accounting functions, technical accounting, inventory management, payroll, and financial and SEC reporting.
Ribbon Communications is a global leader in secure cloudnative voice, IP, and optical networking solutions. We've been with Varicent approximately two decades now. Prior to moving to Varicent, we were managing the sales commission process in Excel. Literally one tab per employee. The number of comped employees that we were calculating the commissions for, managing became to be way too much to manage in Excel.
It's much more reliable and a trusted source to have that coming out of Varicent. We have visibility on a regular real-time basis to see how our sales team is performing against their quotas, which gives us real-time access into the commission expense that we can expect to record in a quarter. One way that Varicent has helped us from an efficiencies perspective that also impacts profitability is being able to have a very small team that maintains the system.
When performing, you know, more manual calculations, you would need a team of our company size at least five people. We have one person now as our system administrator uh for Varicent. Even as we acquire companies, we're able to keep that one person. she can roll the new employees in and we don't need any additional resources.
One of the big benefits of Varicent was the ability to reduce our level of disputes by 30%. The sales team on a regular real-time basis can go in and see, well, I made this sale 2 weeks ago. I can see it's in the system. I can see that my attainment's calculated correctly. My commission looks good.
So then when they get to the end of the period, there's nothing to dispute. Whereas if they didn't have that and didn't have that trust and transparency, I'm sure that we would, you know, see higher turnover. We've never had audit adjustment, an audit issue, a internal control, you know, discrepancy come up around this process. Varicent attainment reports are important to us.
Uh they allow some strategic decisions to be made by the leadership team. Prior to Varicent, some of those decisions are made on, you know, you think you know where you're at or you kind of know directionally, but you didn't have real data in front of you. Now, with the attainment report, you can actually see where you're you're rolling up. And again, it's real time.
It's not waiting until the end of the quarter when it's too late to take corrective action. Varicent incentives gives us scalability and efficiency and effectiveness which from a controller perspective obviously you know helps me sleep at night.
Ribbon Communications (Nasdaq: RBBN) is a global provider of voice communications software, IP routing, and optical networking to mobile and wireline service providers, enterprises, critical infrastructure and defense sectors. We support our customers’ Path to Autonomous Networks by leveraging the latest AIOps automation platforms and Agentic AI technologies, helping them deliver better customer experiences, reduce operational costs, and achieve sustainable growth. To learn more about Ribbon, visit rbbn.com.