Pearson

Advanced Specialist, Sales Incentives

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Advanced Specialist, Sales Incentives

Location: India
Function: Revenue Operations / Sales Incentives
Reports To: Head of Sales Incentives

Role Overview

Pearson is seeking a highly analytical and detail-oriented Advanced Specialist, Sales Incentives to support the implementation, administration, calculation, and operational governance of sales incentive compensation programs across one or more global business units.

This role will play a critical part in ensuring the accuracy, readiness, and operational execution of sales incentive plans by partnering closely with Revenue Operations, Finance, Sales Leadership, HR, Systems, and Data teams. The ideal candidate will bring strong technical and analytical expertise, advanced data literacy, CRM and Sales Performance Management (SPM) experience, and the ability to proactively identify and resolve issues within complex compensation and reporting environments.

The individual in this role will help drive scalable and sustainable compensation operations through data validation, reporting automation, incentive calculations, payout processing, and implementation support for compensation systems and tools including SPIFF and other sales performance management platforms.

Key Responsibilities

Sales Incentive Administration & Calculations

  • Support the administration and operational execution of sales incentive plans across assigned business units

  • Accurately calculate, validate, and process monthly, quarterly, and annual commission and incentive payments

  • Ensure all payouts are completed accurately and on time in accordance with approved compensation plans and payment schedules

  • Validate attainment calculations, quota achievement, accelerators, modifiers, kickers, SPIFFs, and special incentive programs

  • Investigate and resolve compensation discrepancies, calculation variances, and data integrity issues proactively

Data Analytics & Reporting

  • Perform advanced data analysis to support incentive calculations, forecasting, reporting, and operational insights

  • Develop and maintain recurring compensation reports, dashboards, payout summaries, and audit files

  • Analyze compensation trends, attainment results, payment variances, and operational metrics

  • Partner with business stakeholders to improve reporting visibility and compensation data quality

  • Leverage large data sets from multiple systems to validate incentive accuracy and readiness

Systems & Technical Operations

  • Support implementation, configuration, testing, and operational maintenance of Sales Performance Management (SPM) platforms including SPIFF (Salesforce)

  • Partner with CRM, systems, and technical teams to ensure accurate data flow between source systems and compensation platforms

  • Support UAT testing, data validation, rule testing, and implementation readiness activities

  • Assist with process automation and operational scalability initiatives

  • Maintain strong understanding of CRM systems, sales hierarchy structures, and compensation data architecture

Governance & Operational Excellence

  • Ensure adherence to compensation governance standards, payout controls, and operational procedures

  • Maintain audit-ready documentation and support internal controls related to incentive compensation processes

  • Identify opportunities for process improvement, simplification, and automation

  • Support sales leaders and stakeholders with compensation-related inquiries and operational guidance

  • Assist in launch readiness activities for new plans, compensation changes, and strategic sales initiatives

Qualifications

Required Qualifications

  • Bachelor’s degree in Business, Finance, Analytics, Information Systems, Mathematics, or related field

  • 3–6+ years of experience in sales compensation, sales operations, revenue operations, finance operations, or related analytical roles

  • Strong analytical and quantitative problem-solving skills

  • Advanced Excel and data manipulation skills

  • Experience working with CRM platforms such as Salesforce

  • Experience with Sales Performance Management (SPM) and incentive compensation tools such as SPIFF, Xactly, CaptivateIQ, Varicent, or similar platforms

  • Experience managing large datasets and validating complex calculations

  • Strong attention to detail and commitment to accuracy

  • Ability to proactively identify issues and drive resolution independently

  • Excellent organizational, communication, and stakeholder management skills