Xactly is one of the first pure Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) providers to join the ITA as an alliance partner, at a time when on-demand SaaS offerings are gaining considerable traction in the SMB space due to their superior economics and flexibility and the expanded opportunities they create for channel partners serving the SMB market.

"Xactly is one of the most interesting technology players addressing the SMB space today," said Robert Anderson, vice president, SMB Research, Gartner Group. "From their launching point in on-demand sales incentive compensation management, they are moving aggressively to empower SMBs with an entire suite of integrated on-demand solutions for comprehensive sales performance management, extend the value of existing SaaS implementations such as salesforce.com, and create new value through close collaborations with its growing ecosystem of SMB-savvy strategic partners."

According to Access Markets International (AMI) Partners, SMBs are adopting SaaS solutions at twice the rate as four years ago, with 21 percent of small businesses and 31 percent of medium-size companies now leveraging SaaS.

SMBs turn to SaaS solutions, such that the Xactly Incent on-demand sales compensation management application, to enjoy extensive functionality, pay-as-you-go subscription models and speedy implementations, coupled with no upfront hardware and software expenses and ongoing maintenance fees. In many cases, traditional enterprise software solutions are simply out of reach for SMBs, while an increasing number of SaaS solutions deliver world-class software functionality at a fraction of the cost.

"We are delighted that Xactly has joined the IT Alliance as pure SaaS members will only add more value to the association," said Ron Eagle, president, IT Alliance. "SaaS has proved not only to have staying power, but substantial momentum in meeting the particular needs of SMB organizations. All of ITA's constituencies - from VARs to CIOs to vendors - can benefit greatly from the opportunities engendered by the SaaS phenomenon."

Xactly Incent is a 100-percent on-demand SaaS solution that enables sales and finance executives to design, implement, manage, audit and optimize sales compensation management programs easily and affordably. Xactly provides a number of complementary solutions to Xactly Incent, which can be added in a modular approach to enhance a company's investment in its sales performance management strategy. These add-on modules include Xactly Analytics, Xactly Modeling, Xactly Credit Assignment, Xactly Rewards and Xactly Data Management.

Xactly also offers the Xactly Incent Managed Service, a business process outsourcing service based on Xactly Incent that provides smaller businesses with an affordable option for automating critical sales compensation management functions and leveraging incentive compensation to competitive advantage.

"Channel partners within ITA's membership have a terrific window of opportunity to leverage growing SMB interest in SaaS solutions, particularly solutions like on-demand sales performance management that enable end customers to level the playing field with their larger competitors," said Karen Steele, vice president of marketing, Xactly. "We're pleased to be helping to grow the SaaS presence within ITA, and look forward to a long and fruitful association with the group's many other partners as we proactively address the needs of the SMB market."