Compensation is one of the largest expenses and represents the single most important investment of most organizations-its human and intellectual capital. Based on this alone, prudence suggests management should make every effort to invest its compensation dollars for the best ling-term gain. Yet, most companies continue to rely on costly, labor-intensive systems and a mini-application that provides limited insight, control, and security. Meanwhile, change in the workplace occurs at an ever-quickening pace.

Recent times have brought greater emphasis on incentive compensation, growing interest in pay-for-performance, increasing need for multinational payroll management, more equitable compensation practices, mounting investor scrutiny, and a call for greater management accountability. Projected change in workforce demographics will only further complicate the challenges facing compensation managers. Coping effectively with such challenges is rapidly becoming essential to maintaining competitive advantage. To assist in the effort, organizations now have access to sophisticated, highly integrated solutions that substantially reduce labor costs and errors, greatly facilitate program design and management, and provide superior levels of insight on a global, real-time basis. Companies adopting the new technology have enjoyed rapid paybacks and gained a meaningful edge in today's competitive marketplace.

Finding the application that best fits your organization's unique current and future needs is critical to successful implementation and broad user acceptance. Here are several important factors that we suggest considering carefully:

1. COMPATIBILITY: How well would the software interface with your existing ERP system and other applications?
2. FEATURES: How extensive, diverse, and configurable are the features and tools being provided?
3. ADAPTABILITY: How much flexibility does the system offer, and can it be adapted to your organization's current practices without undue effort or compromising?
4. USER-FRIENDLY: Is the user interface simple and easy enough to understand by all those expected to use it (including international users)?
5. TRAINING: How much training is needed at both the administrative and managerial levels?
6. SUPPORT: What is the availability, reliability, quality, and cost of customer support and training offered?
7. INSTALLATION TIME: How long will it realistically take to install and test the application and to have it fully operational?
8. VENDOR REPUTATION: How knowledgeable is the vendor and how strong is their reputation, particularly in the field of compensation?
9. ONLINE/ONSITE OPTION: Do you have the choice of an onsite installation or online access with professional vendor oversight?
10. CHANGE & COMPLIANCE: To what extent will the solution support change management and regulatory change, including internationally if appropriate?

Options such as Authoria Salary are designed to meet all of these criteria in a wide range of common applications. They are capable of giving organizations a vast number of options and positioning them strongly for the challenges that continue to emerge and confront compensation planners and administrators.