How IFS Eliminated 750 Compensation Spreadsheets in One Cycle

The Company

Company: IFS
Industry: Enterprise Software
Employees: 9,000+ globally
Use Case: Annual compensation planning

The Challenge

When the IFS compensation team started exploring alternatives to their legacy process, the spreadsheet system was getting out of hand:

“We had over 750 spreadsheets this year.”
— Sally Knill, Global Head of Reward, IFS

Their process relied on an unmanageable web of Excel files, version control issues, and manual reporting. HRBPs and Rewards couldn’t track manager activity. Senior leaders lacked visibility. And there was no audit trail.

The team needed a solution that preserved flexibility but added control without locking them into yet another tool that slowed them down.
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Why IFS Chose Aeqium

“We were at breaking point running the global process on spreadsheets. We now have a tool that is very well suited to IFS because we need the flexibility that Aeqium provides. We can make changes very quickly to the configuration ourselves rather than have to raise a ticket and wait for another company to do it for us.”

— Clare Elgie, Global Senior Rewards Manager, IFS

The ability to configure logic, adjust cycles, and troubleshoot issues in real time was a core differentiator. IFS wanted to own the process and scale it across regions, not rely on external support to make system updates.
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The Impact

In their first full compensation cycle with Aeqium, IFS saw dramatic improvements:

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“We brought the whole process down to a month and it had taken nearly double that originally…And the ease of pulling the data out was just amazing… Didn't even have to run pivot tables on it because the report was there…What would have taken me a day to produce for the final sign off took me about half an hour.”

— Sally Knill, Global Head of Reward, IFS

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The self-serve capabilities gave the comp team complete control while surfacing clear insights to HRBPs and senior leadership.

Conclusion

With centralized control, audit-ready data, and configuration on their terms, the IFS team is no longer chasing spreadsheets. They’re running compensation the way they want to.

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Test drive more manageable, more flexible compensation planning with Aeqium.

Compensation teams trust Aeqium for:

✅ Designing total compensation strategies

✅ Automating the prep work that goes into compensation planning

✅ Making data-driven decisions about employee compensation

✅ Seamlessly connecting information from across your people data ecosystem

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