Dell Tightens Sales Pay, Consulting Giants Recast AI Metrics

Dell has launched a major overhaul of its sales compensation structure as it begins a new financial year, changing how quota attainment translates into pay and shifting more reward to top performers. The changes were outlined in an internal presentation discussed at a 3 February town hall led by Kyle Leciejewski, senior vice president of North America sales, and subsequently described by employees to Business Insider.

Under the prior model, Dell sales staff on a 60/40 pay mix – 60% base salary and 40% commission-based target incentive – received a pro-rated portion of their target incentive for performance anywhere between 0% and 100% of quota, with payouts doubling between 100% and 200% of target. Hitting 80% of quota, for example, yielded 80% of the incentive, and so on.

In the new structure, sellers who achieve less than 60% of quota will receive no commission. Between 60% and 100% of goal, payout ramps more slowly than before: 25% of target incentive at 70% of quota, 50% at 80%, 75% at 90% and 100% at full attainment. Above quota, rewards are richer; employees who hit between 100% and 150% of target can now earn commissions equal to three times their target incentive, a 50% uplift versus the previous plan.

Alongside the pay curve changes, Dell is shifting much of its salesforce from semiannual to quarterly quota cycles. Teams serving enterprise, large enterprise, DTS, AI Select and telecom customers will move to quarterly compensation plans, while small and medium business teams were already on that cadence.

The presentation linked the change to Dell’s internal systems overhaul scheduled for 3 May, branded One Dell Way, which aims to streamline operations for what executives describe as an “AI future.” The company told staff it will review quota cadence after the first half of the financial year, using experience from the first two quarters to inform decisions for the second half.

Dell said in a statement to Business Insider that it regularly assesses its business to remain competitive and to deliver “innovation, value, and service” to customers and partners. Internally, the company framed the new plans as designed to reward employees for driving profitable growth, expanding Dell’s footprint and winning market share.

Five Dell sales employees who spoke to Business Insider described broad concern that the new structure could cut take-home pay for sellers who typically land below full quota. A data center sales representative who had consistently reached 70%–80% of quota over the past three years said they now face an estimated 20% reduction in earnings unless they increase sales.

Those employees also said that hitting 100% of quota is likely to become more difficult under quarterly plans. They cited higher quotas over the past two years, industry-wide supply chain shortages that lengthen sales cycles, and longer lead times in certain segments such as federal accounts. All five employees interviewed linked these factors to increased performance pressure.

The compensation overhaul comes amid broader morale challenges. Dell’s company-wide employee net promoter score has fallen by nearly 50% over two years, against a backdrop of layoffs and return-to-office mandates. In 2024, sales teams were given a five-day in-office requirement months before the rest of the company, and leaders tightened attendance expectations in late 2024.

The new sales plans also reflect differing demand patterns across Dell’s Infrastructure Solutions Group (ISG) and Client Solutions Group (CSG). ISG, which sells data center hardware and other AI-related offerings, posted a 29% revenue increase in Dell’s most recent full financial year, supported by AI-driven infrastructure demand.

By contrast, CSG – focused on PC hardware – has recorded three consecutive years of annual revenue declines. Dell has also warned of tightening global memory and storage supply, telling its go-to-market teams that shortages were driving rapid price increases and urging sellers to move “decisively” ahead of December price rises to protect value for customers and Dell.

In July 2025, Dell’s chief operating officer and vice chair Jeff Clarke assumed day-to-day leadership of CSG. In a memo about One Dell Way in early 2026, Clarke described the initiative as “the biggest transformation in company history” and acknowledged that it would bring challenges, while emphasizing that leadership intended to support staff through the changes.

Separately, major consulting firms are intensifying their deployment of AI agents, but disagree on how to evaluate their impact. McKinsey & Company CEO Bob Sternfels said in January that the firm had added 25,000 AI agents in under two years. He later confirmed the figure and said McKinsey plans to enable each of its 40,000 human employees with at least one AI agent over the next 18 months.

Rivals have questioned whether counting agents is a meaningful performance metric. EY’s global engineering chief, Steve Newman, told Business Insider he does not believe the number of agents “translates directly to value,” adding that some of EY’s best results come from “just a handful of agents” doing the heavy lifting. PwC’s chief AI officer, Dan Priest, similarly described agent quantity as “probably the wrong measure,” arguing that deployment quality is a better indicator.

Newman said EY instead tracks value through key performance indicators linked to productivity, quality and cost, monitoring those month to month and quarter to quarter. He said the firm invests more than $1 billion annually in AI-first platforms and products, including 1,000 AI agents and over 100 internal AI applications. All three firms – McKinsey, EY and PwC – are competing both to adopt AI internally and to advise clients on AI strategy.