Ceridian Has a Whole New Feeling

Linda Merritt, HRO Research Analyst, NelsonHall

Ceridian just held its annual sales kick-off meeting and according to Jayson Saba, vice president of marketing strategy and analyst relations, there was “a whole new feeling of excitement.”

Ceridian Made a Big Bet

Ceridian is a mature service provider having been in payroll and HR services since 1932. So, what is causing such excitement in 2013? The answer is Dayforce HCM.

Ceridian began partnering with Dayforce in 2010, which soon led to investing in the company, and then to purchasing the company in early 2012 and forming a new business unit, Dayforce, led by David Ossip, Dayforce’s CEO.

This was a major strategic bet on SaaS as the new direction for a large portion of an already successful company with an estimated $1.5bn in revenues. How big a bet? Well, in late 2012, Ceridian made the decision to realign its sales and marketing efforts behind Dayforce HCM in North America, the company’s largest customer and revenue base!

The company will continue to support clients on its current systems and will not force migration. In fact, it will continue to invest in adding more features and functionality in key areas. Its other service lines will also continue including international payroll, benefits administration, EAP, and stored value solutions (electronic cards with preset or refillable financial value).

Dayforce HCM is a Party of One

Dayforce is a cloud-based platform built as a single application with one record, one rules engine, and zero interfaces. Real SaaS can eliminate the need to enter data in multiple systems, manage complex interfaces, and confusion about who to call when multiple vendors are involved, and it provides easier implementations.

Dayforce HCM includes:

• Payroll and tax: view, edit, fix, and preview payroll in real-time
• Workforce management: plan, schedule, and forecast labor requirements, and time tracking and compliance
• Benefits: manage enrollment, calculate eligibility, and support an unlimited number of benefit plan types
• Human resources: forms and workflows for managers and employees to manage work and life events
• Mobile: access, manage, and change schedules and other aspects of employee records including shift trading, availability, and time-off requests.

The system can scale for small, mid, and large market clients with a sweet spot in the 1,000 to 10,000 range. Ceridian already has several deployments of 15- to 30,000+ employees. Major retail clients include Aéropostale, Pier 1, and Crate & Barrel.

With a Clear Roadmap for the Future

The new system already has hundreds of clients and is available in the U.S. and Canada, and NelsonHall predicts that it will soon be expanded to the U.K. as well. We estimate Dayforce will become  the HR system of record for all of Ceridian’s HCM customers including managed and international payroll services and eventually become a global HRIS offering.

Ceridian is also working on new additions for talent management (performance management, compensation, and recruiting) and other social media features.

Nothing Succeeds Like Success

Imagine the excitement when your new system far exceeds expectations, wins awards, and delights customers. No wonder a good time was had at Ceridian’s annual sales conference!

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HRO Yesterday and Today

Linda Merritt, HRO Research Analyst, NelsonHall

NelsonHall was pleased to contribute to the HRO Today article Out of the Ashes for the 10^th anniversary issue. 

Looking back ten years shows a picture of HR saddled with expensive and paper-heavy manual processes, even after the introduction of the big HR ERPs from PeopleSoft, SAP, and Lawson, providing impetus for an emerging HRO industry.

A New HRO Emerges…

The new HRO industry was full of great ideas and big plans and ready to grow well beyond payroll and benefits administration services. Unfortunately, intentions were a bit ahead of capabilities including the buyers, providers, and technology. Luckily for the industry, most clients and service providers fought through the issues, the losses, the changes in scope, and even changes in providers, to stay with HRO.

One of the biggest changes we have seen is the maturation of the HRO experience and enabling technologies. As the HRO experience has been developed, subject matter expertise has grown, global service delivery networks have been built, processes have become structured and standardized, and technology has advanced with more configuration and less customization.

…Goes Global…

HRO is now global in every sense of the word. Clients are based in every region of the world as are sales and service delivery. The highest revenues are still generated from the established markets like North America and Western Europe; the growth markets in Asia Pacific and Latin America are developing beyond service delivery (supply) for multinationals into internal markets for growing regional businesses (demand). For example, IBM is headquartered in the U.S. and Tata Consulting Services (TCS) is headquartered in India, both have major multi-county multi-process HRO clients in Latin America as well as a growing set of in-region service delivery centers.

… and Gets High Tech

Technology advancement is the great enabler of HRO services. The BPO industry as we know it would not be viable without global low-cost communications and the internet that allows work to be done anywhere at any time. Software advances bring not only better tools to clients, but improved workflow processing to HRO service providers, allowing work distribution to where it can be done most efficiently and effectively. Now an employee in the U.S. may call a service center on or nearshore with a complex issue that creates a tier 2 referral to a center of excellence in a third country using data and analysis derived from the data center in a fourth country.

Web-based services, mobile device access, and social media are all transforming the user experience and bringing more value at affordable prices to HRO. The creation of Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) services, HRO platform services that add BPO to SaaS, and the Cloud are bringing more options and affordability to all clients, especially to the mid-market.  

The HRO industry has grown in maturity, capability, and has an even greater future ahead. 

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Moorepay’s Roadmap to Success is in the Cloud

Linda Merritt, HRO Research Analyst, NelsonHall

Moorepay is a payroll and employment service provider in the U.K. with over 10,000 clients and it is a part of NorthgateArinso (NGA). Earlier this year I blogged about the launch of its new HR and payroll platform service for the small employer market in the U.K. This week, I spoke with Ann Fitzpatrick, Moorepay managing director, for an update.

In a brief recap, MoorepayHR is a cloud-based SaaS and BPO service built on NGA’s Preceda SaaS platform that is customized for the U.K. market and combined with Moorepay’s payroll and HR services such as employment law and health and safety advisory.

Cloud Opens the Small Employer Market

Most major HRO vendors do not attempt to reach the small employer market, which is just what Moorepay serves. Certainly small employers want professional and modern services, but until the rise of streamlined HRO platforms in the cloud, the costs were unaffordable for both clients and vendors. In the U.S., ADP has had such great success with Workforce Now, it launched a larger version called Vantage HCM. Now, employers in the U.K. can have the same level of service as larger companies at very affordable price points.

The Roadmap to Success

There are three levels of service, each with its own pricing openly displayed right on the company’s website. Payroll is available as an option with each of the service levels.  Approximately 40% of clients are currently adding payroll. In a bit of a nice surprise, ~80% of customers are choosing the highest level that comes with client services, making it a real BPO offering.

A 1Q 2013 launch is planned for the highest level of service, HR Advanced, which will add modules for talent management, recruiting, and remuneration. That will make the service more valuable for employers in the 100-400 range with more complex HR needs.

With its large base of payroll clients, Moorepay will later market the new system and services to its existing clients to allow conversion to the new system and added services.

Finally, Moorepay is receiving good support from the NGA Preceda team and they will work together to ensure the technology development roadmap is completed in the near future, including mobile and tablet access.

The Proof is in the Pudding

The new system has just reached its three-hundredth customer and all of these customers are new to Moorepay. The company now has a solid base of wins and users to move forward with its multi-stage approach to growth.

The small employer market is clearly hungry for such a service. Even before launch, there were hundreds of inquiries, and the number of inbound leads has rapidly increased. You know something is going well when customers are lining up at your door!

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