It’s no surprise that multi-national companies like Amazon, Netflix, and Walmart are analyzing the massive amounts of data they capture to drive things like customer experience and a healthy bottom line. But what about your organization? Just because your group is not the size of these corporate giants, does not mean you can’t maximize the return on your data as well. One easy place for all companies to start is, you guessed it, payroll. After all, payroll data gives organizations vital insight into their biggest asset and largest expense. So, what is your data telling you?
I work with global organizations every day. While each one is unique, common challenges are top of mind. One of these challenges is access to data – what I hear most is that executive teams are eventually getting their payroll data, but at the expense of productivity. Before you can leverage big data, you have to standardize it, and before you standardize, you have to capture it. Let’s work backwards and see what that looks like.
When companies decide to expand their footprint into new countries, a common practice is to establish payroll with a local vendor. After all, no company wants to risk a fine for not adhering to local payroll laws. Makes sense, right? This is an example where addressing one problem can present another. Let’s look at an example:
A manufacturing company with 100 employees is headquartered in London. They use a local accounting firm to process payroll. They have the opportunity to acquire a competitor who has facilities in Germany, France, and China. Each of these facilities has 100 employees and are using local providers for payroll. Now this company is managing 400 employees across 4 countries, with individual payroll vendors in each country. Each vendor delivers the post payroll reports in a different method, format, language, and at different times. The company now must expend resources to gather all the reports, convert into a single format, and even translate into English, so their corporate team can begin to make sense of it. There has to be a better way!
Rather than continuing to rely on manual processes for payroll in each country, companies are turning to technology to increase efficiencies and access to their data. By consolidating payroll to a single technology platform, companies are able to receive their payroll reports in the same place, format, and language. Throw in a customized reporting tool, and the sky is the limit. Once companies have this data at their fingertips, they can now leverage it to make a host of mission critical decisions and adjustments. Do you want to know your overtime spend per cost center? No problem. Looking to expand headcount and want to know your average payroll cost per employee in Germany? Sure. By having ready access to payroll data in one place, companies are more prepared to tackle the challenges that come with managing a global business.
If you are struggling with global payroll reporting, access to data or real-time visibility into payroll costs, contact us today. Our cloud-based payroll technology with aggregated global reporting simplifies global operations and ensures compliance in 145+ countries around the world.