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january 2015

Cover starsSafeGuard World chart

their journey through international payroll

HMRC engages with payrollStakeholder group set up to deal with employment and PAYE issues / p5

Uptown Top RankingRoll out the red carpet for Rank Group’s payroll manager Steven Hughes / p24

Autumn Statement updateThe government’s plans for payroll decoded by Simon Parsons / p12

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●● In 2006 the global payroll market was a vastly di� erent landscape, as was SafeGuard World ●●

january / 201522

International cover models

Human Capital Management (HCM) and so on. Global payroll is going through the same evolution. Cloud technology has enabled a revolutionary way of processing multinational payroll and SafeGuard World International (SGWI) has emerged as the leading force in the market. In fact it is now considered as the market “disrupter”.

Multinational riseToday there are over 80,000 multinationals and globalisation is on the increase. The rapid pace and demanding requirements of the modern day global company means that businesses are able to operate in more countries with greater ease than ever before. Naturally, this brings with it an increasing number of challenges.

In 2006 the global payroll market was a vastly different landscape, as was SGWI. At the time SGWI solely focused on the domestic UK market. At that time, founder and chief guardian of the business, Bjorn Reynolds, scrutinized the challenges facing the payroll industry and realised that with this new era of the single contract, the single technology global payroll market was underserved, and the companies that had entered into it were massively falling short of market expectations.

Together with his executive team they launched their international solution. One of the early clients was FedEx which this year has re-contracted for a further fi ve-year term and will now be SGWI’s fi rst ten-year client.

In 2011 SGWI received high-praise from the world leading advisory company Gartner, referring to SGWI as “the young aggressive disrupter in the market”.

“We felt great about that statement,” says Neil Carpenter, SVP of SGWI’s Global Managed Payroll division. “It summarised everything we wanted to achieve; to disrupt the marketplace by being agile, innovative and focusing on our clients’ successes.”

Last year, 2014, has been a record year for SGWI, with the company growing from its early days of just 11 staff to more than 300. And 2015 is going to be a landmark year again, as SGWI really looks to propel the industry to new heights.

Confi dent growthSo what made SGWI different and able to gain a client base that is the envy of the market? “It’s a few key factors,” explains Bjorn. “People and our passion to deliver and focus on what our clients wanted and needed. Technology too, enabling people to have a single system to manage their end-to-end payroll processes and reporting, and, as luck would have it, timing.

“We entered this market when others were not doing it, we designed how we deliver for clients around what is important for them and focused on getting it right for our clients. Our competitors are everything from local,

A few years after SafeGuard World started in 1969, a band called Dr. Hook made it onto the cover of the iconic music magazine Rolling

Stone after lamenting in a song that, despite their success, they had never been featured in it before. The world has changed an awful lot since then, but as a celebration of our 40 year heritage we wanted the payroll community to know that, in the spirit of Dr. Hook, we too had made it… onto the cover of Payroll World!

So, with 2015 ahead of us what are the main developments we expect to see in the international payroll market?

Undoubtedly, the advent of cloud computing has fundamentally changed the technological infrastructure within businesses, leading to arguably the largest vendor replacement cycles we have ever seen.

The cloud transformation has seen new forces emerge to replace the old legacy companies: Salesforce.com in Customer Relationship Management (CRM), Workday in

SAFEGUARD / COVER STORY

Advertorial

They made it onto the cover of Payroll World, now in their own wordspayroll experts, SafeGuard World International, outline the rapidchanges shaking up the international payroll market alongside thetransformative journey their organisation has been on in recent years

Bjorn Reynolds, SafeGuard founder

Spot the di� erence: Rolling Stone from 1973 alongside PW in 2015

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ll Other players in the market will need to invest further in their solutions and technology in order to keep pace with us ll

payrollworld.com 23

spreadsheet-based payroll in-country to multi-billion dollar firms but the difference is the way we shaped the service around clients and worked hard to make them happy.

“In 2015 our mantra is very much ‘create a legacy don’t buy one’. Other players in the market will need to invest further in their solutions and technology in order to keep pace with us.”

Straight inThis month SGWI will launch its innovative Employee Portal with a fresh Client Portal following closely behind. SGWI chief technology officer, Tristan Woods, notes: “The tools our clients and their employees use as part of our service delivery are key. We’re taking our current technology to a new level, built around a ‘mobile first’ philosophy. Our new tools enable our clients to push payroll inputs, command and control, report, analyse their payrolls and Interact with us through one

SGWI are a provider of global managed payroll, global employment outsourcing and global workforce solutions. Founded in the UK but now headquartered in Austin, Texas in the USA, they provide services to some of the world’s most recognisable companies. More information can be found at www.safeguardworld.com

SafeGuard staff do ‘the Bolt’ in honour of the world’s fastest man, Olympic sprinter Usain Bolt

application on any device in any language. “Our employee portal will enable them to

have a truly locally-compliant but globally-holistic self-service experience for their staff. We’re binding the social methods of employees and the payroll teams interacting with each other.

“These tools are intuitive to use, taking all the best learnings from what clients want and capitalising on how mobile technologies have revolutionised the way people work. This will continue to disrupt the market and raise the bar again for our competitors.”

SGWI feel the future is bright with plenty of opportunity. “Going global is now easier than ever for any size company, but navigating legislation and the procedural path is difficult for them,” says Bjorn. “We are on a journey to build a legacy business that makes history in our space. We see the next ten years being the time when we build SGWI into a $5Bn business. With fantastic people on board and our ability to support market leading clients, we firmly believe we’re well positioned to create that legacy. We have had great fun and work with amazing people who are enjoying growing a great business and are so excited about the vibrancy of the market and the future ahead. As one of our favourite songs goes: ‘We have had all kind of thrills, but the thrill that we’ve never known, is the thrills that’ll get-ya when you get your picture on the cover of Payroll World’.”

Lesley Parr , SGWI’s first employee

SGWI’s staff signature wall in their office

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