Issue link: http://www.e-digitaleditions.com/i/124894
Payroll Andrew Pearson, CEO at provider CloudPay, also commented that all signs point to greater interest and acceptance of global payroll outsourcing. He cited public information indicating that there are 30,000 organisations on the planet with 1,000 or more people in their employ across five or more countries. "We're now in what I would call the early mainstream, where we're going up the innovation curve, and that's why we see a lot of this RFI activity—a lot of people educating themselves through RFI's, which I don't think is particularly effective," he said. Pearson projects that within 10 to 15 years, it will be the norm for companies to have either a regional or global-based integrated approach to payroll, be it technology driven or service driven, or some blend thereof. Marien shares this perspective of global payroll outsourcing in its early stages, noting that there are a lot of interested potential buyers in the market who nonetheless require training and education about what it is they seek. "Many of them built the business case just yesterday—they send out a request for a fee, but they don't know what their real needs are," he explained, adding that the objective for providers and intermediates should be to assist customers in developing the business case. Frenandez shares this perspective, but believes the onus is on buyers to know what they want: "If you're going to go to market, know what the heck you're asking for, so when you do ask our service providers to price something, they can actually price what it is that you want, which means you have to be able to articulate that." Pearson advises providers and intermediaries to understand the client's organisational structure and culture from a controls [16] HRO TODAY GLOBAL | WINTER 2013 perspective, before sitting down in a discussion about a transaction. "We tend to get these issues out on the table very early," he said. "I don't want to spend hours and hours of all my people's time talking to somebody, and later down the line these types of issues prevent us from doing business with them." Talking with the right person is useful from an organisational structure standpoint, he adds, noting that this person increasingly is the CFO. "The senior person we deal with at our largest customer has a job title of vice president of global payroll; he works for the senior vice president of shared services, who works for the CFO," Pearson said. Risky Business Interestingly, one of the main factors spurring client interest in multi-country payroll solutions is not cost. Concerns over risk and compliance appear to be main drivers. Woodward cited payroll fraud as an area of concern, based on the different approaches of providing payroll services in more obscure parts of the world. "It's a bit 'wild west' in some countries, the way they're operated," he said. "The laws and regulations in these countries, and their visibility to what's actually happening, can be minimal. Fraud is a real issue." Building the economics of the business case remains the key challenge for many potential clients of a multi-country payroll provision. Marien said clients that come to him with questions about the business case cite three top issues: cost, functionalities, and the quality of services. Woodward agrees that cost is vital, but adds surety to the mix—the assurance that what is promised is what will be delivered. "Sometimes it's quite hard to balance those two effectively competing factors," he explained. "If they want really low cost, then they're not going