TELERATE (FORMERLY MONEYLINE TELERATE) FINDS MORE MONEY IN SAVINGS BY OUTSOURCING THEIR PAYROLL PROCESSES

by HROE Staff

Telerate (formerly Moneyline Telerate) is one of the leading providers of benchmark market data and transaction services for the financial and capital marketplace. Founded nearly 40 years ago in the United States, Telerate pioneered the real-time delivery of fixed-income market information and changed the way dealers published their rates. The organization has regional headquarters in New York, London, and Singapore and covers more than 50 countries worldwide.

Telerate has adopted a very centralized approach to running its business. Key business functions are focused within its regional headquarters. However they still retain product and service delivery experts within each of their country operations.

THE CHALLENGE

One of the areas that had remained truly local was Telerates employee management function, including that of its payroll management. This is a very typical scenario within a lot of global companies and is often due to a lack of knowledge about multinational cultures, tax regulations, legislation requirements, and employee regulations, which are in many cases unique to each country or region. For many Finance or HR departments this is a task that can often be too time consuming to even consider centralizing.

This is one of the issues that Telerate faced within their Europe, Middle East, and Africa (EMEA) operation, located in London. As part of a process to further streamline their HR processes, Telerate looked at how best they could consolidate their employee payroll operation.

Rachel Forbes, EMEA HR Advisor explains. We have a central HR operation in London, which manages our EMEA employee operations. However, when it came to paying our employees, we used either in-house local staff or local payroll or accounting agencies. Having multiple contacts, within multiple companies, with different contracts and different processes to oversee and manage, became both complex and time consuming. This placed more pressure upon the HR department so we looked at ways in which we could become more efficient both in terms of time but also our cost base.

Telerate wanted a single organization that could provide a consistent service within their entire EMEA operation. The organization would need to provide local knowledge and experts for Telerates in-country employees, but would also need to mirror their corporate business structure, centrally manage the service, and provide them with a consolidated view of the entire operation.

THE SOLUTION

Telerate turned to international HR service provider Ceridian for a solution. Ceridian established a centralized payroll infrastructure for Telerate within their 13 operations within EMEA covering Austria, France, Norway, Belgium, Germany, Sweden, Denmark, Hungary, Switzerland, Estonia, Ireland, the United Kingdom, and Finland. Ceridian was able to provide Telerate with a multinational solution, while also delivering a local service in each country, using best-of-breed local expertise fully conversant with cultural issues and local legislation, tax, and statutory reporting requirements.

One key element of the Ceridian solution is their London Service Centre, an operation where all customer payroll activity, regardless of where their employees may be located, is managed and controlled, and a consolidated view of employee activity provided.

Telerate has established a single contract and single service level agreement with Ceridian, which ensures that a consistent level of service is delivered throughout their operation. A stringent set of processes was mutually agreed upon and a detailed service structure, with agreed targets, was committed to. Hence, Telerate is now able to adopt a payroll practice within their EMEA operation that is consistent from country to country but is centrally managed by their EMEA Headquarters.

THE RESULTS

After the first year, including the initial service set-up costs, Telerate was experiencing costs savings in the region of 50 percent. In future years, they hope this reduction, and therefore return on investment, will increase.

Concluding, Collette Ryan, HR Manager for EMEA comments, Outsourcing this operation has made a significant impact. Having one person managing our payroll at Ceridian but knowing they have a large team supporting them, ensures our payroll function does not face language or legislative problems, it is streamlined, uncomplicated, and cost effective. The Human Resources function can concentrate on Human Resource Management and not finance issues. I also know that if any of my staff are unavailable, Ceridian will have total control of the operation and our business will not be affected.  

 

THE METRICS OF THE CONTRACT
HRO BUYER ORGANIZATION: 
Telerate (formerly Moneyline Telerate)
HRO PROVIDER ORGANIZATION:
Ceridian
AREAS COVERED:
13 operations in EMEA regions
CONTRACT DATE:
May 2004
GOALS OF CONTRACT:
Design and implement a centralized  payroll infrastructure, delivering local service in 13 countries.
RESULTS OF CONTRACT:
Established a single service level agreement, to centrally manage pay services. Experienced cost savings of 50 percent within the first year of operation.