The Client

Computer Patent Annuities (CPA) is a global firm based in London and Jersey providing specialist outsourced legal services to international Legal practices and blue chip companies around the world; leveraging the latest information technology. Employing circa 1000 professional, technical and customer services employees; across Europe, America, Asia and the Pacific.

The Problem

We were contacted in 2007. Their HR service had grown ad hoc as the business grew. The incumbent HR system was first installed some five years ago. It was a be-spoke system and had been continuously modified over the years in an attempt to keep up with the growing demands made upon it. It did some things very well, such as supporting absence management; employee correspondence and employee self service, but was struggling to meet the needs of an increasingly global organisation. The HR Director was particular concerned about the ability of the systems to cope with the projected 100% increase in staff numbers planned for the next two years. Cumbersome payroll processes that required double entry of a great deal of data into different systems; the inability to handle multiple terms and conditions of employment; and the lack of a fully functional e-Recruitment application had already been identified as areas of concern.

The Requirements

• To identify the business and user needs for HRIS given the business plan provided;
• To assess the capabilities of the current system/provider to meet these needs;
• To review the market place for potential successor systems/providers
• To provide a report on the above findings
• To undertake a vendor selection exercise
• To provide a business case for replacing the existing system or upgrading the existing system

Our Approach

We provided an overview of the HRIS enabled HR services that are available today and explained the broad system alternatives – ERP and “Best of Breed”, as well as the “in-house” and “hosted” methods for providing these.

We undertook in-depth structured stake-holder interviews with all the key HR players – local country business partners and global functional leaders within the global HR team - to establish:

• their requirements for HRIS functionality now and over the 5 year business planning period;
• their views of the current HRIS functionality in order to establish the perceived strengths and weaknesses of the current system;
• the approach the company had adopted towards the development and evolution of the current HR system

We undertook a comprehensive and in-depth interview with the CEO of the incumbent system vendor to establish:

• the issues his organisation faced as a vendor working for the client
• his take on the functional and technical issues identified in our stake-holder interviews
• the approach and price model they would adopt in the event of being commissioned to up-grade the existing system.

We compared and contrasted the output from all these interviews and re-interviewed where appropriate. We built a matrix of the functionality priorities and of the strengths and weaknesses of the existing system and we built a business and user requirements checklist. We also addressed a number of weaknesses in the client’s approach to the introduction and enhancement of its existing HRIS. These related to stakeholder management; managing change; a lack of collaboration between the HR and IT Departments; and weaknesses in the client’s engagement with the vendor. All of these issues could, irrespective of the vendor or system chosen, undermine any future HRIS project.

We reviewed the above with the client and agreed the broad parameters of the required solution. At this stage in the exercise, based upon these parameters; the client’s business plans; and our own market research, we recommended that the major ERP vendors should not be considered as potential solutions. This recommendation was accepted by the client.

We prepared and issued an invitation to tender (ITT) to 19 potential vendors. Our ITT included a self assessment questionnaire based upon the previously established business and user requirements.  6 of the vendors responded to the ITT and based upon their self assessment scores we invited 3 of the vendors plus the current incumbent to present their solutions to the HR Director and his senior team. We worked with the senior HR team to devise a number of scenarios to which the vendors would be asked to respond at their presentations. One of the vendors dropped out at this stage.

The Differentiators

We assessed each of the presentations and identified that whilst all three vendors met the core requirements to a greater or lesser extent, there were nevertheless a number of key differentiating factors that we recommended the client consider before making their final decision.

These were:

• Cost – one solution was significantly cheaper than the others. The incumbent supplier was offering a free software upgrade that would address many of the weaknesses of the existing system.
• Data migration – Not surprisingly only the incumbent could easily migrate all existing data
• The advantage of a fully integrated global payroll service across all existing geographies – only one other solution could provide this. Whilst very attractive, it would be some years before all countries could transition to a new payroll. The current incumbent was however committed to the provision of a new payroll interface that would enable the automatic transfer of all payroll data to all payroll providers.
• The advantage of being able to undertake salary planning and the implementation of salary review outcomes within the system – only the remaining system could do this. This provider could not however match the others payroll offerings.

The Result

We considered these differentiators with the client to ensure they fully understood the implications of adopting each of the solutions. We also made a number of recommendations with regard to the management of any future implementation project. The client subsequently decided that given the assurances they had now obtained from their existing supplier, they would enter into a new contract with them to upgrade the existing solution.