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Market Recommendations for Global Payroll in 2023

Richard Limpkin
Richard Limpkin

Chief Product Officer at Immedis

May 3, 2023 3 mins

Gartner’s 2022 report on global payroll solutions brings to light several key findings about the industry and makes recommendations for customers evaluating a global payroll provider. The report notes that, ultimately, application leaders must “balance hyper-automation, integration, emerging technology trends, and risk management” in their selection process.

According to Gartner, the global payroll solution market is expanding rapidly, for a variety of reasons. By 2025, they predict that 65% of global medium and large companies will have a global payroll strategy involving less than four vendors. And also by 2025, 65% of all international payroll operations will be automated with zero manual interventions.

Key findings in the report include:

  • Increasing efforts to streamline international payroll processing operations
  • BPO vendors re-platforming to build their native technology
  • Hybrid work empowering employees to operate from novel jurisdictions
  • RPA and ML handling routine tasks and detecting anomalies
  • Cybersecurity concerns brought on by a shift to a cloud-based architecture

Immedis is committed to expanding our services to reflect the way the market is changing. To that end, we remain committed to streamlining our platform, leveraging modern RPA and ML, and building a robust set of security features.

Current Market Trends in Global Payroll

Organizations are taking greater efforts to streamline their payroll processing operations. However, this is a work in progress in most cases. Piecemeal efforts and a fragmented vendor landscape complicate efforts to streamline operations.

The line between services and software is blurring. This is largely due to Payroll BPO vendors re-platforming. In this process, BPO vendors renovate their native payroll technology to improve integration, reporting, and analytics, while reducing dependence on legacy systems. At the same time, payroll administration software vendors are increasingly taking the inverse approach by expanding their managed service options.

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The explosion in remote and hybrid work since 2020 has created many payroll processing administrative and regulatory headaches. It is now more common than ever for employees to operate from novel payroll jurisdictions that are not where the organization has its registered offices. Additionally, HR departments now frequently look to hire talent from varying locales who possess niche skills.

Many tasks involved in payroll processing are routine and repetitive. Robotic process automation (RPA) is ideal for these kinds of tasks, and they free up employees to work on more high-value-added projects. Machine Learning (ML) is also having an impact on HR and payroll services, as mature ML algorithms can detect anomalies and problems in payroll data at least as accurately as humans can.

Cybersecurity is of primary importance to payroll, as payslips contain sensitive data that frequently fall under tight government regulation. The shift to mostly cloud-based architectures has increased the number of vulnerabilities that can impact HCM technology. Vendors are addressing cybersecurity concerns with ever more vigor.

Recommendations for Global Payroll Customers

The Gartner report also makes several recommendations for prospective customers:

  • Make payroll a key pillar of their HR transformation and technology strategy
  • Build alliances with HR and finance
  • Select providers that are vigilant about regulatory changes
  • Evaluate vendors based on their commitment to automation
  • Prioritize due diligence for risk management

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Organizations with an international footprint should make payroll strategy a key pillar of their HR technology and transformation strategy. Ideally, they should seek to integrate HR and finance with their payroll process. This brings benefits by way of centralized data and streamlined communications. Organizations should prioritize payroll software by its ability to process data while evaluating outsourcing vendors that can handle much of the work themselves. As of 2021, only 36% of organizations were using a cloud-based payroll solution with fully integrated HCM. This number will hopefully continue to grow, as manual processes are just not adequate in the world we live in now.

Compliance with local payroll regulations is critical, and organizations would do well to select providers that are vigilant about regulatory changes. Governments are rapidly changing payroll taxes requirements in response to the rise in remote work, and good payroll providers will follow suit in supporting international employees.

The best global payroll providers will take a long-term perspective on technology, making commitments to continue investments on automation. Global payroll service customers should evaluate vendors based on their current and future technology roadmaps.

Finally, customers should practice due diligence in assessing prospective vendors about their security practices and risk management approaches. They should be aware of the level of cybersecurity threat they will be taking on for any given vendor.

Conclusion: How Immedis fits Gartner’s recommendations

The Gartner report makes several valid recommendations for prospective customers. These are solid suggestions, based on an accurate assessment of the global payroll services landscape today. Gartner also provides a fully objective market assessment and outlines the best metrics for success in the current landscape.

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Immedis’ platform offers native HCM integration (Human Capital Management). It provides a centralized platform for handling all information related to payroll.

The system is based on modern, cloud-based software that takes advantage of the latest in RPA and ML technology. Immedis remains committed to tracking and leveraging new developments in these technologies.

Immedis is ever vigilant about regulatory compliance, especially in the face of sudden change, backed with an in-house team of experts working to make sure that we are up to code in every jurisdiction.

Cybersecurity is a matter of primary importance. Immedis is ISO 27001 certified, as well as SOC compliant, and are committed to strengthening security.

Interested in learning more? We’d love to chat.