SD Worx buys a 40% stake in GlobePayroll: harnessing the potential of the international market

When it comes to payroll solutions, many companies still have traditional mindsets. Yet, international businesses need harmonised HR applications to manage their payroll and HR processes more efficiently. SD Worx has acquired 40% of GlobePayroll to strengthen its international market position. This young French enterprise offers an innovative core HR cloud application which is very well suited for large international organisations. On top of the GlobePayroll software, SD Worx will offer managed payroll services.

As one of the first projects to result from this collaboration, SD Worx Global Solutions and GlobePayroll are in the process of building a joint offer for the international mid-market. This collaboration, SD Worx believes, will allow the partners to harness the opportunities presented by the international market, which shows great growth potential. Jean-Luc Barbier, Vice-President SD Worx Global Solutions, and Jean-Baptiste de Charette, CEO of GlobePayroll, explain what their companies aim to achieve and gain from this partnership.

Jean Luc Barbier

“The drive, manoeuvrability and innovative spirit of GlobePayroll perfectly complement our decades of expertise and market knowledge.”
– Jean-Luc Barbier

One push of a button

How unique are international payroll solutions and what do customers expect from them?

Jean-Luc Barbier: “An international company has specific expectations and needs. Today, the responsibilities of the HR manager focus on two important areas, namely optimising the cost of its payroll tools and creating added value for the company through HR processes. The role of the HR manager is shifting from the 'soft HR' side, as an ambassador for change, to the 'hard HR' side, where they must present quantitative analyses by measuring the impact of HR policies. With this in mind, SD Worx made a bid for a financial stake in GlobePayroll.”

Jean-Baptiste de Charette: “GlobePayroll, as the name indicates, is international by definition. Streamlined HR processes, access to data and people analytics are the main pillars of our international solution. Consolidated on a single system, our tools allow the HR manager and HR team to view and analyse consolidated workforce data and payroll details in all countries where the company has a presence. The GlobePayroll system offers a user-friendly, multilingual application which supports different currencies. It enables total transparency with 'one push of a button'. Even more, the system is fully compliant with national and international data protection regulations, including the GDPR.”

“We chose GlobePayroll because its SaaS solution grants us the international flexibility we need while allowing us to stay on budget."
– Leslie Abkarian, HRIS Director at Lagardère Sports and Entertainment

Intuitive design

What about the usability of GlobePayroll tools?

Jean-Baptiste de Charette: “All our tools are developed with the customer in mind. HR managers and customer employees alike rely on our systems every day perform a wide range of actions, for example, to request time off. Employees and payroll managers can access all our systems via their mobile phones. The look and feel of our solutions is also extremely appealing -̶ even millennials agree on this point ̶ and are intuitive to use.”

How many countries do you cover at the moment? And are expectations the same everywhere?

Jean-Baptiste de Charette: “For the moment, we offer our core HR solutions to businesses in over 20 countries worldwide. Every company has different needs and expectations because their HR strategies are different. But we can still identify shared requirements, such as compliance, consolidation, data analysis capabilities, cost optimisation, and 100%-correct payroll processes.”

Jean-Baptiste de Charette

“We have found in SD Worx the best match for our entrepreneurial spirit and a partner who wants to maintain that spirit.”
– Jean-Baptiste de Charette

Complementary benefits

You have opened your capital to SD Worx. What is your mutual ambition?

Jean-Baptiste de Charette: “The idea is to better serve international customers. As more and more companies decide to expand to other countries, we can assist them with our HR solutions. Opening factories or offices in other countries is quite complicated, especially when it comes to HR. SD Worx offers exactly what we need to achieve our ambition. This partnership opens doors to new markets for us in which SD Worx is already present. We can use their reliable expertise to get to the market faster. And the icing on the cake: in SD Worx, we have found the best match for our entrepreneurial spirit and a partner that wants to maintain that spirit.”

Jean-Luc Barbier: “There are a lot of synergies between our two companies. For example, we both serve companies that are active in several countries and we both innovate to optimally serve our customers. The drive, manoeuvrability and innovative spirit of GlobePayroll perfectly complement our decades of expertise and market knowledge. This complementarity is very interesting for our customers.”