Ceridian Analyst Day …
Well it seems Ceridian is getting serious about PR, Marketing and Analyst relations. This year there was a record turn out to the Boston Analyst day where we saw a sneak preview of the new payroll system that is fully integrated into one platform with Dayforce (workforce management system). No more Inview product line … one platform, one interface, one system for both Payroll and Workforce Management. Significant stride has been taken to stabilize the management team (new CFO and CMO ) and build out a very cool product that is full of metrics, with a simple easy to use interface that works super fast. Moving several thousands clients to this platform from several legacy systems will be a huge challenge.
Although Ceridian has been lost in the BUZZ with all the hot stuff happening in the human capital space, they gave us a few reference points that help you understand the scope of their business. Although it’s not sexy (it’s core HR folks), it is fundamental and, in many cases, in rapid need of improvement .
s, K
Facts:
Ceridian Canada has always been an awesome division of the entire Ceridian Corp. It is run by industry veteran Dave McKay who has 15 years at the helm. He has now moved to a national role and is COO of the US division as well as President of Canada. In addition, he is running several product lines like Dayforce and their RPO business. He is also championing a small business product that looks very appealing and includes payroll, workforce management, and some recruiting and back end HR support all in a “ buy on the web” environment which is selling several a day from the website- all with minimal sales interactions. Ceridian Canada revenue alone is larger than Ultimate Software and generates more profitability than all the major Talent Management System vendors combined. (that’s not really saying much, but its Ceridian Canada is running 35-38% margins which is incredible). This probably makes them the second most profitable software firm in Canada after RIM (the makers of BlackBerry).
Payroll and Time and Attendance revenue is their largest revenue base. Ceridian, awww.adp.com and Kronos each do more in revenue than the combination of Taleo, Cornerstone, Successfactors, Kenexa and SABA . Although all the marketing and effort in the industry has been focused on integrated Talent Management, very little has been done ( with the exception of Workday) to improve core product functionality.
David Ossip (founder of Dayforce) is the ultimate entrepreneur and showman. No one gives demos and presentations better than him. He understands clients’ needs and creates awesome software. He is fortunate enough to have been able to do it 3 times in his career within the same vertical, and I do believe each time you learn from your mistakes. Ceridian/Dayforce executes rapid development cycles using Microsoft Silverlight technology platform and releases new products every 8 weeks. No need for custom code as everything is configurable from the end user point of view.
When speaking with the treasurer of Ceridian and asked how do you pay remote people, he recognized it is an issue for Ceridian as well. As a small employer of 35 people, I have staff in New Zealand, India, US , Germany and Canada . I sure would love one platform where I could pay people instead of lining up at the bank to do monthly wires. At least I feel better that I am not the only one that is looking for a solution that does not exist.
Bart Valdez has been promoted to run the unified business, combined Benefits, EAP, Payroll, etc which used to run as separate lines of business in the US. He indicated it has been a challenging year, getting the right people in the right jobs and making loads of changes, but things are looking significantly better going forward as his team is in place. I like the honesty here. Most people responsible for sales just tell us everything is awesome …Bart’s honesty shows compassion and true caring in repositioning Ceridian for the future growth.
