Ceridian has announced that it will launch Dayforce, its HCM and payroll platform in Ireland. The news comes almost a year after Ceridian announced the launch of Dayforce in the UK. Ceridian also announced its results for its second quarter with revenues up 9.7% year over year to $196.3 million. Gross margin also improved, rising to 44.8% in 2Q2019 from 40.5% in 2Q2018. Profit significantly increased, rising to $18.7 million from an operating loss of $8.4 the previous year.
David Ossip, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Ceridian commented: “During the second quarter, we continued to see strong market demand for our solutions. Dayforce recurring revenue grew 31.3%, to $102.4 million, and was up 32.1% on a constant currency basis.
“Including revenue from Dayforce professional services and other, total Dayforce revenue grew 27.1%, to $134.5 million, and was up 28.0% on a constant currency basis. We now have 4,006 customers live on the Dayforce platform.”
Success in the UK leading to Ireland launch
Ceridian has enjoyed a solid year of growth in the UK. It already has customers such as BlackRock and Christian Aid. During the recent analyst call Ossip also called out a deal in the UK for “the second largest coffee shop chain in the world. They have 18,000 UK-based employees that envision plan for global growth.” Source Seekingalpha.com. That announcement would seem to indicate that Costa Coffee have dropped Workday after its acquisition by Coca Cola from Whitbread that completed in January.
In the Whitbread 2018 annual strategic report Group HR Director Louise Smalley stated : “We are underway with a programme to implement a new HR Information System – Workday – with tools that will be available to all team members.” There is no indication that Whitbread is stopping its project. If it is Costa Coffee, then it is returning to the solution that it used before. Whitbread, including Costa Coffee selected SD Worx, with Dayforce to run its HR and payroll services in 2008.
Ross Tracey, Managing Director, Ceridian Europe also said: “Our success in the UK, with customers like BlackRock and Christian Aid, proves a market need for a solution like Dayforce and provides a natural progression for Ceridian to enter the Irish market.”
Importantly Ceridian has already developed its payroll solution for the Irish market and is expecting to start winning and announcing customers before the end of the year. This would infer that it is already in talks with prospects.
Next up New Zealand
Ossip noted that after a successful launch in Australia it is likely to launch in New Zealand early next year. He also indicated there are plans to expand the solution even further afield. Dayforce is already available in 30 different languages. However, the reality is that supporting payroll in multiple countries comes at a cost.
It is a strategy that Workday dropped realising that without enough customers, development costs to meet the changes in compliance impacts profitability. It will be interesting to see how quickly Ceridian expands into new countries with the payroll element rather than integrate to a global payroll provider.
Compliance is an area that Ossip believes Dayforce can differentiate on. He commented: “Disruption has become a business reality for today’s employer and companies must embrace digital transformation strategies, supported by technologies like Dayforce, to remain competitive and be successful.
“With companies facing heightened scrutiny to meet regulatory changes, the launch of Dayforce in Ireland will help support our customers in maintaining compliance with local laws and minimizing operational risk.”
Enterprise Times: What does this mean
Ceridian is a major HCM player. It is a challenger in the 2018 Gartner Magic quadrant for Cloud HCM suites. It is also a leader in the G2 Grid® for HR Management Suites. However, it has not yet appeared in the Fosway 9 Grid for Cloud HCM. With a growing presence in Europe that is likely to happen soon.
Ceridian will start actively selling Dayforce in Ireland in August. The product itself will be available by the end of the year. Ceridian has not revealed where it will host the data though. Will it open a new data centre in Ireland? Post Brexit and with GDPR in force companies may want to have data hosted within EU boundaries.
It will need to deliver some customers quickly. At present, its webpage for Eire Ceridian.com/IE currently redirects to its UK site and that should change. It will also face tough competition from Workday, whose European headquarters is located in Dublin.
