Who we spoke to for this case study:
- David Neale, VP Digital Finance Transformation, Fenergo
Fenergo, a global leader in financial crime compliance solutions, specializes in anti-money laundering (AML), know-your-customer (KYC), and transaction monitoring software for top-tier banks worldwide. With 700 employees and operations in 15 countries, Fenergo plays a critical role in safeguarding the financial system while driving efficiency for its clients.
As the company expanded, adding new markets such as Dubai, Belgium, and France, its payroll processes became increasingly complex. Recognizing payroll inefficiencies as a bottleneck for further growth, Fenergo’s leadership sought a transformative solution to optimize operations and improve scalability.
The Challenge: Fragmented Processes, Manual Work, and Limited Analytics
Before implementing Payzaar, Fenergo faced some key challenges in its payroll operations:
- Fragmentation: Payroll processes varied widely across countries, with each location using unique systems and data formats.
- Manual inefficiencies: Payroll data often required manual input into Finance ERPs and banking systems, creating errors and delays.
- Lack of analytics: Generating insights across countries and regions required weeks of manual work, hampering the delivery of timely and reliable data to decision makers
- Elevated risk: Spreadsheets and emails for payroll data exchange posed information security and compliance risks.
"Fenergo grew quickly, and what worked when we had 100 employees became unmanageable at 700. Each country had its own processes, there was little standardization, and we lacked visibility across the business." - David Neale
Payroll represented 80% of company costs and demanded the need to unlock payroll data to support strategic decision-making. Addressing inefficiencies, making payroll data available, and reducing risks in payroll became a top priority for Fenergo’s leadership.
Decision Drivers: Flexibility, Speed, and Scalability
When evaluating solutions, Fenergo sought a platform to streamline its global payroll while adapting to its dynamic growth. Payzaar stood out due to its modular design, flexibility, and ease of implementation.
What made Payzaar the right choice?
- Quick ROI: Payzaar’s plug-and-play capabilities enabled Fenergo to see benefits within weeks.
- Modular design: Fenergo could prioritize urgent needs, such as general ledger (GL) integration while phasing in additional features over time.
- Cost-effectiveness: Payzaar was significantly more cost-efficient than traditional aggregator solutions.
- Seamless integration: The platform worked smoothly with existing systems, including Oracle HCM and NetSuite ERP.
"We didn’t want to spend two or three years on a massive overhaul. Payzaar’s modular approach let us focus on solving immediate problems while scaling over time." - David Neale
The Solution: Streamlined, Centralized Payroll Operations
Fenergo adopted a phased implementation strategy, first bringing its largest payrolls on board and eventually rolling out Payzaar across all 15 countries within seven months.
Key aspects of the transformation included:
- Standardized workflows: Payzaar harmonized processes across all countries, reducing variation while preserving local flexibility.
- Automated data handling: Integration with AWS and Oracle HCM eliminated manual data entry, reduced errors, and improved data quality through automated data validations.
- Improved reporting: Payroll data was centralized, harmonized, and accessible by self-service in Payzaar, enabling real-time analytics and informed decision-making.
- Enhanced security: By enforcing better controls limiting access to payroll data, Payzaar significantly reduced potential data privacy risks.
The Results: Faster, Cost-Effective, and More Accurate Payroll
Fenergo’s payroll transformation delivered many measurable benefits, significantly improving the organization's efficiency, accuracy, and scalability.
Dramatic time savings: Payroll processing time was reduced by 65%, enabling the team to deliver better results for the business and branch into other areas.
"We reduced payroll processing time from 20 days to 7, a massive 13-day improvement. This means our teams can now focus on value-added tasks instead of just firefighting," - David Neale
Significant cost reduction: Fenergo achieved 50% efficiency gains, freeing up the budget for strategic initiatives and resource redeployment.
Error reduction: Standardized processes and automated data handling improved accuracy and eliminated timeliness issues to deliver a better employee experience.
Enhanced analytics: Fenergo leveraged Payzaar’s integration with AWS to perform advanced reporting, including gender pay gap analysis, ESG reporting, labor cost analysis and headcount forecasting.
"Our finance and HR teams now use the data for gender pay gap reporting, headcount forecasting, and budgeting. The data accuracy and timeliness mean decision-makers can easily drill down to the employee level." - David Neale
Scalability for growth: Payzaar’s plug-and-play capabilities provide a replicable model for onboarding new countries and acquisitions.
“Payzaar’s plug-and-pay model makes adding new countries really easy, and the modular functionality means we can see value growing over time–Nimble, and suits Fenergo’s growth model” - David Neale
The Broader Impact: Payroll as a Strategic Asset
Fenergo’s transformation also extended beyond payroll operations, benefiting multiple areas of the business:
- Finance and HR: Improved visibility and analytics allowed these teams to contribute more strategically to business goals.
- Compliance: Stronger controls and reduced data access improved governance and mitigated risk.
- Leadership support: Payroll data now serves as a cornerstone for decision-making across the organization.
Looking to the future
Fenergo plans to roll out Payzaar’s payslip distribution module across all countries, empowering employees with self-service capabilities and further reducing manual tasks. The company also aims to deepen its use of payroll data for predictive analytics for recruitment and strategic planning.
“We plan to acquire new companies, and now we have a fantastic blueprint we can replicate, so we’re very excited by that” - David Neale
Fenergo’s partnership with Payzaar demonstrates the power of leveraging technology to simplify complexity, reduce costs, and drive meaningful value across a growing organization.
“The sky is the limit in terms of what we want to do next.” - David Neale
