Payroll in the Asia Pacific region continues to be a very active outsourcing market. NelsonHall’s 2016 payroll market analysis revealed that growth rates in the region are expected to achieve ~2x the overall market, while the multi-country payroll market is estimated to grow at ~4x the rate of the total market.

Now two years on from its acquisition by Everstone Capital from Aon Hewitt in 2015, Excelity Global continues to grow and improve its position both in the Asia Pacific region and globally as a leading multi-country payroll provider. Excelity is one of the leading payroll service providers in Asia Pacific in terms of payroll revenue and, with over 450 clients, Excelity now serves ~1.2m employees across 20 countries, with a payroll value of $5bn annually and growing.

2017 is already proving to be another lively year for Excelity, with highlights including new partnerships and multiple key client deals, due in part to its continued investment in its SaaS payroll platform, ezpayroll (which offers clients a range of BPO service level options). In 2016, Excelity saw its ezpayroll platform capability expand to thirteen countries: India, Singapore, China, Hong Kong, Philippines, Malaysia, Thailand, Australia, New Zealand, Japan, Indonesia, Korea, and Taiwan. Excelity continues to invest upwards of ~25% of its revenues in its technology and platform, and intends to expand its capability and reach in the future.

For example, last month, Excelity announced a strategic partnership with Tokyo-based payroll service provider, Socialynx. The partnership is part of Excelity’s strategy to broaden its footprint in the APAC region, and specifically in Japan. With this partnership, Excelity will tap in to the Socialynx delivery model and clients (many of whom are Japan-based and regionally distributed), offering Socialynx clients the opportunity to move to ezpayroll.

As a result of this partnership, Excelity has already established a strong pipeline of new client opportunities and expects to close deals this year that will add ~15k new pay slips processed per month. Longer term, Excelity sees this as an opportunity to further grow its client base in Japan, specifically with Japanese Banking and Finance companies – an industry sector in which Excelity already has deep expertise and a strong client base.

Earlier this month, Excelity announced that it will partner with WOWOOHR, a cloud-based Chinese HR services provider (formed as a joint venture in late 2016 by Ant Financial Services Group, FESCO Group, and the Adecco Group).  WOWOOHR will provide Excelity with regional mandatory benefit services to clients in China, while Excelity will offer payroll services through its ezpayroll platform to WOWOOHR clients.

Further, Excelity has also agreed to a partnership with Indonesian consulting firm Cekindo.  Under the partnership, Cekindo will leverage Excelity’s technology for delivery of HR & Payroll services to its BPO customers. A similar (soon to be formally announced) agreement is in place with a leading multinational professional services firm for Excelity technology in India (live in April 2017), and later this year in Japan, and China.  

Furthermore, at the start of 2017, Excelity announced that it had signed multi-year deals with three large, multinational, clients: India-based Fortis Health (24,000 employees), and Datamatics (8,500 employees). The scope of these deals includes payroll and benefits, and starts with services in India, with expansion to other countries and services as the relationships progress. Excelity also signed a deal with a large U.S. based, global diversified manufacturer for multi-country payroll. While specific details of the contract could not be shared, NelsonHall estimates the value at ~$1.4m (U.S.).

Going forward, Excelity will continue partnering with leading providers across APAC, and will broaden its presence in the region by opening a delivery center in Malaysia and have secured business licenses for sales offices in Australia to open later in 2017. With this strong momentum and continued investment, I expect Excelity will see further growth and new client wins in the region as they continue building on the past two years’ progress.