Vendor Analysis
published on Jan 08, 2019
Report Overview:
This NelsonHall vendor assessment analyzes Ascender's offerings and capabilities in Next Generation Payroll Services
Who is this Report for:
NelsonHall’s Payroll Services Vendor Assessment for Ascender is a comprehensive assessment of Ascender payroll services offerings and capabilities designed for:
- Sourcing managers monitoring the capabilities of existing suppliers of payroll outsourcing and identifying vendor suitability for payroll services RFPs
- Vendor marketing, sales, and business managers looking to benchmark themselves against their peers
- Financial analysts and investors specializing in the support services sector
- HR and payroll decision makers.
Scope of this Report:
The report provides a comprehensive and objective analysis of Ascender’s Next Generation Payroll services offering, capabilities, and market and financial strength, including:
- Identification of the company’s strategy, emphasis, and new developments
- Analysis of the company’s strengths, weaknesses, and outlook
- Revenue estimates
- Analysis of the profile of the company’s customer base including the company’s targeting strategy and examples of current contracts
- Analysis of the company’s offerings and key service components
- Analysis of the company’s delivery organization including the location of delivery locations.
Key Findings & Highlights:
Ascender, founded in 2003 and headquartered in Sydney, Australia is a provider of payroll services and human capital management software. Ascender exclusively specializes in solutions for the Asia Pacific region providing legislative coverage across 31 countries and a market-leading footprint of regional offices and delivery centers throughout the Asia Pacific region.
Today, Ascender provides payroll technology and services for 1.4k clients, ~1.3m employees across the APAC countries. Further, Ascender is a key in-region APAC partner for long tail payroll delivery for several leading global payroll outsourcing providers, as a founding member of the Payroll Services Alliance (PSA).
Ascender currently offers the following payroll and human resource (HR) solutions to its clients:
- Payroll services
- Workforce management services
- Technology and application management services (AMS)
- HCM technology
Ascender offers end-to-end payroll solution and services options, with service delivery models ranging from SaaS only (partial services) up to a comprehensive fully managed payroll option. Ascender largely delivers its payroll services on its proprietary platforms.
Ascender leverages its proprietary cloud platforms in the delivery of its HR and payroll services, with each platform aligned to the country or market served. Implementation timeframes for Ascender's payroll platforms average 3-4 months depending on complexity and scope. ~95% of its client base operates on a cloud-based payroll solution, with <5% leveraging an on-premise solution (mostly public-sector clients on Ascender Pay).
In September 2018, Ascender acquired HCM software provider PeopleStreme. The PeopleStreme HCM cloud platform brought with it a suite of 22 modules including recruiting, onboarding, performance management, learning, and workforce planning and analytics which Ascender is integrating with its multi-country payroll services offering.
Ascender targets and offers solutions for clients of all sizes and headquartered in the APAC region and has clients ranging from 20 to over 90k employees. Ascender also offers services and support for EMEA countries as well, (generally for APAC clients with EMEA footprints) and provides this through its partner network as needed.