ASR, provides HR and Payroll solutions to a number of investment management companies. ASR's experience in the financial services sector, coupled with the rich functionality found in HR Professional and the knowledge of our project team in implementing systems in this sector, are just a few of the reasons why Pioneer Investments uses HR Professional.

Pioneer Investments established in 1928, is a global investment manager dedicated to growing and preserving its clients' assets. Pioneer Investments provides a full offering of asset management solutions tailored to a wide spectrum of investors. With proven experience Pioneer Investments have built long term relationships based on trust with their clients worldwide.

The International Division which is headquartered in Pioneer Investments (Dublin) has over 450 employees and has experienced significant growth over the past 6 to 7 years. The Human Resources function has evolved over this period to support the Division as it has grown and expanded. Although already using a global HR system solution Pioneer Investments (Dublin) felt that it was limited in being able to meet their own very specific business needs.

Human Resource Information Software

Operating in such a dynamic business sector and understanding the needs of the business, Pioneer Investments (Dublin) set up a project team to evaluate all of the leading HR suppliers in the marketplace, with a view to purchasing a new system. The first part of the process involved reducing the number of solution providers down to a manageable number. This involved reviewing responses to Pioneer's Request for Information, seeking recommendations, reading through brochures, researching suppliers' websites and an invitation to the first round of demonstrations. Five suppliers were brought in to demonstrate their software and a number of those were invited back to complete a second demonstration as well as provide a suitable reference site visit. ASR with their product HR Professional including Personnel, Recruitment, Training, Org Plus and e-HR were awarded the contract.

Pioneer Investments had an extremely experienced project panel including members of the HR, Compensation & Benefits and Payroll team and IT team. Pioneers Investment's VP of HR Fiona Horan commented;

"Even early on during the demonstrations it was clear that ASR's sales and project team had a very clear understanding of Pioneer's needs and business processes. They definitely inspired us with confidence in them."

"With ASR taking the time to understand our requirements in detail, meant that ASR proposed a solution that closely mirrored our needs and objectives. HR Professional offered Pioneer Investments the best fit solution in the marketplace. The functionality inherent in ASR's product ensured that Pioneer Investments were receiving a solution that not only met all of our immediate requirements, but gave us the flexibility to evolve with the product as; inevitably our future needs and processes change."

"Our CEO sees HR as being one of the key drivers in automating a number of our internal processes. Therefore, Pioneer Investments are always looking to streamline operations and HR Professional's configuration tool and workflow management gives us the independence and flexibility to satisfy this requirement."

"Pioneer Investments also has an extremely complex and scientific bonus model based on employees performance that is run each year. It was therefore, imperative that the supplier's software was flexible enough to configure this model into the system and be able to provide data in a format that could be modelled and analysed by HR, Line Managers and Directors. ASR's product, HR Professional was able to achieve this."

"HR Professional's comprehensive in built reporting tool, the flexibility of the software plus the strength of ASR's e-HR module also provides Pioneer Investments with the opportunity to become actively involved in realising strategic HR."

Fiona Horan has worked for Pioneer Investments for nearly 4 years after moving from an HR role in Sydney, Australia for State Street another global financial organisation. Fiona worked for State Street for 5 years, who were the first New South Wales site to implement Peoplesoft, for which Fiona was responsible. Her skills and experience in implementing systems and understanding business processes has been invaluable in helping to drive the purchase, delivery and continuous evolution of HR Professional.

After the initial specification meeting a comprehensive project plan was drawn up including configuration of HR Professional to meet Pioneer's requirements, installation of a test system, set up of encryption, extraction of data from the existing HR system, preparation and mapping of data for import into HR Professional, system install, test data / system, user acceptance testing and e-HR roll out. The launch of the system went ahead of schedule despite the complexity of the project.

Fiona explained:

"We rolled out HR Professional at our year end with very strict timescales and everything went extremely smoothly and ahead of schedule. ASR's project team skills and experience and their ability to deliver really illustrated the fact that the faith we had given them at the beginning of the project was definitely justified."

"HR Professional has been live since December 2003 and we are extremely pleased with the product and ASR. Importantly, employees at Pioneer Investments (Dublin) are really buying in to the importance of our HR system. Next steps for us will involve devolving reporting capabilities and self service to Line Managers and employees."

All of Pioneer Investments (Dublin) HR users have undertaken a comprehensive training programme at ASR's training headquarters to ensure that Pioneer Investments (Dublin) maximises its investment and use of HR Professional. ASR's dedicated training team provided training that gave Pioneer Investments (Dublin) core users the skills and ability to evolve the system without always having to rely on one of ASR's customer services team to configure their system. Cost savings are realised and the flexibility and independence given to users allows Pioneer Investments (Dublin) to move immediately as processes change.

The Irish marketplace is really starting to gain momentum again, which brings in new challenges for HR and Pioneer Investments (Dublin). Pioneer Investments (Dublin), like other companies, are faced with the challenge of attracting the right candidates and retaining employees, but unlike most companies Pioneer Investments (Dublin) are in a position to meet these challenges head on.

Fiona states;

"The pressures and dynamism of HR mean that working within HR is never dull. New challenges placed on HR by the business and the economy helps to ensure that HR is at the forefront in meeting these challenges. HR Professional will help us to provide solutions to these challenges."