Human Resources and Information Systems Managers, even more so when your name is SODEXO and you employ no fewer than 100,000 people across Europe of which more than 30,000 in France. It is nevertheless this challenge, which Michel Foulon, VP Strategic Planning & Control and IS&T at SODEXO Alliance Europe, decided to take on in implementing the project in France and Germany before subsequently picking up the gauntlet…
The Context, the Challenges
The SODEXO Group, a leader in the restaurant and services industry, decided to align the working practices of its four subsidiary companies at the end of the 90s and to update its systems ahead of the year 2000, given that not all were likely to pass this deadline. This challenge is not unknown to payroll processing in France either.
The Complexity of Payroll Processing in France
SODEXO’s payroll in France is particularly complex as a result of the diverse employment statutes and contracts of which it is composed:
- 32,000 salaries paid per month
- 5 collective agreements: SNRC, SYNTEC, Hospitality, Index-linked payroll for Seconded Municipal Staff, Monaco
- Around 30 different types of employment contracts
- 7 salary categories: active, apprentice, artist, extra…
- Employment type L122-12 resulting from restaurant buybacks – significant number of transactions per month: 3,900 incoming and 3,500 outgoing
About Sodexo
| Headquarters: | Marseille – France |
| Established in: | 1966 |
| Activity: | Restaurants/Catering, services, technical maintenance |
| Turnover | € 12.8 billion |
| Presence: | 28,300 sites in 80 countries |
A First Sap Payroll Project before the Year 2000
It was in this context that an initial project was launched in 1999 for the implementation of a payroll system based on SAP. Spurred on by the approaching deadline of the year 2000, SODEXO adopted an ambitious plan to meet the required deadlines and to optimize its payroll projects over the following two years. SODEXO’s priority during this initial stage was to guarantee the internal maintenance of the application.
Parallel with the upgrading of its SAP system and a renewal of its contract, and with a view to achieving further improvements in productivity and quality, the organization began a second phase in the strategy:
- to reduce the maintenance budget
- to manage internal resources dedicated to non-strategic tasks (9 FTE: Full-time equivalents)
- to guarantee quality operations and constant growth, notably with regard to regulations