The globalization and internationalization of medium-sized companies has also reached the payroll process. More and more German companies with foreign branches want or are already in the process of implementing payroll on a globally uniform HR system in which personal data is maintained decentrally, which can be used by an external partner or the foreign locations to carry out payroll and also provide automated reports.

The background is a large number of different systems, processes, interfaces and the associated expenses for changes as well as the current redundant data maintenance in the HR environment. In the future, companies want to implement simple and standardized processes in order to be able to react flexibly and quickly to operational and legal changes.

An example is the story of an international high-tech company, one of the world's leading manufacturers of technologies, components and products for household appliances. The company decided to take the step together with the German support and implementation partner and to completely convert its payroll, administration and organizational management to SAP HCM. The client has 22 legal entities in 16 different countries and time zones. An important aspect of cooperation is customer proximity. This is ensured by a worldwide alliance of SAP system houses. The network is on site in more than 60 countries and thus ensures high-quality and well-rehearsed local customer support for SAP HCM in the local language in all time zones with close knowledge of local business rules, regulations and laws. An important aspect was not only the SAP implementation project, but also the subsequent support guaranteed by the partner and carried out in Germany. This is also with the support of local partners. This also gives us the first "Follow the Sun" model across different time zones.

In the first step of the project, which will last a total of 3 years, the as-is analysis was carried out together with experts from local partners at the customer's locations in 7 pilot countries. Subsequently, the implementation in these countries was started, before the next countries will follow in the next rollout step.

This is the example of a company that is driving the international standardization of human resources under SAP HCM.