KBC Financial Products (KBCFP) - Leading Financial Product Specialists Meet All Of Their HR Needs And Requirements Thanks To ASR’s Flexible HR & Payroll Software Solution

Leading financial products specialist has been able to meet all of their HR needs and requirements thanks to ASR’s flexible HR & Payroll software solution.

KBC Financial Products (KBCFP) is a market leading specialist in equity, credit and fund-linked derivatives with a strategic focus on technology.  KBCFP distinguishes itself with its unique specialist approach to these markets, by an absolute focus on serving its customers’ interests, and the clever application of technology and financial expertise to further its clients’ investment and financing strategies.

KBCFP Global Solution

KBCFP serves the world’s institutional and hedge fund investment community with KBC group controlling assets of over EUR 315 billion. With over 570 employees and offices in London, New York, Tokyo, and Hong Kong KBCFP team is supported by the 4 strong HR team in the heart of the financial district of London, 4 in New York, 1 in Hong Kong and 2 in Tokyo..

HR Manager, Caroline Andrew was the prime mover behind the introduction of an innovative HR solution “For a company where 20% of staff are IT Professionals it was important for KBCFP to identify a supplier that could meet our high expectations and provide us with a solution that was rich in functionality, extremely flexible, had comprehensive reporting and was able to meet our international requirements too. Furthermore, KBCFP needed a system that could evolve with the business.”

Security is Paramount

As with a lot of city financial institutions, security is an area of paramount importance to KBCFP’s business, particularly, with their extensive compensation and benefits packages KBCFP provide to its employees. Likewise, data integrity is a must for KBCFP.

Caroline explained:

“Our research of the HR software marketplace indicated to us that there are an awful lot of suppliers out there, however after a series of demonstrations it became clear there were really only a few suppliers that would be able to help us meet the challenges that we faced as a business.”

Caroline adds:

“It became even clearer, after speaking with suppliers customers, that only one supplier could actually deliver what they said they could do and that was ASR.”

Value for Money

Caroline continues:

“ASR’s customer gave them a glowing reference. As well as offering us an innovative HR solution, in the end, their customer reference made it an easy decision for us and we are still, to this day extremely pleased with the decision we made. In fact we have now been using ASR’s HR software system for several years now and if I could sum up what ASR has provided us with and it is quite simple really - value for money. HR Professional wasn’t expensive and considering what you get for your money it would be difficult to find another vendor who could provide the consistent quality of service that we find with ASR.”

KBCFP purchased ASR’s HR Professional offering which included modules in Personnel and Recruitment. KBCFP have since gone on to purchase ASR’s e-HR self-service module too.

Flexible Solution

KBCFP worked closely with the ASR project and implementation team to configure an individually tailored system to meet KBCFP’s personnel, recruitment, compensation and benefit’s needs. Different screen sets for KBCFP’s offices in New York, Tokyo and Hong Kong were also configured to meet the needs reflecting international benefits. For example, in New York an additional dentist history has been included and Japan has different currency screens. Data is fed into HR Professional at each of these locations with all the data being updated to ASR’s central database at the London office.

The flexibility of ASR’s software has also enabled Caroline to alter bonus screens after the introduction of new compensation plans. Caroline says:

“The beauty of HR Professional is the ability to tailor the system when required and for those configurations to be immediately and automatically available for reporting purposes.” Caroline has also configured recruitment screens to help keep track and manage the costs of recruitment.

Powerful Reporting

ASR’s HR software has it’s own in-built reporting tool, which is extremely easy to use, and has the ability to produce powerful analyses. Caroline’s assistant, Sharon Harvey confirmed:

“Using a global HR software solution in my last job for a world renowned financial institution I found report writing difficult and cumbersome. ASR’s report writing tool has really been developed with the end user in mind without compromising on functionality. The ease which you can extract business data out of system is great – it really is just two clicks and you are done!”

Sharon adds:

“The output options are fantastic, so that when I run management reports they include our corporate identity and are formatted to our needs and are not pre-determined.”

KBCFP recently purchased ASR’s self-service module, which is currently being used by members of the HR team at the London office, before rolling out to all employees in London, New York, Japan and Hong Kong. It is expected that in 2007 KBCFP employees will be able to request holiday, check holiday balances, amend contact and bank details and also be provided with a compensation and benefits summary.

User Group Meeting

Both Caroline and Sharon are regular attendees of ASR’s bi-annual User Group meeting and are equally impressed by the level of guest speaker that ASR’s User Group attracts. Caroline comments:

“The ASR guest speaker who had completed the round the world yacht challenge was really inspirational. Although, unrelated to ASR’s software it provided delegates with the opportunity to take something else away that can benefit them in the work place and in their personal life too. ASR’s User Group is also a great networking opportunity to share best practice with other like minded HR Professionals.”

Support and Training

An important aspect of any software supplier is the support that they provide after the sale and through the life cycle of the customer relationship. Sharon acknowledges this:

“ASR’s UK support desk staff are nothing but helpful and have the ability to manage your expectations keeping you up to date every step of the way.”

“Likewise, the training that I undertook by ASR’s dedicated training team gave me a great understanding of the software. The real life training exercises in ASR’s training manual were of great help and the fact that you get to keep the manual helps enormously when you are back in the office.” Caroline echoes Sharon’s thoughts on training: “I used to be an IT trainer myself and the ASR training team were excellent.”

KBCFP are already looking at the next generation of ASR’s software, their new .NET HR Workflow module. ASR’s .NET HR Workflow module has the ability to manage the full workflow process and not just email triggers, helping HR to become more efficient and effective.

Caroline finishes “Overall it has been a good experience and I look forward to moving the system forward over the next few years”.

Find out more about our wide selection of Human Resources software:

	HR Software
	.NET HR Workflow
	Personnel Software
	Recruitment Software
	Training Software
	e-HR Software
	HR Payroll Software