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Building society in-sources HR using SAP and partners
People-centric approach at Britannia isn't about "trying to save money"

By Tony Hallett

Published: Friday 19 May 2006

Britannia Building Society is moving its HR and payroll systems back in-house, using software from SAP.

The UK's second biggest building society has outsourced these functions for the past five years but by the end of this year will again look after them directly, as part of its PeoplePlus programme.

Helen Bates, HR change manager at Britannia, said: "We needed to be able to do a lot more around people and we needed to give our managers the right tools, so we chose SAP."

The mutually owned provider of financial services will use mySAP Business Suite, hosted using managed services company Attenda. Another SAP partner, Pecaso - an HR specialist - has been used for implementation.

Britannia bases much of its IT around technology from Sun Microsystems, serving three million customers and 4,400 staff at more than 250 sites across the UK.

Bates said SAP is not an existing technology provider and that it won the business as part of a shortlist of suppliers including some well-known names in enterprise software.

A financial value to the deal has not been disclosed.

However, Bates added: "This is not about us trying to save money or headcount. This is about [the systems being] fit for purpose."

Despite a general trend towards more outsourcing, she described executives at the building society as "exceptionally open-minded" about bringing HR and payroll back in-house.

The HR database and payroll functions are due to be in-sourced by July, with employee and management self-service online by the end of the year.