THE SCOPE
| Client | Anonymous |
| Size | 1,600+ employees |
| Industry | Software. Business Process Management and Transformation. Big Data Analytics. |
| Locations | 29 countries across Europe, The Americas, Asia, Africa, Australasia |
| Project Discipline | Payroll / HR / Human Capital Management |
| Software | Dayforce |
| Solutions | Dayforce Platform, Dayforce Human Resources, Dayforce Time and Attendance, Dayforce Connected Pay, Dayforce Advanced Experience Hub, Dayforce People Analytics, Dayforce Document Management, Dayforce Identity Integration, Dayforce Single Sign On, Dayforce Recruiting, Dayforce Onboarding, Dayforce Compensation, Dayforce Performance Management |
1,600+
Employees
29
Countries
6
continents
18 Days
Ahead of schedule
THE CLIENT
The client is a global enterprise software organization with operations spanning 29 countries and six continents, serving clients in sectors from banking and healthcare to energy, telecoms, and the public sector. By any measure, it is one of the most established names in European enterprise technology: the kind of organization that other businesses bring in to manage their most complex transformations.
At the point of engagement with Lavasource, it was facing one of its own. The company was in the process of splitting into two entirely new legal entities, each inheriting a different slice of a workforce spread across nearly 30 countries, with different employees, different roles, and different compliance obligations in each. Running alongside that was an HR and payroll model that had never been designed for global scale. Every country operated its own legacy systems, its own processes, and its own data structures. There was no single source of workforce truth. In stable conditions, that was a manageable problem. In the middle of a business split, it was not.
The organization has chosen to remain anonymous here. It believes, with good reason, that how this transformation was executed gives it a genuine competitive advantage, and that the specifics are not something it wants its competitors to understand. The fact that a business of this scale and sophistication feels that way is itself a measure of what the outcome delivered.
THE CHALLANGE
The most pressing complexity was not the scale of the project. It was the fact that the company was simultaneously splitting into two completely new legal entities, each inheriting different employees, different roles, different permissions, and different continuity requirements, all from the same fragmented source.
With that split in progress, the company set itself a four-month deadline to centralize and standardize its core employee data around a unified global HR model. This was not a target chosen arbitrarily. Phase 1, the Core HR foundation, was a prerequisite for Phase 2: the rollout of native payroll across all 29 countries. Miss the first deadline and everything downstream slips with it, including compliance obligations and the broader business transformation.
You have this one system that’s ultimately responsible for paying most of your people all over the world, and you’re splitting it in half. That’s a big undertaking. Mess it up and people don’t get paid. At best not on time, at worst not at all.
Mike Claxton,
HR Project Lead, Lavasource
The data complexity compounded the pressure. Across 29 countries, significant inconsistencies had built up over time, with different local systems producing different data structures, different reconciliation processes, and different compliance requirements. Any migration had to account for all of that, while simultaneously navigating the organizational divide created by the legal entity split.
Different employees on both systems, but often with different roles. Different permissions, different transition requirements, different recruitment dynamics, needs, and continuity concerns. There’s a lot to think about there; it’s complex, and pretty high-risk.
Mike Claxton,
HR Project Lead, Lavasource
THE SOLUTION
After evaluating Tier 1 providers including SAP SuccessFactors, Oracle HCM Cloud, and UKG, the client chose Dayforce. The platform offered what the project demanded: a single, unified HR and payroll environment, a global data model with local compliance built in, and the foundation to move from 29 fragmented country operations to one coherent global model.
Choosing the right platform was the straightforward part. Choosing the right implementation partner was where it got interesting.
Larger global SIs were in the running. They had the brand recognition, the headcount, and the polished pitch decks. What they could not offer was a team that lived and breathed Dayforce, that had built an entire practice around it, and that had a track record of delivering precisely this kind of high-pressure, high-complexity implementation on time. Lavasource could. So that is who they chose.
What we committed to was not a framework or a methodology document. It was a set of concrete delivery promises: all core employee data within the 90-day window, a hands-on agile approach from day one, deep Dayforce configuration expertise at every stage, and a plan built around execution rather than strategy decks. With Phase 2 payroll rollout contingent on Phase 1 landing cleanly, there was no room to treat the Core HR build in isolation. Every decision we made in Phase 1 was made with Phase 2 in view.
THE OUTCOMES
We delivered the Core HR foundation in 72 days, 18 days inside the agreed 90-day window, allowing the client to move into Phase 2 of its payroll transformation ahead of schedule. The larger Tier 1 firms initially in the running were not able to offer the same combination of Dayforce specialism, delivery discipline, and readiness to operate under that kind of pressure. We were.
- A single, centralised employee data model across all 29 countries
- Full transition from fragmented, country-level silos to a unified global standard
- Phase 2 native payroll rollout readiness accelerated by 18 days
- Two new legal entities with clean, independent HR foundations from day one
That last point matters most. The entire premise of the legal entity split was that two independent businesses would emerge from one. Without a clean HR foundation, both would have inherited the same fragmented model they were trying to leave behind. That did not happen. Both entities went live with the infrastructure to operate, report, and scale independently, which is exactly what the transformation was always supposed to make possible.
LOCAL HARMONY. GLOBAL HARMONISATION.
With the client running a wide variety of HR and payroll processes across a wide variety of countries, harmonisation became the defining objective of the project, and has remained so since go-live. With every part of the organisation now operating from the same model, cross-organisational HR reporting has been transformed. Branches and regions no longer need to piece reports together from incompatible systems. As one stakeholder put it, there is no more ‘Frankensteining’ reports.
The fact we were able to deliver not just on time but early is pretty significant. All the more as we had to split the whole thing in half. That’s certainly something I’ve never done before. Harmony really is the best word for what resulted.
Mike Claxton,
HR Project Lead, Lavasource
THE FUTURE
With a two-year support arrangement now in place, the relationship between Lavasource and this client remains a close, active one. The nature of how the project was delivered, at pace and under significant organisational change, has created a continuous improvement mentality on both sides.
As the two new legal entities settle into their operational structure, the focus is shifting from foundation-building to enhancement. Integration between LinkedIn and recruitment, and steady additions to the Dayforce environment already in place, are already under discussion. It is the kind of ongoing evolution that a well-executed implementation makes possible.
