Ultimate Software (Nasdaq:ULTI), a leading provider of end-to-end
strategic human resources, payroll, and talent management solutions,
announced today that its customer CORT Business Services, a Berkshire
Hathaway Company and leading provider of business and residential rental
furniture, apartment locating and relocation services, has achieved
significant efficiencies with UltiPro.
Delivered through Intersourcing, Ultimate Software’s
software-as-a-service (SaaS) model, UltiPro has enabled the
2,500-employee, nationwide company to abandon its previous
multi-application approach of using an enterprise resource planning
(ERP) vendor for HR, a service bureau for outsourcing payroll, and an
in-house manual process for time and attendance.
Now, with UltiPro, CORT has one comprehensive system to handle its core
HR processes, including payroll, benefits administration, online
benefits enrollment, and time and labor management. Acquiring this broad
scope of HR feature-sets through Intersourcing has resulted in even
greater gains than expected. Since going “live”
on UltiPro in July 2006, CORT’s IT team has
been able to redirect its time and resources to key business projects
because Ultimate Software has the responsibility for hardware, system
software, and ongoing system maintenance.
“To accommodate our industry’s
specific needs, we developed some of our own software for activities
critical to running our business, like inventory management. When we
were considering potential HR solution providers, we wanted to ensure
that our IT team would not have to support our new human resource
management system (HRMS) and could focus on our core business
applications,” said Debbie Lansford, CFO for
CORT.
“With my financial background and
understanding of the rental industry, I see the value in leasing
software. Selecting UltiPro as SaaS, we did not have to make a large
capital investment in a software license. It really makes good business
sense to let Ultimate Software handle the upgrades, maintenance, and the
hardware.”
Another decision-driver in selecting UltiPro was time management tools.
Prior to purchasing UltiPro Time and Attendance, employee hours were
collected manually by managers and forwarded to their supervisors. After
obtaining necessary approvals, the hours and rates were entered onto
spreadsheets and funneled to a half-dozen offices, where they were
compiled for payroll. Because information was passed from person to
person, the process was time consuming, confusing, and prone to error.
“The most important benefit of UltiPro Time
and Attendance is how it has made processes easier on our field
managers, who spend much less effort managing employee time records
compared with before. They can log in and see their team’s
year-at-a-glance attendance, or a manager can drill down to study a
specific individual’s data. Since sick and
vacation time are submitted conveniently online, managers give approvals
in seconds and can cross-reference requests against paid-time-off
balances,” said Eileen Buckley, payroll
manager for CORT. “We used to have 12 people
working on the payroll process, but with core UltiPro for human resource
management and payroll processing and UltiPro Time and Attendance, as
well as a restructuring of our internal processes, we have been able to
cut that number in half because everything is automated, centralized,
and better reporting is available.”
Another detail-intensive challenge many companies must tackle is
streamlining benefits open enrollment. Before using UltiPro, CORT’s
HR team members traveled to each location during benefits enrollment,
distributed information, answered employee questions, collected the
hand-written forms, and brought them back to the main office. Field
staff would then fly in to the Fairfax, VA, headquarters to help input
benefits changes and complete the cumbersome project.
“With UltiPro, benefits enrollment is easy
for our employees and efficient,” said
Buckley. “Employees log in and can update
their benefits choices, if needed, on their own, and because they are
responsible for entering their personal selections through self-service,
there are fewer opportunities for error. There is no need for anyone to
travel anywhere or try to interpret hand-written forms. UltiPro has made
open enrollment so much better that it’s like
day and night in comparison to our old approach.”
“CORT has done an excellent job transforming
labor management with UltiPro,” said Greg
Swick, chief sales officer for Ultimate Software. “UltiPro’s
complete suite of features can help executives handle the entire gamut
of employee-centric processes with a single software-as-a-service
provider.”
About CORT
CORT is a Berkshire Hathaway Inc. company (NYSE:BRK.A and BRK.B). For
more than 35 years, CORT has been a leading provider in rental
furniture, accessories and related services in the "rent-to-rent"
furniture industry for companies and individuals. CORT customers include
more than 80 percent of the Fortune 500 companies. CORT's www.ApartmentSearch.com
is the nation's most comprehensive online apartment search service, and
CORT is the nation's leading provider of rental furniture to trade shows
and events. CORT has more than 2,500 employees in 34 states with offices
in every major metro market. In addition, CORT has an expanding global
presence with affiliates in more than 50 countries.
About Ultimate Software
A leading provider of end-to-end strategic human resources, payroll, and
talent management solutions, Ultimate Software markets its award-winning
UltiPro products as on-demand services through its software-as-a-service
(SaaS) offering, Intersourcing, and as licensed software. Based in
Weston, FL, the Company employs approximately 800 professionals who are
focused on developing the highest quality products and services. In
January 2008, Ultimate Software was the first HR/payroll SaaS provider
to be audited and awarded the ISO/IEC 27001:2005 Certification for
security management. The Company’s internal
technology team won a first place award for its management of
Intersourcing from the American Business Awards in 2007, and its
customer service team won two first-place awards for service excellence
in 2006, one from the Service & Support Professionals Association and
another from the American Business Awards. Ultimate Software was ranked
#3 on the 2006 and 2007 lists of the Best Medium-Sized Companies to Work
For in America by the Great Place to Work Institute, and has
approximately 1,600 customers representing diverse industries, including
such organizations as The Container Store, Elizabeth Arden, Major League
Baseball, The New York Yankees Baseball Team, Nintendo of America, Ruth’s
Chris Steak House, and Sony BMG Entertainment. More information on
Ultimate Software’s products and services can
be found at www.ultimatesoftware.com.
UltiPro and Intersourcing are registered trademarks of The Ultimate
Software Group, Inc. All other trademarks referenced are the property of
their respective owners.
