For our Partner Profile of May 2007, Jenny Karkkainen talks with Sage MicrOpay's Karen Bowness. As a Product Manager for Sage MicrOpay Karen has a really good understanding of the company's business, products and partnerships. Read beyond to see what she had to say.

To get started Karen, could you tell us a bit about Sage MicrOpay's background and current market situation?

MicrOpay was founded in 1985 to provide a viable alternative to the more expensive options that were available at the time. The system we developed, Payroll Manager, although no longer our flagship product is still in use today by hundreds of organisations. As a matter of fact today, Sage MicrOpay is the largest payroll vendor in the 50 - 1000 employee market space with a 31% market share. Our client base is made up of the who's who of Australian Business with our smallest client having only a few employees and our largest with 10,000.

You were previously known just as MicrOpay. What does Sage stand for?

In 2003 MicrOpay was acquired by Sage Group, a global software vendor and leading supplier of accounting and business management software. The financial strength that Sage brings to the business has helped us to grow and strengthen our brand in the Australian marketplace.

Can you give us an overview of Sage MicrOpay's core products?

Sage MicrOpay is one of the few vendors that has different product offerings dependant on the needs of the client.

MicrOpay Meridian is our latest offering in the under 500 employee market, providing comprehensive payroll functionality and yet surprisingly simple to use. MicrOpay Meridian was designed to replace MicrOpay Payroll Manager. This month Sage MicrOpay is celebrating its 1000th MicrOpay Meridian client.

MicrOpay Ingenuity is our premium payroll solution designed for large organisations or those with more complex needs, it's very flexible in the way it is set-up and provides clients with extensive costing capabilities. Both MicrOpay Meridian and MicrOpay Ingenuity provide total integration with EmployeeConnect's HRpro allowing our mutual clients to share both payroll and HR data.

The total number of clients supported by Sage MicrOpay is 6,500 the breakdown being 4,500 MicrOpay clients and 2,000 Wage Easy clients.

That brings up the subject of WageEasy. What was the strategy behind the purchase?

It's a good fit for the two companies. We have a similar background - both are well respected, successful brands and we are both specialists in payroll with a strong client focus. The addition of Wage Easy to our product portfolio allows us to have a solution for small, medium and larger organisations. Wage Easy and MicrOpay Meridian share a common software development platform which enables us to share intellectual property across both products.

The acquisition will allow Sage MicrOpay to apply greater focus on the larger corporates within the mid-sized enterprise market segment; this is an area we are focusing on with EmployeeConnect.

Ok, Karen, what other companies are in Sage MicrOpay's target range?

(Karen smiles)

MicrOpay has been around for a quite long time, it's a respected and trusted brand. How does MicrOpay ensure that it is capable of delivering this value to its clients?

Payroll is a specialist area and our core strength. We believe in minimising risk for our clients by supplying a reliable, robust payroll solution that pays people on-time every time. Let's face it, payroll is a mission critical application and one that absolutely must deliver, therefore we do not operate at the bleeding edge of technology. Before adopting new technologies our development team perform rigorous testing to ensure that it will stand up to the demands of clients. In saying that though, we are always monitoring developments in business and technology to ensure that our software is always full of productivity saving features and is able to harness the benefits that technology provides.

How about the EC/MicrOpay joint solution? In light of recent successes what do you see as the real value behind it?

I can't think of any vendors that do both payroll and HR really well - usually one suffers. The MicrOpay/EC best of breed approach sees two industry leaders coming together to provide an integrated high end solution. Our joint solution provides clients with the best of both worlds which minimises risk and ensures they don't have to compromise.

We are totally committed to our partnership with EmployeeConnect and believe that our products complement each other as do the services we provide. The EmployeeConnect implementation methodology works very well with our own and our support and implementation teams seem to have meshed nicely together. Our products fit so well together because they both are doing what they were designed to do, MicrOpay Ingenuity looks after the all important payment and costing side of employees while EmployeeConnect manages and nurtures the employees through HR.

Having a look at the future, where do you, Karen, see the payroll industry in 5 years time?

The payroll market is mature and currently overcrowded with a large variety of products available. We envisage that over the next 5 - 10 years we will see a consolidation of vendors with a handful of players becoming dominant in the marketplace. Payroll will continue to grow in importance in the business and will become more strategic than where it is today, it will however remain a processing operation and a vital part of the organisation.

So where will Sage MicrOpay be?

Sage MicrOpay recognises the mission critical status of payroll and will continue to provide reliable and robust solutions to pay people on-time every time. Business today is looking to achieve more in less time, so we will continue to add productivity saving functionality into our systems while continuing to provide the peace of mind that a MicrOpay solution represents.

That was great Karen, thank you for your time!

Thank you Jenny!