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UKG Inc., a leading provider of HR, payroll, and workforce management solutions announces entering into a definitive agreement to acquire Immedis. Read More

Global B2B Tax and Payroll – Overcoming the Challenges

Mark Graham
Mark Graham

Chief Commercial Officer

Jun 19, 2017 2 mins

In this week’s Marketing & Media pull out of The Sunday Independent, Immedis Marketing Director, Patricia Khalifa is interviewed about the challenges of bringing a new brand to market. 

What is Immedis and what does it offer?

Immedis is a specialist division of The Taxback Group. Our core business is to service the multi-country payroll and tax obligations of companies with overseas staff. We have a team of international tax and payroll experts who advise clients on their obligations and run their international payroll requirements.Patricia Butler Patricia Butler

We have also developed an innovative technology platform, allowing companies to manage their global payroll and employment tax needs all in one place. Our clients include Airbus, Kerry Group, The Clinton Health Access Initiative, Wayfair and Harvard University.

What marketing challenges do you face?

Many organisations still view Marketing as a cost centre rather than a growth engine. For that reason, it’s crucial that Marketing works closely with Sales to ensure they are helping move prospects through the funnel to close deals while keeping close to customers and their needs and wants. Using data and analytics to track and measure the effectiveness of different initiatives will help prove the value Marketing brings to the business.

B2B sometimes gets lost in the features and functionality, forgetting there’s a person at the end of the process who has a lot more to lose. B2B decision makers are under a lot more pressure than B2C buyers. If you or I buy a car or shampoo that doesn’t quite live up to our expectations, there’s no harm done. But if you’re the CFO who makes the decision to implement a global payroll solution that affects how your employees are paid, and it goes wrong, that’s a career defining moment. And not a good one.

Early on I learned that sometimes throwing the brand guidelines out the window to create something unique that achieves cut through and resonates with the decision maker is more important. At the end of the day, it’s about results, leads and driving growth.

What markets does the company service?

We operate in two distinct, yet complementary markets. The Global Mobility Tax Market is worth over $5bn a year in managing the tax obligations for employers and employees sent as expats on international assignments. It’s a huge market and growing constantly as organisations expand internationally.

Payroll outsourcing is the fastest growing segment of the global HR outsourcing market. Companies are rapidly adopting payroll services to achieve cost reduction for a business critical function. Research has shown that organisations that outsource spend on average 20% less than those that don’t.

A key market driver is the need for cost visibility and a key trend we see is the increased use of technology to simplify management and reporting. This is what we have spent the past 4 years developing with our payroll platform.

Who are your competitors?

We have two sets of competitors – global payroll software providers and tax advisors.

We are unique. We sit in the middle, which sounds ominous in traditional marketing theory, but our research has shown that clients really need this.

A global payroll software solution is only as good as the person behind the screen. Looking at payroll from a tax perspective to ensure everything remains compliant and each country is adhering to local regulations and legislation in each country is what complicates matters. Technology can’t do that alone. Human intervention is needed to make it work.

Read the full interview here – http://www.independent.ie/business/media/marketing-people-trish-khalifa-35837214.html