The Co-operative Group, one UK’s largest retailers, has transformed its payroll processes with Ricoh’s IT services. The company is UK’s fifth biggest food retailer, operating over 5,000 retail trading outlets and employs more than 98,000 staff.
Within a four weekly cycle, The Co-operative’s people services payroll department in the company’s Glasgow office was being asked to produce around 80,000 payslips.
The majority of which are produced during a short window of time – just three days from when payroll closes to delivering staff payslips – to produce, print and distribute the payslips.
Previously, the team had been doing this job with four standard desktop printers and was just about coping with the job. But when the Group took over the Somerfield chain of supermarkets, the number of staff needing payslips suddenly increased by 30,000.
“The payroll staff were doing an excellent job, producing the payslips, but the sudden increase in employee numbers and the corresponding payslips meant we simply couldn’t complete the job, in the short timeframe, with the print equipment we had,” said Lynora Waddell, manager of the project and systems team at The Co-operative Group.
To meet the challenge posed by the increase in staff The Co-operative installed one of Ricoh’s 110-page-per-minute Pro production print devices as part of this payslip print solution.
“We are legally obliged to print and distribute The Cooperative Group’s payslips on time for payday, so the Ricoh’s IT solution is at the crux of what we do. If we didn’t have this equipment – and the speed and efficiency which it delivers – we just couldn’t get the payslips out on time,” concluded Waddell.
| About Ricoh |
Ricoh is a global technology company specialising in office imaging equipment, production print solutions, document management systems and IT services. Headquartered in Tokyo, Ricoh Group operates in more than 200 countries and regions. In the financial year ending March 2012, Ricoh Group had worldwide sales of 1,903 billion yen (approx. 23 billion USD).
The majority of the company’s revenue comes from products, solutions and services that improve the interaction between people and information. Ricoh also produces award-winning digital cameras and specialised industrial products. It is known for the quality of its technology, the exceptional standard of its customer service and sustainability initiatives.
Under its corporate tagline, imagine. change. Ricoh helps companies transform the way they work and harness the collective imagination of their employees.
