COMPANY PROFILE

The Yamaha Corporation of America (YCA) offers a full line of musical instruments and audio/visual products to the U.S. market. YCA is a wholly owned subsidiary of Yamaha Corporation, Japan and is the company’s largest of its global subsidiary companies. With hundreds of employees across the U.S., the company promotes its products to dealerships, works with concert organizers, and delivers its products to many of the world’s best-known musicians.

THE CHALLENGES

Yamaha Corporation of America had been using a payroll service bureau with limited talent and benefits management capabilities. The company began looking for an HCM solution with end-to-end HR functionality that would allow for a more holistic analysis of workforce trends.

THE SOLUTION

After choosing UltiPro in June 2009, Yamaha Corporation of America has effectively streamlined its HR operations, and the HR team is now focused on strategic HR initiatives that support business growth.

“UltiPro is easy to use and helps us manage the entire employee life cycle, and we can report on almost anything we need,” said Tracy Bargielski, general manager of human resources for Yamaha Corporation of America. “Plus Ultimate Software has the customer service to fully support and back up UltiPro. The selection of UltiPro was truly a no-brainer.”

Yamaha was also impressed with UltiPro’s quick activation. “Our deployment of UltiPro was unbelievable,” said Bargielski. "The Ultimate Software team made sure we understood everything that was happening, provided 24-7 availability, offered solutions for best practices, and even recommended ways to save money. Our payroll manager, who has been with us for more than 20 years, was unsure about the transition, and even she couldn’t believe how simple the deployment was.”

As Bargielski evaluated a range of HCM systems, one of the key differentiators that set UltiPro apart was its easy-to-use, intuitive interface, which has encouraged companywide adoption of the new solution.

“We don’t have to be systems-savvy to use UltiPro, whether our end-user is an HR associate, manager, or employee. Even setting up the solution was very straightforward. Compared to the payroll service bureau, UltiPro’s usability and flexibility are like night and day.”

After rolling out UltiPro, Yamaha Corporation of America immediately saw significant benefits and increased efficiency—including improved accuracy of reports and substantial time saved across the HR department. The HR team is now focusing its energy on new value-added projects that are contributing to Yamaha’s core business. For example, because of the time savings with UltiPro, Bargielski’s team is collaborating with the company’s dealerships in order to help these locations more effectively recruit, motivate, and retain employees.

“To help us grow our business, we wanted to offer services to our dealerships that set Yamaha apart from others in our industry. With UltiPro, the HR team is now contributing to the company’s competitive position and supporting our revenue generators,” said Bargielski. “The solution is helping us align our processes with the strategic goals of the company, providing us with so many ways to save time, and helping us impact the bottom line of our business.”

Bargielski believes UltiPro also has made her a more valued business partner with a seat at the executive table. “Using UltiPro has helped improve HR’s reputation in the company. Employees and managers see us more as a partner and a resource, which is very important, as opposed to just a processing center,” said Bargielski. “Our workforce can see the information that we have and how we can use these advantages to help them make better business decisions. The response to UltiPro from our executives has been very positive.”