Seattle Biomedical Research Institute implements UltiPro to enhance IT operations

Ultimate Software (Nasdaq: ULTI), a leading provider of end-to-end strategic human resources, payroll, and talent management solutions, announced today that Seattle Biomedical Research Institute (SBRI), the largest independent, nonprofit organization in the U.S. focused solely on infectious disease research, is experiencing IT improvements since switching from an on-premise human resource management system (HRMS) to UltiPro delivered through Software-as-a-Service (SaaS).

“SaaS was a great opportunity to essentially gain a DBA because Ultimate took over the management of UltiPro. Ultimate installs upgrades and manages the solution more efficiently than us because UltiPro is their sole focus”

Founded in 1976, SBRI has hundreds of employees working in research labs in Seattle and field labs in Tanzania. After implementing Ultimate’s on-premise human capital management (HCM) solution for unified HR, payroll, benefits, and recruitment management in 2007, the HR/payroll team experienced increased efficiencies and business value using UltiPro. However, Evan Brown, systems programmer analyst for SBRI, believed that both the HR and IT departments could further benefit from moving to Ultimate’s SaaS delivery. SBRI made the switch to SaaS in 2009 and has since enjoyed:

• Faster, more streamlined software upgrades
• Additional HR functionality
• Better data protection through Ultimate’s state-of-the-art data center redundancies and back-up procedures—ensuring business continuity in the event of natural disasters, power loss, or other similar disruptions

As a research company, SBRI relies on the latest technologies to accomplish its goals. The organization employs a lean, sophisticated IT team to manage its systems, and Brown believed his group could better serve SBRI by relying on Ultimate Software to manage its HCM solution.

“SaaS was a great opportunity to essentially gain a DBA because Ultimate took over the management of UltiPro. Ultimate installs upgrades and manages the solution more efficiently than us because UltiPro is their sole focus,” said Brown. “My team manages many applications at the Institute, and now we can really focus on our core responsibilities. Also, without the burden of hosting and maintaining UltiPro on our own servers, we have more time to research and implement new IT projects that add value to Seattle Biomedical’s operations.”

In addition to the manpower required to support on-premise business applications, hardware can be an issue for many companies because it is often costly to upgrade. By moving to SaaS, SBRI experiences all of the advantages of the latest hardware for its HCM solution, without incurring added expense.

“Part of my team’s job is to take care of existing systems, and one of our responsibilities is to plan for emerging technologies. When we considered SaaS, we compared costs — including those associated with purchasing new equipment and the resources needed to implement upgrades. With UltiPro, we found we would recoup our investment in about 18 months,” said Brown.

In addition to savings related to software maintenance and hardware, Brown also factored in the value of Ultimate’s hardened data center, backup procedures, redundancies, and state-of-the-art security.

“With an on-premise solution, many things can go wrong that could impact our systems — facility shutdown from a natural disaster, network/telecom failure, power loss, or even the sudden loss of critical staff — resulting in significant business disruption if proper plans are not in place,” said Brown. “With UltiPro delivered through SaaS, we are confident that are our data is more secure and we are now better prepared if something unexpected occurs.”

“With many years of experience in the HCM SaaS industry, we make significant investments in resources and infrastructure that the average enterprise would find cost-prohibitive,” said Greg Swick, chief sales officer for Ultimate Software. “By using our SaaS solution, organizations like SBRI gain technology advantages that they may not be able to afford and sustain on their own. We’re very pleased that SBRI has improved its IT operations with Ultimate’s SaaS model.”