Product Description

Remunerate is an enterprise-grade software solution for facilitating the annual salary and incentive compensation review processes typical of large organisations. It supports the sophisticated incentive schemes used by modern organisations to reward and recognise all employees, not just sales incentives. Remunerate facilitates the individual review of employee performance, salary, and incentive by allowing line managers to easily ensure fair and appropriate compensation for their employees based on goals defined by corporate policy and individual performance objectives. Remunerate gives senior managers complete visibility of the compensation decisions across their organisational divisions. Remunerate provides the organisation the ability to implement the remuneration packages required to attract and retain top performers without an army of support staff.

Remunerate is a web-based tool designed for global enterprises.

Innovation

Remunerate is one of the only dedicated employee remuneration review software packages on the market and is innovative on a number of levels:

Architecture

Remunerate is web-based with the underlying technology the Microsoft .NET Framework but Remunerate is not a standard ASP.NET application. Remunerate has been architected as a full n-tier client/server application with the client implemented entirely in DHTML and JavaScript. No client-side technology other than an IE browser (found on the standard desktop of all client sites to date) needs to be deployed.

Automated client platform test

Because of the heavy reliance on certain browser features Remunerate includes a “browser test” capability to enable the software to verify its requirements are met prior to running the application. Test results are automatically stored centrally to give technical support a head start in the case of an incompatible browser. The client test technology verifies network performance capabilities and records specific information about each browser environment to facilitate faster problem resolution.

Data model

Remunerate uses a metadata engine to model the client remuneration data. The metadata engine supports model changes and derived fields using a scripting technology that is a subset of JavaScript/ECMAScript and JScript.NET. Script code is compiled into temporary assemblies on the server and executed to ensure that the model is kept consistent. The script code is also deployed to the browser for client-side execution to provide a superior end-user experience.

Client (browser) and server-side object caching

Remunerate makes heavy use of client-side object caching. All employee data is retrieved from the server using SOAP-based web services. XML streams are deserialised and stored in memory for rapid retrieval and minimisation of network traffic.

Remunerate Welcome Screen: click the thumbnail for a full screen view

Client code generation

Finally, the client-side JavaScript object model is generated by introspecting the server-side class definitions. The generated code includes visual proxy and dynamic update functionality for rendering and update of client-side objects.

This code generation and meta model allow Remunerate to be adapted to user needs by users. This is particularly important given the point in time nature of Remunerate and the mandatory integration with any and all HRMIS already in use at a client site. The meta model allows Remunerate to be deployed and configured by HR practitioners without the need for IT support. Ultimately this strategy will allow the Remunerate code base to be supported by a smaller number of IT professionals with the majority of support and implementation being performed by HR practitioners in partner organisations whilst still supporting a large number of different, and custom, deployment scenarios.

Performance

Remunerate Review Screen: click the thumbnail for a full screen view

Remunerate has been constructed from the beginning to be an enterprise quality system. The target audience is enterprise-grade companies and its roots at BHP have ensured that level of quality and performance is retained and validated year in, year out.

Remunerate is built using C# and the .NET Framework on the server, and JavaScript and DHTML on the client. All RPC is via standards-based SOAP web services. The browser DHTML code is standards compliant where possible although a few MS extensions have been utilised to enrich the client experience.

Remunerate has been deployed globally by three organisations to date and has successfully facilitated over 100,000 individual employee reviews. In the most recent deployment at Babcock & Brown, Remunerate has enabled a more flexible and automated review process that involved line managers from around the world. In this particular example the flexibility of the Remunerate meta-model technology was tested with changes to the model design occurring right up until the end of the review period.

Remunerate has the ability to reduce the elapsed time required to run employee review processes. Less manual handling of data coupled with a real time view of the current state of any review allows the system administrators to expediently identify and follow-up on potential delays to get the process finished on time.

Although Remunerate is only accessed by line managers for a short time each year (typically measured in weeks)

Potential

Government or other agency support

AusTrade is supporting the marketing of Remunerate into the United Kingdom through the New Export Market Development Program (NEMDP).

Microsoft is supporting the development and certification of Remunerate through the Empower program for ISVs.

Designed for International use

Remunerate has been deployed in three international deployments between them covering all of the populated continents in the world. It has been designed with a full n-tier client/server architecture with the need for centrally supported international deployments in mind. This architecture does not allow for partially connected computing but it does minimise the network bandwidth required in order to use the application effectively, even across low quality links

Remunerate does not currently support multiple languages in a single installation but it can be deployed in a non-English (Latin character set) language.

Remunerate does include full multi-currency support and the use of localised market data to allow relevant comparisons of employee remuneration to be made across international boundaries.

Global design standards

All communication between the browser and server is via HTTP and is either standards complaint HTML or SOAP-based web services.

Identified potential markets

Remunerate targets organisations with a significant professional workforce (> 1000 employees) potentially spread nationally or internationally that require manager review of individual employee total remuneration. This could include employees that have an “at risk” component to their remuneration package or employees on performance-based remuneration or workplace agreement. Remunerate goes well beyond managing sales force incentives. Remunerate covers whole-of-enterprise incentive schemes and provides for line managers, the people who really know what contribution individuals are making, to ensure that their employees are suitable rewarded for those contributions (in line with corporate policy and contractual obligations). Recent industrial relations reforms in Australia with the shift towards individual employee contracts should expand the number of companies that need a product like Remunerate in the domestic market.

International partner and distributors

At present Remunerate is represented in the UK by BOS Global (our sales partner), and The Grange Group (a HR consultancy based in Edinburgh, Scotland).

Evanscorp has received interest in the Remunerate product from US-based consultancies driven purely from the Australian web site.

Success in home or export markets

Domestically, we have sold Remunerate to Babcock & Brown and PricewaterhouseCoopers (Australia only) with interest from a number of other parties that we expect will purchase Remunerate over the next year. BHP Billiton is also a client of the Remunerate technology, Remunerate was actually born of an internal development for BHP Billiton called “Reward Online”.

The Remunerate technology (v3) was also delivered to Allied Domecq Plc in 2004 and 2005 as “Reward” before Allied Domecq was acquired by Pernod Ricard at which point the use of Reward was discontinued.

For further information on the potential of Remunerate please contact Phillip Evans using the contact details provided elsewhere.

Other information the judges should know

You are free to provide any information that may not have been included above for the benefit of the judges, for example history or background of the company or key individuals, recent successes, achievements, other products or lines of research etc. and If not already included, your web-site URL, or an optional alternate web-site (for example a client using your software).

The completed submission can also include illustrative material, graphs, and images or screenshots etc. where they assist in understanding the subject matter. Please speak to the Program Manager about the most suitable format and method of delivery.

Remunerate was born of a development for BHP Billiton that started in 2000. By 2003, having worked on incremental improvements to “Reward Online” for four years, it became evident that there was a hole in the market for this style of whole-of-enterprise employee review product and Evanscorp decided to commercialise Reward Online to create Remunerate. The commercialisation has been undertaken with the blessing of BHP Billiton and relevant IP rights have been assigned to Evanscorp.

Remunerate was first released as Remunerate v3 in May 2004. Although this was the first commercial release it was really the 4th version of the product. Remunerate v3 was the basis of the AD Reward solution made available to Allied Domecq.

Remunerate 4, the current version of Remunerate, was a significant re-implementation of the Remunerate v3 technology to allow for end-user configuration of the system. Remunerate 4 has been marketed since December 2005 and has been available for general implementation since June 2006.

Please find attached the Remunerate product brochure in PDF format.

The Remunerate web site is: http://www.remunerate.com.au/.