Providing world-famous toy manufacturer schleich® with consolidated global payroll services

Case Study

Providing world-famous toy manufacturer schleich® with consolidated global payroll services

Vistra provides payroll services in various countries in which schleich® operates and has assisted with Employer of Record services – all managed through a single-point-of-contact relationship management framework.

schleich Overview

schleich® is one of the largest toy manufacturers and the world’s leading supplier of realistic animal figures. The famous play figures and play sets are sold in more than 60 countries and have conquered children’s rooms all over the world. As a global player with Swabian roots, schleich® today generates more than half of its turnover outside its core market of Germany. The company is majority-owned by Partners Group, a global manager of private market investments. The design of schleich® figures and play worlds, the manufacture of production tools and the quality and safety tests are carried out in Germany. The production itself takes place on a small scale at the company’s site in Schwäbisch Gmünd, while the main production takes place in production facilities abroad.

Industry

Corporate

Location

Schwäbisch Gmünd and Munich

With production subsidiaries around the world, schleich® was using multiple providers across different countries to manage payroll. This had created inefficiencies, additional administration and issues around systems compatibility. As a result, schleich® decided that to streamline processes, it needed a service provider who could consolidate its payroll services onto a global platform. Also, with the varying regulatory and legal requirements across the jurisdictions, it needed a provider who understood the local nuances but had the backing of a global network. schleich® planned for a staged roll-out with one country being transitioned at a time.

In October 2021, Vistra was appointed and started the staged transition from the incumbent providers using the skills of the experienced Global Payroll team.

Central to this approach was the introduction of a single point of contact at the heart of a comprehensive relationship and project management framework – something that schleich® found exceptionally useful and reassuring.

On a country-by-country basis, the Global Payroll team have moved a significant number of locations onto Vistra’s Payroll platform as part of an ongoing roll-out, providing consistency across processes.

During this time, schleich® found themselves moving into Poland and needed to take on employees before the Polish entity was set up. Vistra was able to step in and provide a solution through its Employer of Record service, making the process seamless for schleich®.

Since January 2023, Vistra also takes care of the domestic payroll of schleich GmbH and its subsidiary Scur-Alpha 1092 GmbH, providing monthly payroll, HR Support, payroll tax and social security advisory, payment process support and reporting. More recently choosing to use Vistra’s new General Ledger integration functionality.

Reduction of administration work by coordinating several service partners
Unified global overview of payroll through through Vistra’s compliance-first platform
Stronger governance
Reduced risk and stronger compliance across multiple jurisdictions both during and after set-up

9 countries

using Vistra’s Global Payroll services (Austria, Czech Republic, Germany, Italy, Netherlands, Poland, Spain, Switzerland and the UK)

425 employees

worldwide serviced

“We chose Vistra because they responded to our requests in a solution-oriented way right from the start. A big plus was the single point of contact for relationship management, which was evident already during the pitch. Once we confirmed Vistra, the onboarding was seamless and highly professional.

With Vistra’s support, we are well on track to consolidate our payroll globally, streamline processes, and provide a new level of support and transparency to all schleich® employees.”

Robert Marx

Head of HR Global Services Legal & Compliance, schleich®

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