Eastern Pacific Shipping
Headquartered in Singapore, Eastern Pacific Shipping Pte Ltd. is an international ship management company that has been delivering safe and efficient transportation in the shipping industry since 1987.
With approximately 170 employees in the Singapore office and 4000 seafarers, the company owns over 100 vessels. Over the years, the organisation has grown rapidly and, therefore, prompted the need of dynamic HR software to cater for their growth.
Automated intelligent reports
Eastern Pacific Shipping started their selection process in 2014 for a new HRMS system. After forming an evaluation team and gathering the selection criteria, they met up with a few vendors—both local and international solution providers—before deciding on Frontier e-HR.
“With Frontier e-HR, we have preconfigured analytics, statistical charts and best-practice reports that are relevant and easy to use.”
Lynnette Wee, Manager of Human Resources, Eastern Pacific Shipping
“Our Head of HR preferred an HR-based rather than a payroll-based software, meaning a vendor who started from building an HR solution and grew into Payroll instead of the other way around,” said Lynnette Wee, Manager of Human Resources, Eastern Pacific Shipping. “Our goal at that time was to pick a system that could automate our processes and give us intelligent reports. With the old system, reports were generated manually by exporting the required data into Excel. With Frontier e-HR, we have preconfigured analytics, statistical charts and best-practice reports that are relevant and easy to use.”
Having great functionality was only part of the story. To Eastern Pacific Shipping, a good HRMS software provider should provide more than just a good solution. Equally, if not more important, the HRMS vendor must be effective in their implementation of the solution and reliable in their post-implementation support.
Fast implementation (On time, on budget)
The evaluation team understands the importance of having an HRMS system as a key tool for improving their productivity. There was some hesitance among the team because of unfavourable experiences when rolling out other HR solutions in the past.
The two months’ implementation cycle with Frontier e-HR proved to be a satisfying and rewarding experience. “The project was completed on time and within budget,” Lynnette emphasised. “That was a great plus point and a big morale booster for everyone in the HR department.”
Frontier e-HR project team maintained a high level of professionalism throughout the implementation process, all the way from data collection, requirement gathering, communication, status updates, parallel run, through to training.
“In fact, the consultants were proactive and responsive, calling us all the time to get us to move forward throughout the project,” Lynnette added with a smile. “We didn’t have to do much. We just pulled out the data, sent it to the consultants, and they took care of the rest.”
Excellent Support Team
When the project goes live is when the service quality of the vendor is put to the test. For a department that must handle one of the most urgent tasks—running monthly payroll—in the organisation, the importance of having fast and reliable support by the vendor can never be understated.
“The support team is extremely helpful,” explained Nicky Lu, HRIS Executive, Eastern Pacific Shipping. “They are very fast in responding to our queries, and that is one of the most important things we need.”
“We’re happy with our system. And just like Nicky mentioned, whenever we needed help, the support team responded quickly,” added Lynnette.
