Happy 75th birthday ADP

A remarkable story of consistency.

It would not be an exaggeration to stay that ADP started the HR tech industry. I sometimes joke that it started SaaS in 1949 with Slide-ruler as a Service.

ADP really pioneered effective payroll outsourcing and shaped so much of the payroll industry. While the first use of computer software for payroll was at Lyons Tea Room in the UK, ADP very quickly saw the power of the computer to rethink payroll processing, proving that mission critical processes could be handled by computers at scale. I looked a bit at the history of ADP in my diss.

In late 1950s (ADP) began to work with IBM and others on the computerization of the North American payroll. ADP and other payroll providers emerged to take on the administrative burden that tax withholding had shifted to the employer. In 1957, ADP moved from manual processing to punch card based systems. By the 1960s, ADP was making use of a mainframe to calculate payroll. It leased its first mainframe in 1961. By 1970, it was processing the payrolls of 7,000 companies.

Today ADP continues to be a remarkable business, its financial discipline is unrivalled, having increased its quarterly dividend for 49 consecutive years.

I got to know them well when I was at Gartner and SAP, and so many folks in the HR tech world have spent time at ADP before going off to founding other HR tech companies or successful careers at other firms. ADP has a habit of acquiring too.

In North America, partnering or competing with ADP defines the administrative HR Tech landscape.

I can’t think of any company that has managed technical debt with the precision and rational rigour that ADP does. It has made forays into other areas of HR Tech with limited or mixed success, but it remains the benchmark for payroll, especially in the North American market. ADP’s data moves markets, in that its payroll data report is the most accurate reflection of the state of US employment.

Over the years many companies have attempted to dislodge or disrupt ADP. Underestimating ADP is not a smart move.

When I think of ADP I’m weirdly reminded of an Alfred Lord Tennyson poem that I learnt at Junior School. Mr Steer forced us to learn every verse, and I still remember fragments. I won’t quote the whole thing, because it is really long.

The Brook

I come from haunts of coot and hern,
I make a sudden sally,
And sparkle out among the fern,
To bicker down a valley.

By thirty hills I hurry down,
Or slip between the ridges,
By twenty thorps, a little town,
And half a hundred bridges.

Till last by Philip's farm I flow
To join the brimming river,
For men may come and men may go,
But I go on forever.

Congratulations ADP, on your 75th. I fully expect you will be celebrating many more happy returns.

I forgot add this to post but I will do now. The best happy birthday song. Ever.