Piab Group is an industrial tech company specializing in vacuum technology. From its headquarters in Sweden, Piab Group operates across 21 sites and continues to grow through frequent mergers and acquisitions, averaging around two per year. Each acquisition brings new people, systems, and ways of working, making integration speed and employee experience essential to success. But the company’s HR workflows couldn’t keep pace with their aggressive growth strategy: Manual spreadsheet work and fragmented data made reporting inefficient and visibility limited. They needed an HCM platform with three non-negotiable requirements: simple for employees to adopt quickly, flexible and able to accommodate diverse workflows, and powerful enough to support a distributed global workforce under a unified platform. From the first demo, Bob stood out for its flexibility, intuitive design, and easy setup.
Driving rapid impact with a frictionless rollout
In a landscape where HCMs often demand complex implementations, Bob proved refreshingly simple and fast to roll out. Piab Group’s People & Culture Team led the entire process independently, without external resources.
Bob is designed for easy and intuitive implementation, helping teams go live quickly and confidently. Paired with an enthusiastic team inspired to drive impactful digital transformation, the result was a smooth rollout. “There were no surprises, no backfilling, no downtime,” recalls Therese Torstensson, Chief People & Culture Officer at Piab Group.
Bob’s speedy implementation not only gave HR new independence and confidence, but it also drove genuine excitement across the organization, which accelerated Bob’s time to value. Managers and employees adapted quickly, appreciating the platform’s clarity, ease of use, and welcoming user experience.
Using Bob to simplify HR during M&As
For Piab Group’s small but mighty People & Culture team, every merger and acquisition brought new opportunities—and new challenges to match. Before Bob, Piab Group managed their HR operations through Cornerstone, a limited platform that required hours of manual work to manage people data and produce basic reports. “We had to extract a report into an Excel spreadsheet, do a pivot table, do a lot of filtering—and by the time we finished, that report was inaccurate,” recalls Therese.
Without real-time visibility across sites, global leaders struggled to access updated and reliable insights. Now with Bob, all people, processes, and data operate based on a single source of truth, so managers get instant visibility, leaders have access to real-time reports, and employees worldwide experience a platform that’s simple, modern, and easy to love.
Creating clarity and connection across 21 sites
Bob, an all-in-one HCM, empowers Piab Group’s People & Culture team with streamlined operations and reliable reporting tailored to their specific business and regulatory needs. Thanks to a fast and simple rollout, the impact was immediate:
- Automation reduced repetitive work and saved hours every week.
- Visibility improved across all sites, supporting faster decision-making.
- Consistency strengthened HR’s ability to integrate new teams quickly and smoothly.
In line with Sweden’s regulatory compliance standards, Bob’s real-time analytics make sustainability reporting effortless. The company now uses Bob to generate the annual reports required under national law, covering workforce composition, unionization, sick leave, and more in just a few clicks, replacing hours of manual data curation with instant, accurate, and real-time insights.
Today, Bob underpins Piab Group’s People & Culture strategy, fostering a culture of exploration, commitment and growth. Employees across regions use one intuitive system to book time off, access documents, and stay connected. Managers gain the data they need to make quick, confident decisions, while HR has shifted from maintenance to momentum—focusing on growth, engagement, and culture.
Main takeaways
- A seamless implementation across 21 global sites was completed without disruption
- Automated reporting replaces manual dashboards and spreadsheets
- Real-time visibility empowers faster leadership decisions
- Bob’s flexibility supports ongoing M&A integrations and future growth
