Riverside: A Multi-Year, End-to-End Oracle Cloud Transformation
How the UK's leading social housing provider unified payroll, finance, and AI-powered HR on Oracle Cloud — achieving ROI in under seven months, every phase.
What Changed
Three phases with PCL One — HCM and Payroll, then Financials, then AI-powered HR — on one standardized Oracle Cloud platform.
| Metric | Before | After |
|---|---|---|
| Payroll sign-off | 12 days | ~90% faster |
| Month-end close | 18 days | Under 5 days |
| HR inquiries | Days | Minutes |
Riverside at a Glance
- Founded
- 1928, Liverpool
- Homes
- ~56,000
- Lives supported
- 90,000+
- Built per year
- ~3,000 homes
- Recognition
- Social Landlord of the Year ×2
- Committed
- £1bn stock · £2.5bn residents
Full company history →Show less ↑
Riverside started in 1928 as Liverpool Improved Houses with just 15 homes in Swan Street, Liverpool. It expanded rapidly following the 1974 Housing Act, and by 1996 — with over 19,000 homes — was renamed Riverside Housing Association. Following the acquisition of One Housing Group, Riverside is now the UK's leading registered provider of social housing, managing nearly 56,000 homes across social housing, homeownership, veterans' services, retirement living, and supported housing — transforming the lives of over 90,000 people.
The Challenge
- ▪
People: 3,500+ employees, 100+ spreadsheets, no shared audit trail
- ▪
Finance: 56,000+ units, 18-day close across disconnected systems
- ▪
HR: Every request manual — answers took days
Three Phases, One Platform
Each phase went live independently and paid for itself in under seven months.
People & Payroll
Standardized a sprawling payroll estate onto one platform.
- 500+ schedules → standardized
- Pay codes 400+ → 148
- 36 customizations removed
Sign-off ~90% faster · ROI under 6 months · 99.8% accuracy
What we did →Show less ↑
PCL One streamlined 500+ work schedules into a standardized structure, consolidated accrual plans, eliminated 36 customizations, and reduced pay codes from 400+ to 148. When Riverside's legacy payroll system unexpectedly failed two months before go-live, PCL One advanced the payroll module by two months to protect continuity. When Riverside completed an acquisition within two months of go-live, its own team managed the integration internally.
Finance
Unified the chart of accounts, banking, and rent billing.
- 250,000+ transactions migrated
- Rent billing across 56,000+ properties
- Three-way matching automated
Month-end close 18 days → under 5 · ROI under 7 months
What we did →Show less ↑
PCL One rationalized the chart of accounts from hundreds of legacy codes to a standardized structure, unified multiple banking relationships, and migrated and validated 250,000+ historical financial transactions. Automated rent billing was configured across 56,000+ properties, three-way invoice matching was automated, and a multi-dimensional reporting hierarchy gave leadership real-time visibility into cash, receivables, and payables.
AI-Powered HR
Replaced the manual HR service desk with AI.
- 24/7 support chatbots
- Generative AI with RAG
- AI CV screening
80% of routine requests automated · resolution days → minutes · onboarding halved
What we did →Show less ↑
PCL One deployed conversational AI chatbots for round-the-clock employee support, generative AI (with Retrieval-Augmented Generation) to draft HR communications and documentation, AI-driven CV screening and interview coordination, and multilingual AI models for Riverside's distributed workforce.
Results Across the Partnership
In Riverside's Words
“It's been a true collaboration, and PCL has been a fantastic partner. It displayed resilience and an excellent example of teamwork to deliver the project quickly and effectively, despite our many challenges, primarily due to the pandemic.”
“Oracle Fusion Cloud Financials has fundamentally transformed our financial operations. The visibility, control, and efficiency we've gained have been extraordinary. PCL One demonstrated exceptional expertise in understanding both Oracle technology and the unique complexities of social housing financial management.”
“With Oracle Cloud Infrastructure AI, we reinvented how our HR team supports Riverside's workforce. Employee issues are resolved instantly, recruitment is frictionless, and our team can focus on supporting our mission, not paperwork. PCL One brought the expertise to help us deploy modern, responsible AI safely and at scale.”
Planning a phased Oracle Cloud transformation?
Talk to us about sequencing HR, payroll, and finance so every phase pays for itself.