Nearly 50 years ago, Paychex was launched as a provider ofoutsourced payroll services to small and midsize businesses inRochester, N.Y. Since then, the company has expanded dramatically.Today, its 14,000-plus employees serve more than 8 percent of allprivate-sector workers in the United States. The company's menu ofservices and solutions has also grown. Now clients can outsourcemost HR activities to Paychex, from hiring and employee on-boardingto time-keeping, retirement services, and insurance services. Arobust software platform enables Paychex to make most of theseofferings available via self-service online portals.

Still, payroll processing remains core to the business. And thePaychex risk management team recently uncovered a missed revenueopportunity in a crucial payroll-related process. Extreme riskaversion among operational decision-makers was eliminating asignificant amount of interest income on clients' tax payments.