The conference was well attended with over 2500 attendees, Kronos has passed the 1B US$ of revenue in the last 12 months, so the vendor is doing well and is investing.
But take a look:
If you can't watch - here are my Top 3 takeaways:
- Workforce Central Version 8 - The new user interface is a key progression for Kronos and its customers. Definitively an improvement over the previous version, and being HTML5 based, means a certain end of the Java woes if the past. It is good to see Kronos has spent time with customers and key users to make the products more productive in the high usage tasks.
- Paragon to speed up time to go live - Kronos has gone back to its many implementations in order to make them more productive with pre-existing setup, sandboxes, system generated user documentation and test scripts. A very important move to get customer live faster, but like with all services related initiatives, the proof will come from customer stories.
- Mobile in focus - Mobile is - with no surprise - one of the fastest growing products for Kronos. The vendor has tackled the smartphone side well and is now off to support tablets better. Having moves to HTML5 and responsive design should support these efforts well.
Tidbits
- Analytics - Kronos has partnered with key customers to understand BigData and Analytics usage and benefits. The result is a new Auditor product, that finds non compliance and other anomalies in the data. Not surprisingly customers are eager to get the tools, but then more mixed in the actions that the findings support. Not a surprise, as 'doctoring' in the time management area is one of the long term issue of the industry.
- Partnership with Cornerstone - Kronos unveiled a partnership with Cornerstone, that should help both vendors, a question mark to me remains how the traditionally more blue collar oriented workforce management space will jell with the traditionally more white collar oriented Talent Management space. But certainly two very synergistic vendors have found each other.
- Globalization - To keep growing, Kronos needs to become more global from both a go to market and product perspective. The vendor is investing in both areas, with key steps like hiring local workforce regulation and compliance experts in progress. Not an easy endeavor, but vital for the future growth of Kronos and Kronos customers, who by themselves are becoming more global every year.
MyPOV
A good KronosWorks event for the vendor and its customers. Kronos has reached a milestone in regards of more than 60% of its customers are now being cloud based. It now needs to look at further growth, and it is looking at selling payroll, talent management (homegrown and with new partner Cornerstone) and going global. Paragon is a bold project, but time to go live is critical in today's fast paced economy, it will be interesting to see what Kronos can report in terms of faster go lives in a few quarters. The new user interface of Workforce Central is a mayor step forward both from a usability and architecture perspective, but it doesn't propel Kronos in a leader position for usability (yet?). The vendor has hired a large team of usability experts, it will be interesting to see what will come out of this group.
On the concern side I would like to see Kronos push the pedal a little more on the gas pedal in regards of development speed. Many new capabilities going live now and soon are from about 2 years ago - or two KronosWorks' ago. But then Kronos has an obligation to its customers to move at a agreeable and digestible speed. On the global expansion of both go to market and product Kronos is investing, it will be interesting to see what progress the vendor can report in a few quarters from key regions like Western Europe, Brazil, China and Australia. All these markets have entrenched vendors, replacing them will be a long battle. As we have seen in this summer Kronos will not shy away from acquiring local players (see Kaba Benzing in Switzerland here).
Overall exciting times for the vendor and its customers, who are generally genuinely excited about things to come.
More on Kronos
More on Kronos
