Kronos Sells Lots of HR Software On Premise and In Its Cloud

August 22, 2011 Timothy Prickett Morgan

Workforce management software maker Kronos continues to grow despite the troubling job market in the United States. Perhaps people are trying to do a better job managing the people and expertise that they have?

In its third fiscal quarter ended in July, Kronos, which is privately held, said that sales were up in the double-digits. Specifically, the company said that revenues were up 13.9 percent year-on-year to $210.8 million. Earnings before interest, taxes, and amortization (EBITA in the accounting lingo) rose by 27.6 percent, to $60.5 million. Software license sales were up over 30 percent, with sales of the absence management solution being particularly strong, according to the company. Scheduling, human resources, and payroll applications also did well.

Kronos was taken private through a $1.8 billion acquisition by private equity firm Hellman & Friedman Capital Partners (H&F), in early 2007, attributes its growth in the tough employment market to continually investing in its software.

“Our strong financial performance demonstrates that our commitment to innovation is paying off,” bragged Aron Ain, chief executive officer at Kronos, in a statement. “We are innovating faster than ever before. Our next generation workforce management solutions are rapidly gaining traction, and we had another very strong quarter of software growth. We are solidly executing across all major markets and regions and poised to exceed our internal financial expectations for fiscal 2011.”

Kronos sells cloud-based versions of many of its applications and these are growing fast, according to the company, with the highest number of customer contracts and revenue from these cloudy sales. Kronos now has 1.5 million seats of employees across its customer base using its online software every day. Kronos didn’t say anything about its iSeries Central suite of workforce management tools, which it still sells and supports.