Kronos Takes iSeries Central on the Road, Gets SMART

April 24, 2012 Alex Woodie

Kronos‘ iSeries Central suite has a seat on the Customer Experience bus as it embarks today on a 20-city road show across North America to showcase Kronos. The Massachusetts software vendor also announced the acquisition of SMART, a U.K.-based developer of workforce management software.

The iSeries Central suite doesn’t always get top billing in the Kronos scheme of things, as the company prefers to lead with Workforce Central, which runs on open systems like Windows and Linux. That’s a shame, as the suite, which is composed of iSeries Scheduler, iSeries Timekeeper, iSeries Absence Management, iSeries Activities, and iSeries Gaming, is used by some of Kronos’ biggest customers.

More than 4,500 organizations around the world used iSeries Central in 2009 (the number has probably changed since then). But you would have never known how successful iSeries Central is by the amount of attention that Kronos pays it.

So it was a bit of a surprise to see Kronos touting iSeries Central in is latest road show. The Customer Experience kicks off today in Washington, D.C., before making stops in Boston, Chicago, Dallas, Denver, New York, San Francisco, and Toronto. The seminars will showcase the two big suites, iSeries Central and Workforce Central, as well as Kronos’ new InTouch time clock, its new mobile interface, and the latest analytic solutions for HR professionals.

In other news, Kronos last week announced it has acquired U.K.-based SMART Computer Holdings and its Spanish affiliate, SMART Human Logistics, for an undisclosed amount of cash.

SMART developed software similar to Kronos including time and attendance, staff scheduling, and absence management software. The company had hundreds of customers in the manufacturing, distribution, retail, hospitality, and public sector industries. Marquee customer names include Jaguar, Kuehne and Nagel, and Mandarin Oriental.

The acquisition will bolster Kronos’ presence in the EMEA region, and provide it a foothold in Spain, which Kronos says has a tremendous potential for growth of sales of its tools. SMART also had a good number of customers who participate in the National Health Services (NHS) trust, which gives Kronos a strong position in the U.K. healthcare system.