In February 2020, the company announced a
merger with
Ultimate Software and that the combined company would be led by Aron Ain and be called
Ultimate Kronos Group. The merger was officially completed on April 1, 2020.
History
Kronos was founded in 1977 by
Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and
Simon Business School alumnus Mark S. Ain.[4] Under Mark Ain's leadership, Kronos sustained one of the longest records of growth and profitability as a public company in software industry history.[5]
In 1979, Kronos delivered the world's first
microprocessor-based
time clock and, in 1985, delivered its first PC-based time and attendance product.
In 1992, Kronos became a publicly-traded company on
NASDAQ.
Aron Ain,[6] succeeded his brother Mark Ain as chief executive officer in 2005.[7]
In March 2007, Kronos went private again, bought out for US$1.74 billion by the lead investor
Hellman & Friedman and the secondary investor JMI Equity.[8]
In 2012, the
Third Circuit Court of Appeals enforced a subpoena seeking production of documents by Kronos, Inc., in an administrative charge before the
EEOC alleging disability discrimination. The charge was brought by an individual job applicant against
Kroger Food Co., who did not hire the job applicant and used a Kronos assessment as part of its hiring process.[9] Kronos, which was not a party to the litigation, objected to the EEOC's subpoena on the basis that the information requested was irrelevant, and production would require Kronos to disclose protected trade secret information.[10]
In 2014, private equity firms
Blackstone and
GIC invested in Kronos alongside
Hellman & Friedman and JMI Equity. In the transaction, Kronos was valued at $4.5 billion.[11] This was the first year that the company achieved $1 billion in annual revenue.[12]
In February 2020, the company announced a merger with
Ultimate Software and that the combined company will be led by Aron Ain.[14][15]
In April 2020, as a response to the
COVID-19 pandemic, Kronos introduced an automated report-generating tool to aid
contact tracing.[16] The tool analyzes work and attendance records of employees who test positive (or presumed positive) for
COVID-19 to generate a report of potentially affected co-workers.[17]
On December 13, 2021, Kronos announced that, on December 11, it was discovered that Kronos had been subject to a
ransomware attack which disabled the functionality of the Kronos Private Cloud software for "up to several weeks".[18] This breach forced many Kronos customers including municipalities, universities, and private employers to resort to alternative methods, including issuance of paper checks, to properly pay their employees.[19]
Products
Originally a manufacturer of
time clocks, the majority of Kronos' revenue is now derived from software and services. The company provides
cloud applications[20] for workforce management and human capital management, as well as consulting, education, and support services to its customers.
Acquisitions
Kronos has conducted a number of acquisitions,[21] with some of the most notable including:
Principal Decision Systems International (PDSI)[22]
The Workforce Solutions software division of SimplexGrinnell[23]