Given our shared presence in the Boston metro area, I’ve had numerous contacts and interactions with Kronos Incorporated in the past, but this fall was my very first attendance of the vendor’s annual user conference: KronosWorks 2010. That attendance was a worthwhile use of my time and a great learning experience about the company and its customers. As some background, here is Ventana Research’s report from the previous conference, KronosWorks 2009.

Kronos is the global leader in workforce management (WFM) solutions that enable organizations to control labor costs, minimize compliance risk, and improve workforce productivity. Tens of thousands of organizations in 60 countries — including more than half of the Fortune 1000 — use some or all of the following modules of the Kronos Workforce Central suite: time and attendance (T&A), scheduling, absence management, human resources (HR) and payroll, hiring, and labor analytics.

The conference’s official program started with an intriguing animated video with some startling statistics about what our working days and weeks have begun to look like. For example, 15 percent of people admit that they are addicted to e-mail – some confessed to checking their e-mail at the beach, weddings, and even at funerals. 

Read the rest of this entry »

Part 1 of this blog series talked about my attendance of the JDA FOCUS 2010 conference on the heels of the recent merger between JDA Software (NASDAQ: JDAS) and i2 Technologies. The article first discussed the different geneses and cultures of the two merging parties.

One major outcome of the conference was JDA’s unveiled plan to converge most of its existing and acquired product sets. To that end, JDA pledged several key commitments to its customers, starting with that the company would continue to support all of its products. 

Read the rest of this entry »

Last year I attended the JDA FOCUS 2009 conference to realize that Scottsdale, Arizona-based JDA Software (NASDAQ: JDAS) has become a force to be reckoned with in the vast supply chain management (SCM) space. Although far from being a vocal or touchy-feely company, throughout its history JDA has been run fairly effectively by applying basic principles of sound management. These principles of profits and prudently spending within its means have been rare in the software business, and JDA’s results have been impressive for a very long time.

Throughout most of its history, JDA has also acquired a number of companies that were often doing badly, typically because their management was long on strategy, vision, and ambition, but short on execution. JDA has been able to rectify the situation, time and again. The company’s acquisition criteria have been as follows: strategic fit, market leadership, and relatively modern software architecture of the acquired product. 

Read the rest of this entry »