Kronos Buys Deploy Solutions

The union of dominant hourly recruitment management systems.

My former employer Deploy Solutions was acquired by Kronos today. Although it must be very hard for my friends at Deploy to relinquish their autonomy, I think this move is wise for both parties — and Deploy CEO Nicole Stata always told me that, "she would not be left in the corner without a dance partner."

This acquisition combined with the recent acquisition of Unicru (another leading ATS for hourly workers) positions Kronos as a solid leader in the hourly recruiting space. This is certainly a roll-up play in the dynamic HCM space giving Kronos claim to some of the largest hourly employers like Home Depot, BestBuy, Securitas, and IKEA.

Apart from the obvious roll-up play, Kronos bought some interesting technology that compliments their existing product line. Kronos Workforce Acquisition (formerly Unicru) is a scientific assessment product that wraps technology around its content. On the flipside, Deploy is a strong software company but a little light on content relying on third-party partners.

Kronos will take advantage of Deploy’s newest product code named aTAO (Architecture for Talent Acquisition Optimization). This product has been under development for the last couple of years, is standards based, is specifically architected for multi-tenancy and software as a service (SaaS) deployments, and is built on a SOA architecture — a technical superior compared to Kronos Workforce Acquisition.

In the future, I suspect Kronos will fully build out the nascent performance management and salaried hiring functionality on the aTAO platform and add additional complimentary products to round out their strategic HCM suite.

The newly acquired product’s moniker is Workforce Acquisition Version 8, and is available immediately. Current customers on versions 6 and 7 will migrate to the new platform over time.

All in all, Kronos picked up some good technology, some very talented people, and are a force to be reckoned with in the hourly hiring space.

BTW — I still have some Deploy pens, stress balls, and maybe even some letterhead available to the highest bidder.

Zach Thomas | Senior Analyst
Forrester Research