As part of Assistant Professor's Allison Kingsley's strategy class, this weeks visiting business leader to talk to 3 of her classes was Kronos senior vice president of operations and chief services officer, Christopher Todd.

Kronos is an application software company with 25,000 clients in 113 countries and 4,500 employees, is a leader in its' field and can be considered one of the largest companies you perhaps have never heard of. 

Founded in 1977, they boast a blue-chip client list that includes Apple, Target, FedEx, Starbucks, Lowes and Macys and have experienced rapid growth specializing in providing software solutions that help companies:

1. Control labor costs

2. Minimize compliance risk

3. Improve workforce productivity.

Kronos can typically save companies 1-3% of their labor costs, and while that doesn't sound a lot, for many non-manufacturing organizations where labor is typically their single largest cost, those saving drop straight to their bottom-line.

Their software manages crucial aspects including time and attendance, forecasting/scheduling, absence management, analytics, HR and payroll, hiring and data collection, and the data helps management identify trendsand patterns, that enables organizations to be more efficient, control costs and ultimately provide better customer service.

Along with being the #1 best place to work in Massachussets in 2014 (#2 in 2015) and enjoying an average employee tenure of 10 years and a retention rate of 92%, as Christopher himself put it "We know our employees are our intellectual property, so we work very hard to be the employer of choice." 

His career advice was simply 1. find your calling, find your passion, it will make you a better employee and person and 2. in the first 6 months of a new job over-invest; come in early, stay late, take on extra projects and it will be noticed and will set you on a trajectory to move up the organization and make good things happen for yourself.

Thank you Christopher for taking the time to visit the Grossman School of Business, and share your wisdom and business insights.