The rapid growth Slack saw in its initial years appears to have slowed in the past 18 months, said Ashenden, and it has seen a more muted benefit from the rapid shift to remote work during the COVID-19 outbreak compared to other vendors. Salesforce could help reignite user adoption, too. “From Slack’s viewpoint, it is clear it faces a formidable challenge from Microsoft and could benefit from being part of a larger entity,” said Castanon. That gives it a large footprint among enterprise users. Teams - which has 115 million daily active users - also benefits substantially from its availability at no extra cost within Microsoft 365 subscriptions. Since launching Teams in 2017, Microsoft has invested heavily in its collaboration platform, moving users over from Skype for Business and rapidly developing a large breadth of features.
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Slack would have plenty to gain with an acquisition, too, with ownership by Salesforce putting it on a firmer footing against the dominant player in the collaboration and productivity software industry. A boost for Slack's battle with MicrosoftĪ key benefit for both parties would be bolstering competition with Microsoft, which sells a rival CRM platform to Salesforce. “The potential of Slack Connect and creating a B2B collaboration network would also jive well with Salesforce's business enablement story,” said Ashenden.
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“But the intersection of customer care with internal communications is still a white space full of opportunities.”Īt the same time, Slack has been creating a more open collaboration space, with the launch of Slack Connect this year making it easier for a business using Slack to interact with external organizations, including partners and clients. He cited Twilio’s recent frontline worker product announcement as one example. “Acquiring Slack would be a major boost here, and Slack's integration and app story would also play well with Salesforce's strategy,” said Ashenden.īridging the gap between employee and customer communications is not entirely a novel concept, said Castanon. “Combining their core capabilities could enable a comprehensive approach that could significantly impact the customer experience.” “Technology vendors have typically gravitated to one or the other, however, the customer journey cuts across both,” said Castanon. Neither was particularly successful in expanding the company’s reach outside of sales, said Ashenden.Īn acquisition now of Slack would provide Salesforce with an immediate route to expand its focus on customer-facing tools and address the market for employee engagement. In addition to acquiring collaborative productivity app Quip in 2016, Salesforce previously made forays into employee collaboration with enterprise social network Chatter and social portal Community Cloud. “The first question that comes to mind with these reports is why would Salesforce be interested in acquiring Slack, given that - despite its acquisition of Quip four years ago - employee productivity and collaboration is outside its core domain,” said Raul Castanon a senior analyst at 451 Research/S&P Global Market Intelligence. Employee engagement: Why a deal makes sense for SalesforceĪt first glance, Salesforce seems like a slightly awkward fit for a suitor, given its core focus on software that supports business-to-customer relationships.
“If these rumours prove to be true, I think this would be a very positive move for both companies,” said Angela Ashenden, a principal analyst at CCS Insights. Neither Salesforce or Slack could be reached for comment on the reports ahead of the Thanksgiving holiday in the U.S. The company's share price jumped almost 38% yesterday, giving it at valuation of around $20 billion. Initial market reactions to the rumours - reported Wednesday in the Financial Times and Wall Street Journal, among others - have been positive for Slack.
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