Where to even begin with Salesforce acquisitions. It’s like Salesforce is playing a never-ending game of Monopoly. But instead of buying up properties, it’s buying up companies left, right, and center.
Salesforce is the powerhouse of the business world, constantly adding more talent to its already impressive roster.
One of the things that makes Salesforce so impressive is its fondness for acquiring companies that offer complementary products and services. This means that with each new acquisition, Salesforce is able to expand its offerings and provide even more value to its customers.
Salesforce is incredibly strategic in its acquisitions. The team at Salesforce is always looking for opportunities to fill gaps in their product lineup and enhance the overall customer experience. And judging by their continued success, it's clear that this strategy is paying off.
So, let’s have a look at some of the biggest Salesforce acquisitions to date.
Acquisitions are essential for Salesforce for several reasons:
They allow Salesforce to expand its market share by getting new customers, technologies, and geographic regions.
Having innovative technologies and talented employees can give Salesforce a competitive edge over its rivals. By partnering with companies with unique intellectual property or proprietary software, Salesforce can enhance its own product offerings and stay ahead of its competitors.
Acquisitions can provide Salesforce with a shortcut to entering new markets and developing new products. By taking on existing companies, Salesforce can skip the lengthy process of building new products and establishing a presence in new markets.
They can help Salesforce diversify its business and reduce risk by expanding into new industries or markets.
Acquisitions can be an effective way for Salesforce to increase its revenue and productivity. By obtaining companies with established customer bases and revenue streams, Salesforce can quickly generate additional revenue without relying solely on organic growth.
Salesforce has made numerous acquisitions since its founding in 1999.
In 2008, Salesforce acquired InStranet, a provider of knowledge management software. This acquisition helped Salesforce strengthen its customer service offerings by providing a more comprehensive set of tools for managing customer interactions.
During 2010, Salesforce made a major acquisition of Jigsaw, a business contact data provider. This acquisition helped Salesforce expand its data and improve the accuracy and completeness of its customer data.
Salesforce continued to make strategic acquisitions in the following years, including the 2013 acquisition of ExactTarget, a provider of email marketing software, for $2.5 billion. This acquisition helped Salesforce expand its marketing cloud functionalities and compete more effectively with other marketing automation platforms.
Salesforce also made a number of smaller acquisitions in the years that followed.
While acquiring companies can be extremely beneficial for companies like Salesforce, it can also be a complex and challenging process at the same time. Here are some of the challenges that Salesforce faces when making acquisitions:
One of the biggest challenges of acquisitions is integrating the obtained company into the existing organization. This involves aligning the culture, processes, systems, and people of the acquired company with those of Salesforce. Integration can be a time-consuming process that requires careful planning and execution.
Acquiring companies can be expensive, and determining the right price for an acquisition can be difficult. Salesforce must conduct thorough due diligence to assess the value of the target company and ensure that the price paid is reasonable.
Salesforce operates in a highly competitive market. This means that other companies may also be interested in taking on the same targets, which can drive up the price and make acquisitions more taxing.
Acquisitions can also pose legal and regulatory risks. Salesforce must ensure that the acquisition complies with all relevant laws and regulations, including antitrust laws, data privacy regulations, and intellectual property laws.
Salesforce may acquire companies with technologies that are different from its own. Integrating these technologies into Salesforce's existing platforms can be complicated, as it may require larger changes to existing systems and processes.
Acquired companies may have different cultures, values, and ways of working than Salesforce. It is critical for Salesforce to understand and address these differences to ensure smooth integration and maintain employee morale.
Benefits and challenges aside, it is no secret that Salesforce has acquired multiple companies over time, which have played a significant role in the company's growth.
Year: 2020
Acquisition price: $27.7 billion
Salesforce's collaboration capabilities were enhanced through its partnership with Slack, a platform that facilitates efficient communication and teamwork.
What came after the acquisition: Slack's innovations have been accelerating rapidly. Shortly after Salesforce completed the acquisition, the company launched Slack-First Customer 360, which included pre-built integrations between Slack and Salesforce.
These integrations comprised:
Year: 2019
Acquisition price: $15.7 billion
Salesforce acquired Tableau, a cloud-based analytics platform that equips customers to analyze data and create visualizations.
This acquisition improved Salesforce's analytics capabilities and provided customers with more sophisticated tools for information examination and visualization.
What came after the acquisition: Tableau has continued to operate as a standalone application. In contrast, Einstein Analytics has been renamed to Tableau CRM and remains the primary business intelligence tool in the Salesforce ecosystem.
Year: 2018
Acquisition price: $6.5 billion
Salesforce launched MuleSoft Composer, a version of MuleSoft designed for the native Salesforce platform.
What came after the acquisition: Since the acquisition, the MuleSoft product has retained its name and core function. However, the company has continuously expanded its range of connectors and templates, making it easier for professionals to integrate with other systems.
Year: 2019
Acquisition price: $1.35 billion
ClickSoftware is a platform for managing field service operations, making it easy for customers to handle their field service functioning more efficiently.
By acquiring ClickSoftware, Salesforce was able to enhance its abilities in the field service management space and offer solutions for supervising field service teams.
What came after the acquisition: Investments have been made in advanced scheduling and location technology since the acquisition.
Now rebranded as Salesforce Field Service, this platform remains a top choice for organizations with mobile workforces, thanks to a constant stream of new updates.
Year: 2019
Acquisition price: $1.33 billion
Vlocity is a software company that focuses on offering cloud-based industry solutions through multiple applications developed on the Salesforce platform.
The applications are created to aid businesses in efficiently nurturing customer relationships within certain industries, such as healthcare and telecommunications.
Salesforce has expanded its presence within the industry and now has the capability to provide customers with more precise solutions through the integration of Vlocity.
What came after the acquisition: Salesforce has since renamed Vlocity as Salesforce Industries. True to its name, this rebranded software is a comprehensive solution for Salesforce CRM users. It seamlessly combines the core platform with industry-specific processes, models, and solutions.
Year: 2018
Acquisition price: $800 million
The acquisition allows Salesforce to offer customers tools for monitoring their marketing efforts and generating profitable data.
What came after the acquisition: Salesforce is expanding its integration with Datorama. In addition, Datorama is launching a new developer portal and introducing ‘activation’ tools designed to benefit marketers.
These upgrades will enable marketers to gain a better understanding of their ongoing activities, investments, and ROI.
Year: 2016
Acquisition price: $750 million
Quip is a cloud-based productivity platform that allows customers to efficiently create and be in charge of their documents and projects. This acquisition provided Salesforce with a considerable enhancement in productivity.
What came after the acquisition: There are a few reasons why Quip has proven to be a valuable acquisition for Salesforce. One of the key features is its bi-directional sync that allows for CRM data to be integrated seamlessly into a document.
Additionally, Quip offers a variety of 'live apps,' which enable users to include calendars, checklists, videos, and more within a Quip document.
The aim is to enhance cooperation among records, facilitating user communication and providing timely notifications within the two platforms.
Year: 2016
Acquisition price: $700 million
Krux is a platform for data management that enables customers to collect, oversee, and analyze customer data rapidly.
The acquisition of Krux strengthened Salesforce's position in the data management ecosystem, allowing the company to provide customers with the ability to collect, govern, and inspect customer data.
What came after the acquisition: Krux was quickly rebranded as Salesforce DMP. It was integrated into Marketing Cloud. While Salesforce DMP remains in use, the industry trend has moved toward customer data platforms (CDPs).
Year: 2012
Acquisition price: $689 million
Buddy Media is a platform designed for managing social media campaigns, including creation, engagement, and analysis.
It provided a major boost to Salesforce's social media management capabilities, as it was able to offer customers the functionality to execute, control, and evaluate their social media campaigns.
What came after the acquisition: Buddy Media and Radian6 were combined to form Social Studio, which is now an add-on for Marketing Cloud. Social Studio is fully integrated into the core Salesforce platform. This means that social interactions can trigger the creation of a case in Service Cloud.
Year: 2015
Acquisition price: $390 million
SalesforceIQ is a CRM platform that provides customers with an easy-to-use platform for enhancing customer relationships.
What came after the acquisition: Since the acquisition, Salesforce has implemented algorithms to improve comprehension of workplace activities. The algorithms acquire data from various sources, such as:
Year: 2011
Acquisition price: $276 million
Salesforce acquired Radian6, a social media monitoring company. Radian6 played a big role in helping Salesforce gain a better understanding of the social media landscape.
Salesforce employed social media monitoring software to interact with customers on multiple social media platforms.
What came after the acquisition: Since the acquisition, Salesforce has been utilizing Radian6's exceptional technology to monitor millions of real-time conversations daily across multiple platforms, including:
Year: 2010
Acquisition price: $212 million
Heroku is a cloud-based platform-as-a-service (PaaS) utilized by customers to deploy and control their applications efficiently.
What came after the acquisition: Heroku is still a component of Salesforce, which is a project aimed at revamping Salesforce's development platforms. The initiative involves unifying these platforms under a single brand and creating connections between them.
The future for Salesforce and its acquisition strategy appears to be promising. As the company continues to expand its offerings through strategic acquisitions, it is poised to meet its growing market and customer demands.
Salesforce has demonstrated a willingness to invest in emerging technologies – such as artificial intelligence – which has led to additional acquisitions in these areas.
Let's keep our eyes peeled to see how these favorable acquisitions shake up the CRM industry's playing field.
Salesforce stays ahead of competitors by building its own apps through the acquisition of digital software in various business niches. This strategy helps to create a fully operational ecosystem that solidifies Salesforce's position as the leading CRM platform globally.
Needless to say, the future of Salesforce definitely looks bright.
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