Salesforce, the world’s largest CRM, recently agreed to purchase the Slack collaboration platform in a deal for $27.7 billion. This makes Slack Salesforces’ biggest purchase of all time. While there’s certainly a lot of excitement in the industry for what the combination of Salesforce and Slack might bring, there’s concern too. Some investors and analysts think the price for Slack was just too high.
Remember, Slack has never officially generated a profit, though net losses are falling from $479 million to only $211 in the first months of 2021. Slack also faces some serious competition from other market-leading collaboration tools like Microsoft Teams and Cisco Webex.
But Slack does still have a lot to offer, as it proved with its own Total Economic Impact study recently. According to the report, which assesses the kind of return on investment that companies can get with a Slack investment, organisations see an average 338% return on their purchase.
What Can Slack Really Deliver?
The Total Economic Impact study conducted by Slack reveals some exciting statistics. For instance, the company notes that organisations can earn a payback on their investment within less than 6 months, and that the technical team productivity improvement on a 3-year basis is worth up to $4.7 million. Slack also notes that improved general productivity accounts to a value of $2.1 million.
CEO for Salesforce, Marc Benioff, called the purchase a match made in heaven, and noted that it could transform the future of enterprise software. Salesforce believes that the combination of its platform and the Slack environment could be crucial to the future of work. Although some investors still aren’t sure.
For Salesforce, Slack’s platform for unified collaboration gives teams an easier way to stay connected, without relying on complicated phone calls and email chains. Salesforce will be the first CRM to have a full collaboration solution in place. The new Slack Connect platform has already increased paid customers by 23%, increasing opportunities for the Salesforce brand.
Before now, the integrations between Salesforce and Slack have been some of the most popular for Slack users, allowing for a single pane of glass to support and serve customers, while collaborating with teams. Going forward, Salesforces’ acquisition could be the key to creating a brand-new environment for sales teams.
Creating the Perfect Platform
Slack and Salesforce are two companies that have been growing rapidly in recent years. Revenue is growing on both sides, which means that bringing the two companies together could be a fantastic way to take opportunities for success even further. As companies continue to search for ways to improve communication (63%) and boost productivity (59%) in the workforce, the Salesforce and Slack connection could be pivotal.
Going forward, Salesforce says that it plans to integrate Slack deeply into all its cloud services and embed it within the Customer 360 platform. Slack and Salesforce will give companies a way to communicate with customers, employees, and external partners through a variety of mediums (video, chat, and audio), all within the same environment.
