The possible merger between Salesforce and Slack is rumored Several media including TechCrunch reported that the cloud giant, Salesforce.com is interested in acquiring the work messaging app, Slack. News that […]
Several media including TechCrunch reported that the cloud giant, Salesforce.com is interested in acquiring the work messaging app, Slack.
News that Salesforce is interested in buying Slack, the popular workplace chat company, sent shares of the smaller firm sharply higher today.
Slack shares are up just under 25% at the moment, according to Yahoo Finance data. Slack is worth $36.95 per share as of the time of writing, valuing it at around $20.8 billion. The well-known former unicorn has been worth as little as $15.10 per share inside the last year and worth as much as $40.07.
Inversely, shares of Salesforce are trading lower on the news, falling around 3.5% as of the time of writing. Investors in the San Francisco-based SaaS pioneer were either unimpressed at the combination idea, or perhaps worried about the price that would be required to bring the 2019 IPO into their fold.
Why Salesforce, a massive software company with a strong position in the CRM market, and aspirations of becoming an even larger platform player, would want to buy Slack is not immediately clear though there are possible benefits. This includes the possibility of cross-selling the two companies products’ into each others customer bases, possibly unlocking growth for both parties. Slack has wide marketshare inside of fast-growing startups, for example, while Salesforce’s products roost inside a host of megacorps.
Based on its homepage, the company profile of Salesforce.com is described in the following way.
We believe everyone can be a Trailblazer, and we’re building the technology to make it happen.
The Fourth Industrial Revolution is changing the way people work, using robotics, AI, the Internet of Things, and more. By making these innovations easier and more accessible, we’re helping create a future with greater opportunity and equality for all.
Together, we’re creating a future of new opportunities.
Trailblazers don’t fear change, we embrace it. We harness new technologies to entirely transform our companies, our careers, and, hopefully, our world.
Welcome to our Ohana.
Our Ohana, a Hawaiian word for intentional family, is guided by four core values (Trust, Customer Success, Innovation and Equality) that serve as the foundation for our decisions, actions, and communication.
According to its homepage, the services and core value of Slack are explained as follows.
Make work life simpler, more pleasant and more productive.
Slack is the collaboration hub that brings the right people, information, and tools together to get work done. From Fortune 100 companies to corner markets, millions of people around the world use Slack to connect their teams, unify their systems, and drive their business forward.
Building the ecosystem for work
Connect your conversations with the tools and services that you use to get the job done. With over 2,000 apps and a robust API, the Slack platform team works with partners and developers globally to build apps and integrations that streamline your work, automate mundane tasks and bring context into your conversations in Slack.
There are some speculations about the reason why Salesforce possibly acquire Slack and one reason is that the cloud giant has to grow due to capitalism and the company actually acquired many companies recent years. One of advantages of the acquisition is to shorten the time for growth because companies needs so many things such as money, people and investments to grow larger. In fact, most companies experience good time and bad time and continuous growth is really difficult to achieve. In this point, Salesforce is without exception and the speculation could be the truth.
However, there are two crucial issues around us. One issue is how companies can grow forever? Another is why companies should grow? Is it necessary? We have faced many problems including climate change and sustainability is one of important words now. For example, Business Roundtable, which is a nonprofit association and whose members are chief executive officers of major United States companies, redefined the Purpose of a Corporation in 2019. As a result, so many people are taking care of stakeholder capitalism.
We still do not know whether stakeholder capitalism can be the solution for not only our but also earth’s sustainability and can be the driving force to improve our society. For instance, there are several reports that the disparity between the rich and the poor becomes widen in 2020. Therefore, it is also possible there is no true solution to change our society in a better direction. Even though this assumption might be true, one thing we have to keep in our mind is that we never give up making our society better.
