Salesforce

According to Frank Scavo, an analyst at Strativa, Salesforce.com was actually the first to turn the cloud into a viable enterprise application platform. To achieve this, the Salesforce.com decided to get rid of the traditionally cumbersome user interfaces of CRM systems and borrowed design principles from consumer sites, including Amazon and Facebook.

Performance indicators

Main Article: Salesforce Financial Performance

2021: Revenue growth 25% to $26.49 billion

Salesforce ended fiscal 2022 with record revenue of $26.49 billion, up 25% from a year earlier. Revenues from sales of software subscriptions and related support services increased by 23% to $24.66 billion. All kinds of professional services and other sources of earnings brought the company $1.84 billion in revenue, which is 44% higher than a year ago. The American company announced its financial results in early March 2022 of the calendar year.

During the reporting 12-month period, Salesforce Sales Cloud decisions provided the company with revenue of $5.99 billion against $5.19 billion a year earlier. Sales of cloud products Marketing and Commerce Cloud increased from $3.13 billion to $3.9 billion. In the direction of Platform and Other, a year-on-year increase in turnover was registered from $3.32 billion to $4.51 billion, this also includes $584 million in income received from the sale of subscriptions and support services for the corporate messenger Slack, which was previously acquired by Salesforce for $27.7 billion.

The main sales market for Salesforce solutions remains the countries of the Americas. In this region, the company's revenue for fiscal 2022 amounted to $17.98 billion, increasing from $14.74 billion a year earlier. Revenues in Europe increased from $4.5 billion to $6.02 billion, in the Asia-Pacific region - from $2.02 billion to $2.49 billion.

Salesforce's net profit in fiscal 2022 was $1.44 billion, down almost three times from $4.07 billion in profit a year ago.

By the end of January 2022 calendar year, Salesforce accumulated cash and their equivalents in the amount of $10.5 billion, which is 12% less than a year earlier. The number of employees of the company during this time increased by 30% and reached 73,541 employees.^[1]

Acquisitions of companies

Main item: Acquisitions and sale of Salesforce assets

History

2023:10% staff cut

On January 4, 2023, Salesforce announced a 10% reduction in numbers and the closure of several offices. The company's active recruitment during the COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic has led to "staff inflation," which has become so amid economic difficulties in the United States.

The dismissal of one in ten employees in Salesforce will lead to expenses of $1.4-2.1 billion. About $800 million - $1 billion of this amount will be taken into account in the fourth financial quarter, which for the company will end at the end of January 2023 calendar year.

The total reduction will affect 10% of the staff - this is about 8 thousand people, taking into account the fact that by the end of the third quarter of 2022 the company employed about 80 thousand employees against 70 thousand people a year earlier.

In a letter to employees in early January 2023, Salesforce chief Marc Benioff wrote that the decision to downsize was "very difficult." He also noted that the layoffs will take place in the coming weeks.

According to Benioff, during the pandemic, the company's revenue grew rapidly, so the state decided to expand - but too many people were hired, which led to an "economic downturn."

Salesforce also intends to sell some of the property and reduce office space. Taken together, these measures are expected to reduce costs, improve operating margins and support business growth.

On January 4, 2023, when Salesforce announced a personnel purge, the company's shares rose 3%. At the same time, in 2022 they lost about half of their value, since throughout the year the company faced a slowdown in revenue growth, notes. Reuters

William Blair analyst Arjun Bhatia noted in early January 2023 that the situation in the IT market has worsened over the past 12 months, so Salesforce is not the only tech company affected by this. Other major software manufacturers could also resort to downsizing, according to experts at RBC Capital Markets.^[2]

2022

Termination of 2.5 thousand employees due to the macroeconomic crisis

On November 8, 2022, it became known about mass layoffs at Salesforce. Macroeconomic uncertainty caused by the start of the Russian special operation in Ukraine and the subsequent Western sanctions against the Russian Federation leads to a drop in demand for Salesforce IT products. According to CNBC, the layoffs are associated with a weakening demand for Slack, Tableau and MuleSoft solutions offered by Salesforce.

According to the publication Protocol, up to 2.5 thousand Salesforce employees fall under dismissal. CNBC, citing its informant, calls a different number of potentially dismissed workers - less than 1,000 that Salesforce offers. According to the Axios portal, we are talking about several hundred people.

Salesforce itself, without revealing the numbers, confirmed the staff reduction and attributed the process to weak financial performance.

Шаблон:Quote 'Our sales figures give rise to a certain financial responsibility. Unfortunately, this can lead to some employees stopping work. We will support them during this transition period, the company said. The layoffs at Salesforce came to light less than a month after the company announced it was halting new hiring and reducing the number of freelance workers.

At the same time, in October 2022, it became known about the purchase by activist investor Starboard Value of a stake in Salesforce. According to TechCrunch, apparently Starboard Value will want to cut Salesforce costs, so layoffs could become part of these plans.

By November 2022, Salesforce had more than 73 thousand employees. In August 2021, the company noted 36 percent growth in the state and associated it with the manufacturer's desire to "meet the growing demand for its products."^[3]

Termination of cooperation with Russian ressellers amid the crisis in Ukraine

In early March 2022, against the background of a special operation of Russia in Ukraine, Salesforce announced that it was terminating cooperation with resellers from Russia.

2021: Help with moving Texas employees who disagree with anti-abortion law

On September 10, 2021, Salesforce notified its employees that if they and their families are concerned about the possibility of access to reproductive care due to the adoption Texas of an aggressive anti-law, abortions then the company will help them move.

Texas Senate Bill 8 became law in May 2021 and took effect in early September 2021. The law states that doctors cannot perform or provoke abortions if they have detected a fetal heartbeat of an unborn child, except in medical emergencies. In addition, ordinary citizens can file lawsuits against those who facilitate or condone abortion after a heartbeat is detected.

Given this, if you have concerns about access to reproductive health in your state, Salesforce will help you and your family members move in. That's your choice, "Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff noted in a note.

The move came at a time when many employees of the technology industry are revising their lifestyle and considering new opportunities due to the coronavirus pandemic, which has left workers isolated from colleagues. Marc Benioff said in June 2021 that he expects more than half of the company's employees to work from home most or all of the time.

The tech industry as a whole has remained silent on Texas abortion law, but companies like Lyft and Uber have already announced that they will pay legal fees for all drivers who will be sued for transporting women for abortions. Bumble, an online dating company, also said it has already started a foundation that is, in large part, designed to help people seeking abortions in Texas.^[4]

2020

Dismissal of 1,000 employees

August 26, 2020 Salesforce announced the reduction of staff for approximately 1 thousand people. This is approximately 2% of its volume in 49 thousand employees.

At the same time, the company intends to attract new specialists. At the beginning September 2020, the supplier plans to hire about 300 people.

We are reallocating resources to enable the company to grow further. These activities include hiring and transferring employees, as well as reducing positions in areas that are no longer a priority for us, the company said.

As Salesforce CFO Mark Hawkins explained, at resource allocation will focus on the most cost-effective directions. Which ones, he did not specify.

Some of the employees who fell under the reduction will be able to stay if they find for yourself, another appropriate role. Employer promises to provide necessary information on which areas and departments are promising for employment and are experiencing a shortage of personnel. There are 60 to choose from days.

Anyone who leaves the company will be paid within 6 months severance pay. In addition, Salesforce promises to assist in finding a new job.

After the COVID-19 pandemic began, the executive director Salesforce Marc Beniof promised not to fire people within the nearest 90 days, whatever happens. This period expired at the end of June 2020 of the year.

News that Salesforce decided to downsize comes after how the company reported for the second quarter of fiscal 2020-2021 of the year. Revenue in comparison year-on-year increased by 29% to $5.15 billion. Earnings hit $1.44 per share compared to expected analysts $0.67.

After the release of the report, Salesforce shares soared in price by 26% to $272.3 apiece.^[5]

Oracle and Salesforce accused of unauthorized sale of user data

Against the companies Oracle Salesforce and in August, a lawsuit was filed in the district court, in Amsterdam which they are accused of illegally using users' personal data and transferring them to third parties without notification and consent of the users themselves, said "."Businessman

According to the plaintiff - the non-profit organization Privacy Collective - tech giants Oracle and Salesforce collected users' personal data through third-party cookies and then sold it to third parties.

Among the cookie providers, BlueKai and Krux are mentioned, whose programs collect data on users, including on sites such as Amazon, Booking.com, Dropbox, Reddit and Spotify. This data was then used in real-time advertising trades - online auctions.

On them, advertisers, using specialized software, are fighting to ensure that it is their advertisement that is shown to a specific user of the site. At the same time, users themselves do not know anything about this data trade.

According to the plaintiff, this is a direct violation of the General Regulation for the Protection of Personal Data in force in the EU. The amount of the claim exceeds $1 billion, and this is the largest class action lawsuit ever filed in the Netherlands for violating this law. A similar claim will be filed in the coming month at the High Court in London.

Massive expansion in EMEA

On May 26, 2020, it became known that Salesforce intends to begin a large-scale expansion in the EMEA region - for this, the company created an advisory board for business development in this region, headed by Alex Dayton, President and Director of Strategy of Salesforce.

At the end of 2019, Salesforce recorded the highest growth rates in EMEA. The company said it is currently helping its clients in Europe, the Middle East and Africa recover from the COVID crisis, and the council's task will be to find ways to do this more effectively.

The knowledge and experience of the advisory board members will help us overcome unprecedented challenges that are changing our world, "commented Salesforce President and CEO Gavin Patterson.

In addition to Dayton, the council will include: Stefan Heidenreich, Jane-Anne Gadia, Ana Garcia Fo, Harald Kruger, Peter Lescher, Guillaume Pepi, Francesco Trapani, Veronique Vale and Alexander Vinendts.

Stefan Heidenreich will become vice chairman of the council. He serves on the board of a number of companies, including EQT, Perella Weinberg and EMH Partners. From 2004 to 2011 he was the CEO of Hero, and from 2012 to 2019 - the head of Beiersdorf.

The remaining members of the board have held and continue various leadership positions of various companies. Many of them have been executive directors in the past.

So, Jane-Anne Gadia until March 2020 headed the British division of Salesforce, Ana Garcia Faux, among other things, is on the board of the French telecom operator Eutelsat, Harald Kruger is the former chairman of BMW, Peter Lescher is the former president and chief executive of Siemens, Guillaume Pepi is a former French official, Francesco Trapani is a former chief executive of Bulgari and a board member of Tiffany and Co., Veronique Vale is a former top executive at JP Morgan and Alexander Vinendts is a former chief executive at Aegon.^[6]

2019

Revenue growth by 29% to $17.1 billion

In fiscal 2020, which ended at the end of January 2020 calendar, Salesforce's revenue reached a record $17.1 billion, an increase of 29% compared to the previous year.

Sales of software subscriptions and product support services brought the company annual revenue of $16.04 billion, 29% higher than a year ago. In the direction of professional services, a 21% increase in turnover was registered - up to $1.06 billion.

According to data from the financial statements, the countries of the Americas brought the company 71% of revenue for the 2020 reporting year or $12.05 billion. A year earlier, these indicators were measured at 71% and $9.45 billion.

The company's sales in Europe increased from $2.55 billion to $3.43 billion and provided the company with revenue by 20%. In the Asia-Pacific region, Salesforce's business volume in fiscal 2020 amounted to $1.62 billion, an increase from 2019 revenue of $1.28 billion. This region accounted for 9% of IT vendor sales.

As for the products, most of the company's revenues are still formed by Sales Cloud solutions (cloud services for organizing sales and marketing) - they earned $4.6 billion in fiscal year 2020. In 2019, sales amounted to $4.04 billion.

Service Cloud solutions brought the company $4.67 billion in annual revenue against $3.62 billion a year ago. In the direction of Marketing and Commerce Cloud, a growth in turnover was registered from $1.9 billion to $2.51 billion. Finally, in the Salesforce Platform and Other segment, revenue also increased significantly - from $2.85 billion in 2019 to $4.47 billion a year later.

Salesforce finished 2020 with a net profit of $126 million, which is far short of profit in 2019. The company did not name the reason for this decline in its financial account.^[7]

The average salary is $150 thousand.

In September 2019, the recruiting portal Glassdoor published a rating of American companies with the highest salaries. At Salesforce, the average annual salary of employees was $150,000. Read more here.

Salesforce joins Hyperledger

In mid-June 2019, Norilsk Nickel, as well as Microsoft and Salesforce, joined the Hyperledger consortium. New members of the organization will pay membership fees and develop new applications using Hyperledger. Read more here.

1,500-strong increase in staff

On 18 January 2019, Salesforce announced a staff increase of 1,500. New jobs Ireland will be created in, which will more than double the company's staff in this country.

According to Reuters news agency, citing a statement from Salesforce, 1,400 people worked there before the announcement of the growth in the number of employees in Dublin.

New specialists are invited to positions in the field of sales, software development and business services. The Salesforce initiative proved to be one of the largest labour investment in Ireland in previous years.

The company is creating new jobs as part of a planned move to a new campus of almost 40,000 square meters in the north of the Irish capital. The four-building office complex will be built in mid-2021. This campus will become a regional hub for Salesforce staff in sales, customer service, technical and business operations.

Europe is the fastest growing Salesforce region, and Ireland has played a significant role in our success, "said Miguel Milano, president of Saleforce's international business.

The risk of Britain leaving the European Union and the possibility of an escalation of the global trade war threaten the open economy of Ireland, but this does not stop international corporations from entering the country or developing business there. Companies are still attracted to Ireland's low corporate tax rate of  12.5 per cent.

By the end of 2018, the total number of personnel in the Irish offices of foreign companies amounted to about 230 thousand people, which corresponded to about 10% of the total working population.

Meanwhile, on January 18, 2019, Salesforce announced a grant of 878 thousand euros to the Irish charity Educate Together.^[8]

2018

Integrating Apple technologies and creating a joint SDK

On September 24, 2018, Apple and Salesforce announced a massive collaboration in the corporate sector. As part of the collaboration, Apple technologies will be closely integrated with the partner's business software, and an SDK will be released, with which developers will be able to create applications for the iPhone and iPad with a cloud platform from Salesforce at the base.

Through this partnership, we combine the capabilities of the leading CRM platform with the best business devices, which are the iPhone and iPad, says the head of Salesforce. Marc Benioff- By joining forces, Salesforce and Apple are ushering in a new era of mobile innovation, providing opportunities to develop native applications for iOS and helping millions of people through Trailhead learn skills that will be in demand in the future.

One of the first results of the collaboration will be the release of the redesigned Salesforce mobile application for iOS in early 2019. It will receive quick commands, Siri Face ID, business chat and other features that are available operating system at Apple and which will be implemented in other Salesforce enterprise solutions in the future. It is planned to jointly develop various applications that perform specific tasks of certain clients.

By the end of 2018, the companies promise to release a joint Salesforce Mobile SDK optimized for the Apple Swift programming language. Through this toolkit, developers will be able to create iOS applications that use Salesforce's Lightning Platform cloud as the server side.

By the end of September 2018, 5 million developers work with Lightning Platform, while applications for Apple devices are written by about 20 million independent programmers and companies.

Another point of the announced partnership will be the creation of a training course on developing applications for iOS in Trailhead, a free training web resource from Salesforce.^[9]

Keith Block named second CEO Salesforce.com

On August 7, 2018, Salesforce.com had his second general director Keith Block, who was promoted from the role of chief operating officer. So. the company will be led by two people - Block and Marc Benioff. The latter, who has led the Salesforce.com since the company was founded in 1999, remained chairman of the board of directors. Read more here.

Employees protest U.S. government outreach

At the end of June 2018, it became known that more than 650 Salesforce employees filed a statement with the head of the company, Marc Benioff, in which they expressed their dissatisfaction with the company's cooperation with the US Border Customs Service (CBP). According to Buzzfeed, the company has signed contracts with the department for the supply of recruitment software, as well as the development of tools for managing border activities and involving citizens.

Earlier, employees of Microsoft and Amazon also spoke out against their companies supplying technical solutions to US border services.

Employees said that it is necessary to be responsible for the technologies being created and take into account the goals for which they are used. They believe their developments are being used for immoral purposes contrary to our founding values. This refers to the separation policy implemented by Immigration and Customs Enforcement on the orders of the Government.

Given the separation of children from parents carried out at the border, we believe that Salesforce management should cancel contracts with CBP and speak out against such actions, the staff petition says.

A Salesforce spokesperson commented on the employee appeal in a Buzzfeed conversation, saying the company is "proud that its employees are caring people who express their opinions directly and will continue to discuss this and other important issues."

Earlier in June 2018, US President Donald Trump, under pressure from the public, was forced to cancel the separation policy, but the return of children to their parents can last a long time due to bureaucratic delays.

Salesforce staff said they were also opposed to the current policy, in which migrant children are detained with their families.^[10]

California's tallest building opens

On May 22, 2018, Salesforce officially opened the tallest building in California, the Salesforce Tower. It includes 61 floors and a total height of 1,070 feet (about 326 meters).

Salesforce Tower broke the record of the 260-meter Transamerica Pyramid building, the former headquarters of the insurance and investment  company Transamerica.

Formally, the tallest building in California remains the Wilshire Grand skyscraper located in Los Angeles (338 meters), but on top of it is a more than 50-meter spire, so Salesforce Tower is considered the leader.

This Salesforce building began construction in 2013. Then it was reported that the company would spend about $680 million on the project, including $560 million for rent and $130 million for adapting the premises to its needs. The project was implemented in conjunction with developers Boston Properties and Hines, who will be renting Salesforce office space for 15.5 years. How many employees of the company will work in the new headquarters is not specified.

Some workers relocated to Salesforce Tower back in January 2018, but the skyscraper was finally built and opened four months later.

The building has high-speed elevators that climb from the first to the last floor in just 39 seconds. People who have already used these elevators say that during the climb they have ears.

Around Salesforce Tower are other high-rise buildings built on soft soil and sand on the edge of the bay. They are a symbol of modern San Francisco, but also pose a potential danger to the city located in the territory where earthquakes often occur,  writes The New York Times.

San Francisco lives with confidence that a big earthquake will sooner or later occur in the city, but at the same time more skyscrapers appear there due to a serious housing shortage in the country. Despite the fact that the United States has strict building codes, they do not guarantee the protection of buildings from earthquakes, although many residents believe in this. The authors of the Salesforce Tower project, in an attempt to protect the building from natural disasters, created the largest foundation for it in the city.^[11]

Average employee experience - 3.3 years

In April 2018, it became known that Salesforce employees have been working for the company for an average of about 3.3 years. Read more here.

2017: Poaching Microsoft employees

In July 2017, Salesforce.com began inviting Microsoft employees to work, who fell under the reduction. We are talking about sales specialists.

Here is what co-founder, chairman of the board of directors and CEO of Salesforce.com Marc Benioff wrote on his Twitter blog:

Fired from Microsoft? Join the first CRM company. Give your customers success every day. Work and share experience within your role

Marc Benioff asked applicants to send resumes to Jobs@Salesforce.com 's email. Microsoft has refrained from commenting on the initiative launched by a rival company to poach employees.

In early July 2017, Microsoft announced a reduction in 10% of the sales team, as a result of which about 5 thousand people lost their jobs. Chief information officer Jim DuBois was also fired, but it is unclear whether this departure was related to the reorganization of the company.

Salesforce.com specializes in developing solutions for automating sales, so the staff dismissed from Microsoft can be useful to the company. Moreover, as Fortune notes, not only sales departments in the traditional sense, but also sales engineers and support staff fell under the reduction.

In 2014, Microsoft and Salesforce.com began close cooperation in various areas. There were rumors that Microsoft could acquire Salesforce.com for $55 billion, but the deal was never concluded due to the high cost. Relations between the companies deteriorated after Microsoft bought the business social network LinkedIn, which it also claimed Salesforce.com. Then Marc Benioff began accusing Microsoft of monopoly and complained to the European authorities that the merger of Microsoft and LinkedIn would curb the development of healthy competition.^[12]

2016: Rent Amazon data centers for $400 million for 4 years

In May 2016, Salesforce.com announced a $400 million cloud contract with Amazon, thanks to which the former expects to strengthen international expansion.

Under the terms of the agreement, the Salesforce.com will use Amazon Web Services (AWS) cloud infrastructure for SaaS services including Sales Cloud, Service Cloud, App Cloud, Community Cloud and Analytics Cloud.

Salesforce.com has its own data centers that the company uses to operate its services. However, some of the vendor's products are launched on other people's computing power. These include a number of Internet of Things services, as well as the cloud platform for developing Heroku applications. The latter has been based on AWS for several years, which became known only at the end of May 2016.

As noted by The New York Times, the new agreement with Amazon is noteworthy in that for the first time key services will Salesforce.com work on other people's computer systems. The company will take advantage of AWS's capabilities to expand its business in Canada and Australia.

According to the founder and CEO of Salesforce.com, Marc Benioff, the company has studied the possibility of similar cooperation with Microsoft and Google, but preferred Amazon, since the company leads in the number of solutions offered and the cheapness of services.

The contract between Salesforce.com and Amazon is for four years. At the same time, the Salesforce.com will conclude on the effectiveness of the partnership during the first year and may expand it in the future, which will lead to an increase in the value of the transaction. So far, we are talking about $400 million.^[13]

Constellation Research analyst Holger Mueller notes that Salesforce.com became the first major corporate supplier ON to place its services in Amazon's cloud infrastructure since the company's similar placement Infor a few years earlier.

2015

Salesforce.com plans to bypass SAP in Germany

On March 28, 2015, one of the top managers of the Salesforce.com spoke about the vendor's plans in the European software market. The American company hopes to become the largest software seller in Germany by taking this title from the local SAP.

"In Germany, we want to become the largest software company in terms of sales," Salesforce.com head of the European office Joachim Schreiner told the German weekly publication Wirtschafts Woche, without specifying the time frame during which the company expects to achieve the task.^[14]

The German software market is one of the strongest in the region, Schreiner said. The average annual growth rate of Salesforce.com business in Europe exceeds 30%, said the head of the local division of the company.

The head of the European office of Salesforce.com said that the company hopes to become the largest seller of software in the German market

If Salesforce.com wants to surpass SAP in Germany, then the American manufacturer needs to increase sales in the country several times. In 2014, SAP earned about 2.6 billion euros in its homeland with a total revenue of 17.6 billion euros. Salesforce.com disclosed the annual sales size only in the European market - $1 billion with a total revenue of $5.4 billion.

According to the results of the 2016 fiscal year, which will last until the end of January 2016 calendar, the Salesforce.com predicts revenue in the amount of $6.52 billion. What share of revenues in Europe the company expects, it does not specify.

Salesforce.com Chief Executive Officer Marc Benioff has repeatedly spoken about his company's superiority over competitors. According to the head, Salesforce.com sells cloud solutions that no other company in Europe is able to offer, including SAP.

Benioff also spoke about competing with Oracle, calling the cloud product of the Oracle Fusion vendor too complex and confusing for customers. At the same time, ex-head of Oracle Larry Ellison said that a stubborn struggle unfolded between the companies: both Oracle and Salesforce.com predict sales of SaaS and PaaS solutions in the amount of more than $1 billion in 2015. Curiously, Ellison mentioned the name of the competitor in Oracle's financial report, which is quite rare.

Rumors about a possible sale of the company

On April 29, 2015, the media reported that the Salesforce.com could be sold to a large IT corporation. This news provoked the growth of shares in the American developer of customer and partner relationship management systems to a record value.

According to Bloomberg, citing people familiar with the situation, Salesforce.com turned to financial advisers for help to help the company evaluate incoming offers from potential buyers. The news agency does not name the advisers and companies interested in acquiring Salesforce.com.^[15]

If someone buys Salesforce.com, this deal will be the largest in the history of the software market

According to the data, Reuters the most obvious candidates for the takeover of Salesforce.com are,,, and Oracle Microsoft. SAP These IBM companies have either considered the possibility of a deal, or are still studying it, the newspaper notes, citing sources close to these IT giants.^[16]

According to FBR Capital Markets analyst Daniel Ives, the cloud computing market is at consolidation thresholds, so a large purchase is quite expected here.

Amid rumors of the sale of Salesforce.com, the company's shares rose 17.3% on April 29, 2015 and reached a record high of $78.46. At the time of the termination of exchange trading, the company's securities stopped at $74.65, which is 11.6% more compared to April 28. At the same time, the market capitalization amounted to almost $48 billion.

Given this financial measure, buying a Salesforce.com, if it goes ahead, could be the largest in the history of the software market. Only a few companies can afford such a deal, said Scott Kessler, an analyst at S&P Capital IQ. His colleague Brent Thill from UBS considers it unlikely to sell a company as large as Salesforce.com.

Whoever acquires this vendor will receive a huge impetus in the development of the cloud business. Large players in this market already have their own CRM-products, but they are all inferior to Salesforce.com in terms of market share, USA Today reports, citing analysts. Gartner^[17]

Microsoft gave $55 billion per Salesforce.com, but it was refused

On May 22, 2015, it became known about the negotiations on the merger of Salesforce.com and Microsoft. The companies were unable to reach an agreement due to disagreements on the financial issue.

According to CNBC, citing sources familiar with the situation, in the spring of 2015, Microsoft and Salesforce.com held "thorough negotiations" that did not end with the conclusion of the deal. The fact is that the founder and CEO of Salesforce.com, Marc Benioff, was not satisfied with the price that Microsoft offered for the purchase of the company - $55 billion. Benioff expected to receive at least $70 billion.

Microsoft's terms provided for the exchange of a 5.7% stake in Mark Benioff's Salesforce.com for a stake in Microsoft, thanks to which he could participate in the management of the software giant. Other shareholders were Salesforce.com entitled to cash payments.

It is noted that although the companies did not reach an agreement and did not return to its re-discussion, negotiations between them reached the stage of considering the details, which indicates the seriousness of Microsoft's intentions. As of May 2015, the corporation has a reserve of $95 billion in cash and cash equivalents, which means that the manufacturer Windows can well afford to acquire a company as expensive as Salesforce.com.

At the time of the termination of trading on May 22, 2015, when journalists reported on the failed negotiations between Microsoft and Salesforce.com executives, the latter's shares rose in price by almost 3%, and the market capitalization exceeded $49 billion. Microsoft quotes, on the contrary, fell by 1.1%, and capitalization - to $380.5 billion.

According to CNBC, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella was somewhat opposed to the conclusion of such a large deal as the purchase of Salesforce.com, and doubted its favorable consequences for Microsoft. The resumption of negotiations between the companies is not expected in the near future, the channel's interlocutor notes.^[18]

Head of Salesforce: SAP is afraid of us

On July 2, 2015, it became known that Salesforce.com offered SAP close cooperation, but the latter did not agree to it. The refusal was perceived as the fear of an American competitor manifested by the German company.

"We gave them an olive branch," says Salesforce.com CEO Marc Benioff. - I said (Bill McDermott, head of SAP - note TAdviser) that I would like to strike up a closer relationship with them. Yes, we are competitors, but we must also be partners. He's afraid of Salesforce.com. "

Marc Benioff says he offered SAP close cooperation but was rebuffed

According to Benioff, Salesforce.com 's proposal to partner with SAP was made at the suggestion of customers who ask for a higher level of technical compatibility of companies' products. At the same time, Salesforce.com has already concluded deals with Oracle, Microsoft and VMware in the field of technology and data sharing, the head said Salesforce.com.

In the spring of 2015, a large wave of rumors about the sale arose in the Western press Salesforce.com. Among the potential applicants for this company were Oracle, Microsoft and SAP. The latter categorically rejected interest in Salesforce.com: according to Bill McDermott, the cost of the Salesforce.com is too high to acquire this company, so hardly anyone wants to make such a deal.

McDermott also predicted that Salesforce.com will reduce prices for its products, which will negatively affect the vendor's revenue. This forecast is partly confirmed by the Salesforce.com itself, which in fiscal year 2016 (will last until the end of January 2017) expects sales to grow by 22% (to $6.55 billion) against a 32% rise a year earlier.

It is worth noting that Benioff and McDermott have repeatedly exchanged comments in which they put the rival company in a disadvantageous light. During a conference call on the publication of the financial statements, in May 2015, the CEO of Salesforce.com mentioned the name of SAP 14 times. By July 3, 2015, McDermott's response to the statement of fear of Salesforce.com did not follow.^[19]

Salesforce pointed out Oracle and SAP errors

On July 10, 2015, Salesforce.com co-founder Parker Harris spoke about the reasons for the company's rapid growth and the main mistakes of larger competitors.

In 2015, Salesforce.com expects revenue of more than $6 billion. If this forecast comes true, the American company will become the manufacturer of enterprise software, which has reached this sales volume the fastest. Focusing on certain products will help the vendor achieve this result, Parker Harris said.

At a time when the main competitors in the person of Oracle and SAP work in almost all segments of the enterprise-level software market, Salesforce.com focused only on solutions in the field of customer relationship management.

"A

lot of people said we needed more food. Look at Oracle and SAP. They added ERP, product inventory and reward management systems, "Harris says. - We realized that we are a customer-oriented company and a means of customer service. They will be very upset if we add a lot of products and lose focus. "

As Business Insider notes, the approach chosen by Salesforce.com also applies to the company's new products, including the Wave analytical platform, which allows enterprises and organizations to use their own analytics tools. Wave is optimized for CRM data and is not yet designed for the entire analytical industry, the co-founder noted Salesforce.com.

"

We're not saying this analytics is for everyone. We say this analytics to understand your CRM, analytics to understand your relationship with customers. Here we are strong and here our customers are, "Harris added

.

In his opinion, attempts to cover the entire industry, which many large players practice, ultimately negatively affect their business, since partners do not want to work with narcissistic companies that are trying to put pressure on them.^[20]

Salesforce expands cloud business

On August 20, 2015, it became known about the expansion of the cloud business Salesforce.com. The corresponding statement was made by the CEO of the company Marc Benioff during a conference on the publication of the vendor's financial statements.

According to the top manager, Salesforce.com has already ceased to be just a specialist in the field of sales automation.

"We are very diverse," Marc Benioff said, noting that Sony PlayStation and Home Depot customer support sites use the Salesforce Service Cloud solution.

According to the head of Salesforce.com, the company plans to release several industry vertical cloud solutions for healthcare, retail, etc. These products are expected to appear on the market in September 2015.

It is worth noting that Salesforce.com previously began to expand its business outside its main market - CRM systems. In particular, the company is engaged in marketing and for this in 2013, ExactTarget was acquired for $2.5 billion. Through that deal, Salesforce.com was able to offer digital marketing services to customers that allow them to manage their campaigns through e-mail, social media and mobile devices.

According to Fortune, a software company can earn more on the sale of software that has client-specific functions than from the sale of public products. However, such solutions are expensive and time-consuming to develop. However, large vendors can afford to create software for vertical industries, which confirms the activity of Salesforce.com competitors - Microsoft and Oracle - in this area.

Against the background of the expansion of the cloud business, the Salesforce.com raised its forecast for annual revenue - from $6.52-6.55 billion to $6.6-6.63 billion. The company's fiscal year ends at the end of January 2016.^[21]

2013: World No. 10 software developer with $3.8 billion in sales

According to Gartner, in 2013, the Salesforce.com with a turnover of $3.8 billion rose by two positions in the ranking of the largest software manufacturers, taking tenth place, and also demonstrated the largest revenue increase in the top ten - 33%. Analysts are confident that in 2014 the company's turnover will reach $5 billion.

2012: Plan to expand business to European markets

George Hu, Chief Operating Officer of Salesforce, during a speech at the Wells Fargo conference in early April 2012, announced the possible expansion of the company's business beyond the US and Japanese markets, where its position is traditionally strong. Salesforce looks towards the Eurozone markets, which it intends to offer business solutions of various sizes from SMB to large corporations. We are talking about popular frontal systems and tools with social interaction functions that are gaining popularity.

It is known that Salesforce wants to replicate the successful experience of entering the Japanese market using the example of European countries. According to George Hu, his company at one time did not pay due attention to promising regions and is now reaping the benefits of this short-sighted policy. Her decisions have gained global popularity and are rightly considered among the best in the industry, but are truly successful in just two markets. Let them be one of the most important in the world.

To achieve modern indicators in the Japanese market, Salesforce needed to go 10 years long. But now the company is the most successful software developer in this country, - or so Hu believes. It's all about focusing efforts and, of course, investments - he is sure. At the stage of expansion into the European region, it is planned, first of all, to significantly expand the sales channel.

Which countries are in question, Hu did not specify, but obviously, at the initial stage these will be the most promising markets in terms of a rapid increase in profitability indicators. According to the top manager of Salesforce, there are no more than 7-10 such countries, whether Russia is one of them cannot be said unequivocally. On the one hand, the Russian market for CRM systems is extremely fragmented, and customers often prefer less expensive offers, on the other hand, it can easily compete with developed countries in Europe in terms of volume.

There are projects on the Russian market implemented on Salesforce CRM solutions, and in the next two years the arrangement in the local market is unlikely to change, says Artem Parmukhin, director of the Sitronics client relationship management systems department. There are several reasons for this. Firstly, the cost of using Solutions SaaS in the horizon of 5-7 years is comparable to on-premium systems, and the latter often still have broader functionality. Secondly, the most difficult obstacle to overcome remains the issue of trust in the storage of client data outside the country and the "walls" of the company itself.

In theory, Salesforce has good prospects to increase sales in the Russian market due to small businesses, which have a weak level of penetration of CRM technologies compared to the Enterprise segment. However, here too, the absence of high demand for CRM from small companies due to the general immaturity of this market segment can become serious restraining factors. Competition with local developers in the person, and 1C Terrasoft free systems like this SugarCRM can also not be discounted.

2010: 72.5 thousand customers and 2.1 million subscribers

In 2010, in addition to the headquarters of the Salesforce.com in the American city of San Francisco, the company operates through regional offices - in Singapore and Dublin. Tokyo Other significant representative offices are located in Toronto,,, and New York London Sydney San Mateo. The company has 72.5 thousand customers around the world and about 2.1 million subscribers of its services.

2009: Launch of Chatter's own messenger

In December 2009, GroupSwim was acquired, based on the development of which in 2010 launched its own messaging and collaboration service Salesforce Chatter.

Also in December 2009, Informavores was absorbed, on the basis of which Visual Process Manager was launched.

2008: Facebook Integration

In 2008, Salesforce integrated its systems with Facebook, in 2009 - with Twitter.

In August 2008, Instrumanet was purchased, later becoming the Salesforce Knowledge service.

2007

Fastest growing CRM provider (+ 49.8 %)

Among CRM systems vendors, SalesForce.com showed the largest revenue growth rate in 2007: its turnover from the sale of CRM solutions increased by 49.8%. SaaS systems accounted for 15% of the global CRM market in 2007. Read more here.

Starting the service Force.com

In 2007, the company created the Force.com service, which opened the era of platforms in the form of a service. This platform allowed the company to build an ecosystem of Partner SaaS, as well as break the stereotype that cloud solutions are difficult to customize.

By 2010, the number of developers using Force.com reached 300 thousand, and the number of applications created on the platform - 185 thousand.

In 2007, the Ideas portal (now IdeasExchange) also appeared, on which company customers can publish ideas for new Salesforce features and vote on proposals from others.

2005: Partner Applications Platform

In 2005, Salesforce.com opened a platform for partner applications AppExchange, which by 2014 has more than 2,200 titles. Later, similar sites appeared at SAP, Oracle and others.

2004: IPO on the New York Stock Exchange

In June 2004, the company passed an IPO on the New York Stock Exchange.

1999: Ex-Oracle manager Marc Benioff establishes Salesforce.com

Salesforce.com was founded in March 1999 by former Oracle top manager Marc Benioff, Parker Harris, Dave Malenhoff and Frank Dominges as a company specializing in SaaS products.

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