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<a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/category/the-cfo-project-future-of-finance"></a><div type="image" title="Salesforce CFO Amy Weaver" height="2249" width="2999" msid="88037723" hostid="261"></div><ul class="summary-list"><li>Over the past year, <keyword id="11892769" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="salesforce" source="Orion">Salesforce</keyword> has been balancing investing in the future and managing risk.</li><li>CFO <keyword id="12650938" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="amy-weaver" source="Orion">Amy Weaver</keyword> is spearheading Salesforce's efforts to spur innovation while spending wisely.</li></ul>The cloud giant Salesforce has big ambitions, working toward a target of <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/salesforce-execs-marc-benioff-q4-earnings-revenue-goal-2021-2">$50 billion in revenue</a> by 2025. And it hasn't been afraid to spend big: It acquired the workplace chat app <keyword id="11955989" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="slack" source="Orion">Slack</keyword> <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/salesforce-slack-deal-closed-bret-taylor-stewart-butterfield-learnings-2021-7">for $27.7 billion</a> this year in a push to become the center of the remote-working world.In charge of managing that delicate financial balance between growing revenue and investing in the future is Amy Weaver, who took over as Salesforce's chief financial officer in January after <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/salesforce-cfo-mark-hawkins-retiring-amy-weaver-2020-12">Mark Hawkins retired</a>. Before the move, Weaver had served as the company's chief legal officer.CEO Marc Benioff has credited Weaver on earnings calls this year with improving the company's overall financial operating model, praising her approach to growing its finance team while automating and streamlining many of its internal processes. The changes, Benioff suggested, better position Salesforce to achieve its goals.In an email interview with Insider, Weaver said her approach hinges on making sure the company is efficient as it grows, describing the Slack acquisition and the recent emphasis on serving remote workers as a chance to rethink how it does things."Our priority is always our customers' success and how we can best help them grow, because that drives our success," Weaver said. "It is important to me that we can both grow and drive efficiencies as we scale, and we are taking advantage of this unique opportunity to re-imagine our operations."More specifically, she described three major factors in how she thinks about making sure that efficient scalability doesn't get in the way of innovation and new opportunities.First, she said, Salesforce's generally strong earnings reports over the past several years — reflecting heightened demand for products like its flagship Sales Cloud and Service Cloud software in the pandemic — have allowed the company to maintain profitability, even <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/salesforce-earnings-mulesoft-tableau-revenue-fastest-growing-2021-5">after megadeals like Slack, Tableau, and MuleSoft</a>.Second, the company is keeping many of its pandemic-driven sales-and-marketing practices even as it brings workers back to the office, helping cut costs, she said. For example, Weaver said much of Salesforce's sales and product marketing is now done virtually via apps like Zoom, reducing travel expenses. She said that investing in automating the finance function would pay off with cost savings in the long run.Finally, Weaver said, Salesforce must be willing to make big investments where it sees a real opportunity, as it did with Slack. Making smart bets now means more revenue later, which will allow it to invest even more in its own efficiencies."This discipline will lead to more money to invest in distribution and to support growth mode during this strong demand environment," Weaver said.Ultimately, what makes for a smart bet comes down to customer need, Weaver said."Customers view us as their strategic advisor, and that relationship enables a constant feedback loop that fuels innovation," she said. "Our relentless customer focus drives us to innovate for problems customers face today and problems they will face in the future."Do you work at Salesforce or have insight to share? Contact this reporter via email at <a href="mailto:pzaveri@businessinsider.com">pzaveri@insider.com</a> or Signal at 925-364-4258. (PR pitches by email only, please.)

Salesforce CFO Amy Weaver says the secret to managing the cloud giant's growth is to scale up efficiently but not to be afraid to make big bets

<ul class="summary-list"><li>Salesforce headcount increased to 72,682 workers in the fourth quarter of fiscal 2024. </li><li>The company laid off 10% of its workforce, which had reached nearly 80,000 employees, last year. </li></ul>Just a year after Salesforce laid off nearly 10% of its workforce, the company's head count is beginning to creep back up.The enterprise software company reported it had 72,682 employees as of January 31, up from 70,843 at the end of the prior quarter, according to its <a target="_blank" href="https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1108524/000110852424000002/crm-q4fy24xexhibit991.htm">form 8-K</a> filed this week with the SEC.Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff has <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/salesforce-hire-3-000-people-brutal-job-cuts-this-year-2023-9">previously</a> said he plans to hire more people as the company shifts its focus to generative artificial intelligence. He has even encouraged former employees — "boomerangs," as he calls them — to come back."We're investing into our most productive areas — AI and data," CFO Amy Weaver said this week on the company's fourth-quarter earnings call with investors.Salesforce laid off roughly 8,000 people in 2023 as part of a broader restructuring effort to increase profit margins. The company reported a non-GAAP operating margin of 30.5% for the fiscal year, above the 30% threshold that activist investors had pushed for.New hires, Weaver said, are being added to Salesforce in "cost-effective ways," such as hiring people from areas that have "high talent pools and low cost of living."If that sounds familiar, that's because it might be.In late 2022, Business Insider <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/oracle-shuns-job-seekers-san-francisco-nyc-seattle-hiring-layoffs-2022-10">reported</a> that Oracle — the software company where Benioff started his sales career, still helmed by his mentor Larry Ellison — had started to avoid hiring in cities known for high salaries, such as New York and San Francisco.Do you work at Salesforce and want to share a tip with this reporter? Contact Ellen Thomas on the encrypted messaging app Signal at +1-929-524-6964 or ethomas@insider.com.

Salesforce's new data and AI hires are coming from areas of the country with 'high talent pools, low cost of living' 

<ul class="summary-list"><li>Salesforce is losing a number of key execs in the wake of Bret Taylor's departure.</li><li>Slack CEO Stewart Butterfield is also departing, along with some other product-focused execs. </li></ul>Salesforce is in the midst of a serious brain drain at the highest levels. Last week, <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/bret-taylor-leaves-salesforce-shocking-employees-and-marc-benioff-2022-11">co-CEO Bret Taylor made the surprise announcement that he'd be departing the company</a>.Shortly afterwards came the news that <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/salesforce-is-losing-another-top-executive-after-bret-taylor-2022-12">Mark Nelson, the CEO of Salesforce subsidiary Tableau</a>, and Steven Tamm, a CTO at the cloud tech giant, are also departing. In November, the company also said Gavin Patterson, the company's chief strategy officer who had previously been its chief revenue officer will depart at the end of January. Then, earlier this week, Insider reported that Stewart Butterfield, CEO of Slack — the workplace chat app that Salesforce acquired in 2021 for $27.7 billion —will be <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/slack-ceo-stewart-butterfield-to-exit-salesforce-in-january-2022-12">leaving the company in the new year</a>. Tamar Yehoshua, Slack's chief product officer, is also resigning, as is Slack senior VP of communications Jonathan Prince.It's not clear if the timing of all these departures is anything more than coincidence: In a memo to employees, <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/read-slack-ceo-stewart-butterfields-memo-departing-salesforce-lidiane-jones-2022-12">Butterfield wrote that his plans to depart have nothing to do with Taylor's</a>, as Insider earlier reported. Still, it comes at a critical moment for Salesforce and its now-sole CEO Marc Benioff. The company's stock is down some 48% from the beginning of the year, as the larger tech downturn takes its toll on the markets. Salesforce has warned investors that a slowing economy is making it more difficult to close deals as IT spending stalls out, even as investors push Benioff to demonstrate a commitment to improving its profit margins. And the specific executives who are hitting the exits represent some of Salesforce's biggest bets on the future. Taylor himself was seen as a product visionary who would help Salesforce break into new markets, as seen when he <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/salesforce-coo-bret-taylor-key-role-buying-slack-importance-leadership-2020-12">masterminded the Slack acquisition</a>. Indeed, Slack and Tableau represented Salesforce's two largest acquisitions in its history, as it invested in new lines of business.<h2>The departing execs championed Salesforce's product strategy</h2>The departures of Taylor, Butterfield, and Nelson come as Salesforce's strategy comes under the microscope on Wall Street.With Slack and Tableau, Salesforce already had a lot to prove. Wall Street thought that the $27.7 billion it paid for Slack and the $15 billion for Tableau was far too steep given the company's financial situation. The scrutiny hasn't stopped."Growth has been slowing for years," Bernstein analysts wrote in a recent note to clients. "But that has not been readily apparent due to the cadence of large acquisitions which generate a multiyear tailwind to growth due to acquisition accounting."Taylor, who had been COO of Salesforce before becoming co-CEO in 2021, championed the two as key to a strategy of building the company's platform into an all-in-one tool for sales, to service, to marketing and commerce, to data analysis. Slack would be the "digital HQ" where work gets done, while Tableau helps customers crunch the massive amounts of data stored in the Salesforce platform and turn it into useful insights. Neither Slack nor Tableau is going anywhere. Salesforce has already said that Lidiane Jones, an executive VP, will take over for Butterfield as Slack CEO. She'll be working with Cal Henderson, Slack's CTO and cofounder, who remains in his role. And Salesforce has said that in the wake of Nelson's departure, Tableau will be rolled more closely into Salesforce's engineering organization.What it does mean, however, is that Salesforce, Slack, and Tableau are all losing the biggest champions of the integrated product strategy right as the company faces hard questions.Amid the chaos, however, some on Wall Street thinks there may be an opportunity.While some of Salesforce's most experienced execs remain on <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/salesforce-organization-chart-under-bret-taylor-and-marc-benioff-2022-8">Benioff's leadership team</a>, including CFO Amy Weaver and COO Brian Millham, <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/salesforce-bret-taylor-marc-benioff-earnings-investors-spooked-future-growth-2022-12">analysts think Benioff needs to recruit new leadership. </a>Now could be a good time to recruit talent from a smaller rival or startup, Jaluria told Insider. The relative stability of Salesforce compared to a smaller startup during an uncertain economic environment would be a major draw. "You need leadership that's focused on the next chapter of Salesforce and the way things should be done, not necessarily the way things have been done from the get go," RBC analyst Rishi Jaluria said last week at the time of Taylor's announcement.

Salesforce is losing the key execs behind some of its biggest and most expensive bets at a critical moment

<ul class="summary-list"><li>Salesforce is seeing it's co-CEO Bret Taylor depart and facing slowing revenue growth.</li><li>The combo has some investors spooked about the CRM giant's future, especially going into Q4.</li></ul>With co-CEO Bret Taylor's sudden departure and a waning growth rate, investors are worried about the future of Salesforce, the $147 billion CRM giant.Salesforce's stock is down up to 10% today. While earnings beat analyst expectations, it also revealed the slowest revenue growth in the past two years, at 14%. It may not be surprising given the economic environment, but investors are worried about Salesforce's ability to meet its growth targets for the year. Additionally, as Insider reported, <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/bret-taylor-leaves-salesforce-shocking-employees-and-marc-benioff-2022-11">Taylor's departure from the company blindsided many employees</a> and <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/salesforce-marc-benioff-bret-taylor-departure-internal-memo-2022-11">surprised many top leaders</a> — including cofounder and now sole CEO Marc Benioff. Taylor is set to leave at the end of January, the end of Salesforce's fiscal year. Taylor was seen as Benioff's likely successor and the next chief executive of the company, and his appointment to the co-CEO role seemed to cement that. His departure throws those succession plans into flux. Taylor leaving adds "further uncertainty during times when stability is critical," analysts at Bernstein wrote in a note to clients. "Not a good mix and investors must be wondering if the wheels are falling off." Here are the things Benioff will need to tackle in 2023:<h2>Figure out who will lead Salesforce</h2>With Taylor out as Benieoff's successor, there are open questions about who Benioff will bring into the executive team now. Two other execs are leaving as well. Gavin Patterson, Salesforce's chief strategy officer and previously chief revenue officer, is set to depart at the end of January. And on Thursday, Mark Nelson, CEO of the Salesforce-owned company Tableau, <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/salesforce-is-losing-another-top-executive-after-bret-taylor-2022-12">announced he would be leaving Salesforce as well</a>. While experienced execs remain on Benioff's leadership team, like CFO Amy Weaver and COO Brian Millham, analysts think Benioff needs to recruit new leadership. "You need leadership that's focused on the next chapter of Salesforce and the way things should be done, not necessarily the way things have been done from the get go," RBC analyst Rishi Jaluria said. Now could be a good time to recruit talent from a smaller rival or startup, Jaluria said. The relative stability of Salesforce during an uncertain economic environment would be a major draw.<h2>Figure out the future of Slack</h2>Taylor's departure also raises questions about Slack, since <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/salesforce-slack-acquisition-merger-deal-2020-11">Taylor spearheaded the $27.7 billion acquisition in 2020</a>. He was also instrumental in integrating Slack into the rest of Salesforce's platform and the overall strategy and vision behind the acquisition. Many analysts said they have questions about what happens to Slack and that product strategy upon Taylor leaving. "We believe it was Bret's vision that drove the acquisition of Slack and many of the recent product direction changes. Without Bret, we wonder if the focus may change," Bernstein analysts wrote. <h2>Figure out how to jump-start revenue and land big customers</h2>While it wasn't a huge shock given the overall economic environment, Salesforce's slowed revenue growth is worrying. For one, Salesforce and other software vendors <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/salesforce-earnings-q1-2023-weather-downturn-2022-6">have always been seen as recession-proof</a>. "The numbers on Salesforce don't say a lot of great things," RBC's Jaluria said. "It does show that they're definitely facing some macro headwinds and potentially some sales execution challenges. Especially if you look at their guidance for Q4, definitely weaker than I think people would've expected." Secondly, as part of its larger platform strategy, Salesforce has been going after larger customers and looking to land deals for multiple Salesforce products versus just one or two. But that's more difficult to do when there's more "intense customer scrutiny on every investment dollar," RBC analysts said in a note to clients, referencing what Salesforce management told analysts on a call after earnings. Salesforce's numbers are also noteworthy because other software vendors like Workday aren't seeing these same challenges, Bernstein analysts note. "Some of this is likely the economic slowdown/recession," they wrote. "But that we believe does not tell the complete story because we are not seeing similar issues across software."

Marc Benioff's 2023 to-do list after his co-CEO's shocking departure

<ul class="summary-list"><li style="text-align: left;">Salesforce's executive suite got a shakeup in February, when co-CEO Keith Block suddenly stepped down.</li><li style="text-align: left;">CEO Marc Benioff used the occasion of Block's departure to point out that Salesforce has a strong executive bench - including Bret Taylor, who joined in 2016 after the acquisition of his startup Quip, and quickly rose through the ranks to become chief operating officer.</li><li style="text-align: left;">Taylor's not alone, many other executives who've joined the company through its various acquisitions are quickly rising through the ranks and playing key roles at the company as well, including key execs at Tableau. </li><li style="text-align: left;">These are the 21 rising star executives at Salesforce that are expected to have an outsized impact on the company's future growth.</li><li style="text-align: left;"><a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/prime">Click here to read more BI Prime stories.</a></li></ul>Salesforce's executive suite got a big and sudden shakeup in February, when it was announced that co-CEO Keith Block would be leaving the company.Marc Benioff, founder and once again sole CEO of Salesforce, used the opportunity of Block's departure to highlight the strength of the remaining executive bench, including cofounder and CTO Parker Harris, CFO Mark Hawkins, legal chief Amy Weaver, and Bret Taylor, recently named chief operating officer.Taylor, especially, has risen to a place of prominence in the company, after joining the company in 2016 by way of the acquisition of his company Quip. Before that, he was Facebook's CTO and then a prominent engineering leader at Google, helping lead the creation of Google Maps.Even before Block's departure, analysts and industry-watchers anticipated that <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/salesforce-co-ceo-keith-block-leaving-analysts-leadership-benioff-2020-2">Taylor could be heir apparent to Benioff</a>- especially given persistent speculation that Benioff might one day step back as CEO in order to focus on political and social activism. But Taylor isn't the only executive at Salesforce to see a heightened profile: Benioff particularly spotlighted Adam Selipsky, CEO of Tableau - which Salesforce acquired last year for $15.7 billion - and Gavin Patterson, Salesforce's new head of international business. All of these execs, and more, are going to play a major role at Salesforce going forward, as it aims towards ambitious growth targets and fends off competitive threats from the likes of Microsoft and Oracle.Here are the 21 rising stars at Salesforce that are expected to have an impact the company's future growth:

Meet the 21 rising stars at Salesforce who are playing key roles in helping CEO Marc Benioff grow the cloud computing powerhouse

<ul class="summary-list"><li>Salesforce is suspending non-essential travel for its 49,703 employees around the world and enhancing "office protocols" amid worries about the coronavirus disease, COVID-19.</li><li>Salesforce is also making all its upcoming customer events in March digital experiences instead of in person events. </li><li>It is also asking all employees to stay home if they are experiencing "symptoms of illness of any kind" and are encouraging everyone to get a flu shot. </li><li><a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/?hprecirc-bullet">Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories</a>.</li></ul>Salesforce is suspending non-essential travel for its roughly 50,000 employees around the world and enhancing "office protocols" in order to be vigilant against the threat from the <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/china-virus-everything-we-know-deadly-2019-ncov-wuhan-spread-2020-1">coronavirus disease, COVID-19</a>.The <a href="https://www.salesforce.com/blog/2020/03/safety-and-wellbeing-those-around-you.html">announcement came in a blog post</a> published by Salesforce's chief legal office, Amy Weaver, on Monday morning. The company said it is prohibiting cross border travel, restricting all but the most critical domestic employee travel in March.Salesforce is also making all its upcoming customer events in March digital experiences, instead of in-person events. It's <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/salesforce-conference-australia-online-coronavirus-world-tour-sydney-2020-2">upcoming conference in Australia this week, called World Tour Sydney</a>, was turned into a virtual event a few weeks ago. It's also enhancing "office protocols" to make sure their office environments are healthy. "These preparations are important on an individual level but they can also have an impact on our society, such as our elderly neighbors, our hospital caretakers, and those who lack the resources or time to prepare themselves, all of whom may be counting on us during this time," Weaver wrote in the blog post.CEO Marc Benioff also tweeted about it, saying, "we are implementing safety precautions for March, incl prohibiting cross border travel, restricting domestic travel, replacing in-person customer events with digital experiences &amp; enhancing office protocols to provide healthiest work environment possible."<a href="https://investor.salesforce.com/press-releases/press-release-details/2020/Salesforce-Announces-Record-Fourth-Quarter-and-Full-Year-Fiscal-2020-Results/default.aspx">Salesforce, which had 49,703 full time employees at the end of its most recent</a> quarter, said it will continue to monitor the situation and provide updates. Got a tip? Contact this reporter via email at <a href="mailto:pzaveri@businessinsider.com">pzaveri@businessinsider.com</a> or Signal at 925-364-4258. (PR pitches by email only, please.) You can also <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/how-to-tip-business-insider-securely-guide-signal-securedrop-2017-6">contact Business Insider securely via SecureDrop</a>.

Salesforce is suspending non-essential travel for its nearly 50,000 employees and 'enhancing' its 'office protocols' to fight the coronavirus spread

<ul class="summary-list"><li><keyword id="155484" type="COMPANY" weightage="60" keywordseo="Salesforce">Salesforce</keyword> will give all employees the option to work from home for the rest of 2020, regardless of when their office location opens up.</li><li>The timing of each office opening will depend on the guidelines from local public health and government authorities and will be a phased process, the company says. </li><li>Salesforce has over 160 office locations. In Asia, where shelter-in-place rules are being relaxed, some of its offices will begin opening later this month. </li><li><a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/?hprecirc-bullet">Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories</a>.</li></ul>Salesforce will give all employees the option to work from home for the rest of the year, regardless of when their local office location opens up, the company said Thursday. "For us, the timing of when we bring employees back into our offices will be unique to each office—we'll make those decisions on a city-by-city basis, in a way that's consistent with local government guidelines and in line with the advice of our medical experts," Amy Weaver, chief legal officer, <a href="https://www.salesforce.com/company/news-press/stories/2020/3/salesforce-coronavirus/">wrote in a blog post. </a>Salesforce has over 160 office locations around the world and compares its reopening process to being like a "light dimmer, not a light switch."In Asia, where businesses are slowly opening their doors, Salesforce will begin reopening offices in phases later this month, while it hasn't made any announcements around its San Francisco headquarters. By allowing employees to choose to work from home through 2020 regardless of whether their office is open, Salesforce <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/facebook-open-offices-on-july-6-workers-can-work-remote-for-2020-2020-5">follows Facebook's precedent.</a> Twitter, another San Francisco-based company, told employees <a href="http://click.revue.email/mps2/c/EAE/cM9xAA/t.31s/0DnK8MwfTJuvecq7GNBJoA/h9/bLHIclgMuzOqfhgThu1HKYATCtkqS0t3YnfKSSRKOaZFCvX4roGtE97VFkOxBo9mh9YIAm0N9hyX6WDhshh8ZgjC8x-2FlbqKBgRO3DYtvF5qs7mqz5O49ELM05H-2FS-2FcaUkxefnkAC8GV2O6RYcpqcIoD3UNLwYeHluAnxAN-2FU-2Fd2K3x8h3nigYqZs1kfWwc3T1bJIAfS1uPjmwBL4MNzK6c6XXTahSGbpQiszkp1fyJQn1dnDEfgeI7fq8wQ-2B0ERC/CJSf">they could work from home indefinitely. </a>"We're not going to open up the doors and have everyone at the company back at their desks on day one," Elizabeth Pinkham, Salesforce's global head of real estate <a href="https://www.salesforce.com/company/news-press/stories/2020/5/salesforce-work-update/">wrote in a blog post last week</a>. "Instead, we are looking at the return as a phased approach starting with the employees that are most critical to our office operations." Salesforce CEO <keyword id="361584" type="PERSON" weightage="60" keywordseo="Marc-Benioff">Marc Benioff</keyword> previously <a href="https://twitter.com/benioff/status/1254458408922607618?lang=en">tweeted a series of steps that were necessary to reopen business on June 1</a>, including the ready availability of antibody and viral testing for COVID-19. <a href="https://www.axios.com/salesforce-ceo-marc-benioff-offices-coronavirus-e68b1e43-b188-4fc4-83cf-4cf0cc19c6d0.html">He told Axios earlier this week</a> that he hopes that the US is "weeks away from that and not months away from that." <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/salesforce-coo-bret-taylor-new-tools-reopening-businesses-data-privacy-2020-5">Salesforce executives have said they see the coronavirus crisis as having three phases</a>: a crisis response, recovery and reopening, and the new normal. Right now, businesses and organizations (including Salesforce) are entering that extended recovery and reopening phase, they said.To help, the company recently <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/salesforce-new-tools-help-businesses-public-agencies-reopen-safely-2020-5">released a set of products to guide organizations in that process</a>, including tools to track the employee health data and shift management software."We'll continue to innovate around <a href="http://work.com/">Work.com</a> as we learn from our own efforts and those of our customers," Weaver said in the blog post.Got a tip? Contact this reporter via email at <a href="mailto:pzaveri@businessinsider.com">pzaveri@businessinsider.com</a> or Signal at 925-364-4258. (PR pitches by email only, please.) You can also <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/how-to-tip-business-insider-securely-guide-signal-securedrop-2017-6">contact Business Insider securely via SecureDrop</a>.Read the original article on <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/salesforce-employees-work-from-home-rest-of-the-year-2020-5">Business Insider</a>

Salesforce will let employees work from home for the rest of the year, even after offices have reopened

<ul class="summary-list"><li><keyword id="155484" type="COMPANY" weightage="60" keywordseo="Salesforce">Salesforce</keyword> is buying the workplace messaging app <keyword id="1815769" type="PERSON" weightage="60" keywordseo="slack">Slack</keyword> for $27.7 billion, it announced on Tuesday. </li><li>The deal is Salesforce's largest acquisition ever and represents a more aggressive foray into office communication technology at a time when remote work has made chat and collaboration tools more essential than ever.</li><li>The acquisition could help Salesforce compete with its longtime rival Microsoft, which has benefited from an explosion in use of its Microsoft Teams app amid the pandemic.</li><li>This is the third large acquisition Salesforce has made in the past few years, following <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/salesforce-earnings-tableau-acquisition-challenges-2019-12">Tableau for over $15 billion in 2019</a> and MuleSoft for $6.5 billion in 2018, as it looks to diversify its product portfolio.</li><li>Slack also stands to benefit from the deal, as the company has seen relatively flat growth rates during the pandemic, while other collaboration tools have seen skyrocketing demand and revenue.</li></ul>Salesforce is buying the workplace messaging app Slack for $27.7 billion, <a href="https://investor.salesforce.com/press-releases/press-release-details/2020/Salesforce-Signs-Definitive-Agreement-to-Acquire-Slack/default.aspx">Salesforce announced on Tuesday</a>. It is Salesforce's largest acquisition ever and represents a more aggressive foray into office communication technology for the cloud giant at a time when remote work has made collaboration tools more essential.The deal is a combination of cash and stock, a detail that <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2020/11/30/salesforce-deal-to-buy-slack-expected-to-be-announced-tomorrow.html">CNBC first reported on Monday</a>. Slack shareholders will get $26.79 in cash and 0.0776 shares of Salesforce common stock for each Slack share. Slack's stock was down over 3% on the news, while Salesforce shares went were also down about 3%. Before reports of the deal talks, Slack had a market cap of about $17 billion. It was valued at roughly $25 billion when markets closed on Tuesday.The deal could help Salesforce compete with its longtime rival Microsoft, which has benefited from an explosion in use of its Microsoft Teams app amid the pandemic. <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/salesforce-slack-acquisition-microsoft-teams-2020-11">Analysts say the addition of Slack — itself the chief competitor to Microsoft Teams — will give Salesforce</a> a way to similarly connect all of its various apps and services by way of a collaboration tool, making it more competitive.Microsoft Teams had <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/microsoft-teams-daily-active-users-2020-10#:~:text=This%20story%20is%20available%20exclusively,caused%20shift%20to%20remote%20work.">115 million daily active users as of October</a>, up from the 75 million it announced in April and its 44 million from mid-March. Slack, meanwhile, hasn't given an updated number for its daily active users since <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/slack-daily-active-users-microsoft-teams-2019-10#:~:text=On%20Thursday%2C%20Slack%20announced%20that,a%20day%20using%20the%20app.">October 2019, when it had 12 million daily active users</a>. Slack did say it had 130,000 paid customers as of its second quarter, up from 100,000 a year ago, with its biggest customers including <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/ibm-slack-partnership-customer-digital-transformation-2020-2">IBM</a> and <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/viacomcbs-cto-phil-wiser-slack-rollout-employees-merger-modernize-2020-4">ViacomCBS</a>."Stewart and his team have built one of the most beloved platforms in <keyword id="6356323" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="100" keywordseo="enterprise">enterprise</keyword> software history, with an incredible ecosystem around it," Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff said in a press release. "This is a match made in heaven. Together, Salesforce and Slack will shape the future of enterprise software and transform the way everyone works in the all-digital, work-from-anywhere world.""Salesforce started the cloud revolution, and two decades later, we are still tapping into all the possibilities it offers to transform the way we work. The opportunity we see together is massive," Slack CEO Stewart Butterfield said in a press release. "Personally, I believe this is the most strategic combination in the history of software, and I can't wait to get going."After the deal closes, Slack will become an "operating unit" of Salesforce, with Butterfield remaining as its CEO.The news came almost a week after <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/salesforce-has-held-talks-to-buy-slack-technologies-11606326392">The Wall Street Journal reported</a> the two companies had recently held discussions about a deal.It's also one of the largest deals the software industry has seen in recent years. Salesforce's purchase of Slack ranks among mega-acquisitions from its peers: IBM's purchase of Red Hat for $34 billion in 2019 and Microsoft's purchase of LinkedIn for $27 billion in 2016 are two of the largest software deals in recent memory.The acquisition gives Salesforce a robust, well-established workplace communication platform to add to its product suite. Though Salesforce already had its enterprise social network, Chatter, and <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/salesforce-anywhere-app-embed-chat-video-collaboration-mobile-microsoft-2020-6">collaboration product Quip</a>, which it acquired in 2016, neither tool has the same popularity as Slack.The purchase also marks the third major acquisition that Salesforce has made in the past few years in an attempt to diversity its offerings and build out its platform. It bought the data-visualization company <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/salesforce-earnings-tableau-acquisition-challenges-2019-12" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Tableau for over $15 billion in 2019</a> and MuleSoft for $6.5 billion in 2018. And it's working to integrate both into the broader Salesforce ecosystem. Salesforce has also made smaller acquisitions, like the industry-specific software maker <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/salesforce-vlocity-acquisition-vertical-sales-strategy-keith-block-2020-2" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Vlocity for $1.3 billion in February</a>.Additionally, the move is in line with Salesforce's strategy of <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/salesforce-could-see-slower-growth-future-morgan-stanley-ubs-analysts-2020-11">relying on acquisitions to drive its growth</a> as it faces what <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/how-cloud-software-spending-could-change-2021-ubs-analysts-2020-11">UBS analysts recently called a "lack of innovation."</a>The deal also benefits Slack, which has seen <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/slack-earnings-q2-stock-sinks-remote-work-2020-9">relatively flat growth rates during the pandemic</a>, while other collaboration tools <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/zoom-q2-earnings-report-beat-expectations-revenue-growth-2020-8">like Zoom</a> and DocuSign have seen skyrocketing demand and revenue. Competition with Microsoft Teams <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/slack-antitrust-complaint-against-microsoft-teams-analysts-2020-7">could also be putting pressure on Slack,</a> analysts previously said. Salesforce and Slack also already have a partnership that allows <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/slack-and-salesforce-expanded-partnership-2019-10#:~:text=Customers%20using%20both%20Slack%20and,first%20struck%20in%20late%202016.&amp;text=It%20also%20means%20that%20conversations,be%20appended%20directly%20to%20Salesforce.rce.">users to move more seamlessly between the cloud services</a>. Their headquarters are just blocks apart in downtown San Francisco. The announcement comes as Salesforce reports third quarter earnings that beat Wall Street estimates. It also announced that CFO Mark Hawkins will retire. He will be in his role until January 31, 2021, and then transition to an advisory role through October 2021. Amy Weaver, former chief legal officer, will take over as CFO.Got a tip? Contact this reporter via email at <a href="mailto:pzaveri@businessinsider.com">pzaveri@businessinsider.com</a> or Signal at 925-364-4258. (PR pitches by email only, please.) You can also <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/how-to-tip-business-insider-securely-guide-signal-securedrop-2017-6">contact Business Insider securely via SecureDrop</a>.

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