2016: The Year of Salesforce Acquisitions

2016 was the year that Salesforce went on a full-out buying spree. The company scooped up small startups like Implisit and Coolan, as well as more mature companies, including Demandware and Quip. Salesforce set a record with a total of 10 acquisitions throughout the year.

We thought it would be a good way to start the new year by taking a look back at 2016. Let’s see why Salesforce made so many acquisitions in the previous year and what these new technologies can do for you.

Hey Salesforce! Why so many acquisitions?

Every company wants to be known as THE innovator in their market. Truly innovative ideas and solutions rarely come out of blue, and Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff understands this concept more than anyone else. This is the main reason that Salesforce is always on the lookout for innovative technologies.

When it comes to new technologies, customers are expecting a more personalized experience, both in-store and online. This is the main reason why companies all around the world are constantly searching for new solutions to improve the efficiency of their sales teams. Not surprisingly, most Salesforce 2016 acquisitions were related to data-driven software and analytics.

Here’s a list of the companies that joined Salesforce in 2016 and how you can benefit from them.

December

In December, Salesforce acquired Twin Prime. Twin Prime is a tool to increase mobile performance by machine learning for all Salesforce clouds and services.

October

With the acquisition of Krux, Salesforce has put itself in the same league as IBM and Adobe. Krux collects data on millions of customer actions, which means companies can be less dependent on Google and Facebook when searching for customer information. Krux technology will enhance the Salesforce Marketing Cloud in its ability to pinpoint exactly which customers are most likely to make a purchase.

September

Can you imagine modern life without smartphones and social networks? Neither can we! With HeyWire, you can reach your customers via SMS or Facebook Messenger.

August

BeyondCore enhances the capabilities of the Salesforce Analytics Cloud by “extending smart data discovery and advanced analytics capabilities across the entire Salesforce Customer Success Platform.”

Quip changes the way team members communicate by making interoffice emails more efficient and effective. Create and share documents, spreadsheets and project plans with your co-workers. Use the @mentions feature to alert the right people to specific tasks and updates.

July

Coolan helps companies test and optimize hardware performance. Better buying decisions are based on data acquired from software rather than just on cost. Salesforce is planning to use Coolan technology to optimize customer relationship management.

June

Demandware is truly considered to be the greatest Salesforce acquisitions of 2016, considering the fact that this enterprise cloud commerce platform gave birth to the Salesforce Commerce Cloud. The new Commerce Cloud enables 1-to-1 interaction with consumers and  delivers a personalized customer experience across any channel.

May

Implisit is another Salesforce data-intelligence purchase. It enables salespeople to make faster and smarter decisions. By analysing the existing sales team’s documents, Implisit can forecast potential deals, identify at risk deals, and recommend actions to improve sales.

April

MetaMind is yet another Salesforce data-intelligence acquisition. Its state-of-the-art learning technology was created to foresee the outcomes for language and database tasks. This technology is now a part of Salesforce Einstein.

February

Machine learning has become incredibly important for Salesforce. PredictionIO has an  innovative platform for app deployment which helps developers build and deploy predictive applications.

CONCLUSION

As you can see from all the acquisitions made in the previous year, Salesforce is truly focused on making its platform more powerful. And we, too, are working to deliver new solutions that will help you get the maximum benefit from your Salesforce solution.

Any questions regarding new acquisitions? We will be glad to answer! Don’t hesitate to contact us.