Interior of the Indianapolis Salesforce Tower. Image: Jetcityimage2/Depositphotos
Salesforce is acquiring ClickSoftware in a move that will position the company to ‘lead the way to the future of field service’.
On Wednesday (7 August), Salesforce announced that it has agreed to buy workforce management company ClickSoftware in a deal valued at $1.35bn in cash and stock.
In a statement, Salesforce said: “ClickSoftware enables companies to intelligently schedule and optimise field work. Salesforce Field Service Lightning, built on Service Cloud, harnesses the latest in dispatching, mobile workforce empowerment and IoT technologies to empower companies to connect their entire service workforce on a single centralised platform.
“With the combined capabilities of Field Service Lightning and ClickSoftware, Salesforce will be positioned to lead the way to the future of field service.”
The news comes just two months after Salesforce announced that it had acquired Seattle data visualisation player Tableau for $15.7bn to strengthen its analytics offerings. The move was seen as a step towards increasing the rivalry between Salesforce and Microsoft, as Microsoft’s Power BI tech competes with Tableau in data visualisation.
The acquisition of ClickSoftware also heats up the competition, as the field service company is a competitor to FieldOne, which Microsoft acquired in 2015.
Accelerating growth
According to Salesforce’s June earnings report, the company’s Service Cloud recently crossed the $1bn revenue threshold for the first time.
Bill Patterson, executive vice-president and general manager of Salesforce Service Cloud, said: “Our acquisition of ClickSoftware will not only accelerate the growth of Service Cloud, but drive further innovation with Field Service Lightning to better meet the needs of our customers. We are thrilled to welcome the ClickSoftware team to Salesforce.”
ClickSoftware CEO Mark Cattini added: “Our mission has been clear since the beginning – to be the global leader in field service management and deliver significant value to our customers.
“Joining Salesforce provides a tremendous opportunity to accelerate this vision. As a part of Salesforce, we will be able to innovate faster, enabling our joint customers to deliver even better experiences to their customers. This is an exciting milestone and I look forward to what we’ll deliver to our respective customers as one company after close.”
Founded in 1997, ClickSoftware has been in business longer than Salesforce. According to LinkedIn, the company has 829 employees. Its customers include Bosch and Vodafone.
ClickSoftware went public in 2000, before going private again in 2015 in a deal with private equity company Francisco Partners, which bought it for $438m, according to TechCrunch. Just four years after this deal, Francisco Partners has more than doubled its investment by selling the company to Salesforce.
The acquisition deal is expected to close on 31 October.
Interior of the Indianapolis Salesforce Tower. Image: Jetcityimage2/Depositphotos
