What Salesforce is Expecting by Buying Slack

Salesforce is increasingly integrating the Slack communications service, which it just acquired, into its products — and is confident it will be able to beat competitors like Microsoft or SAP.

sElsforce has a very stylish head office. The software company lives up to its name in the Salesforce Tower, the tallest skyscraper in San Francisco and a city landmark since it opened three years ago. And yet he downplays the importance of this new building. “We believe it is more important to have a digital headquarters than a physical headquarters,” says Gavin Patterson, who is responsible for sales as chief revenue officer. He applies this to all companies, but of course to himself as well.

The discovery stems from the coronavirus pandemic, with many companies feeling that their operations could do well if their employees worked outside traditional offices. The fact that Patterson calls out the importance of virtual work is not without selfishness, as the communications platform Slack, which Salesforce recently bought, could help. Since the acquisition was completed in July, Salesforce has integrated the service into many of its own software offerings — and now it’s also promoting the term “digital headquarters” previously coined by Slack.