by Adam Pease
Salesforce has finalized its $1.3B acquisition of Vlocity, which began late February. Vlocity is a CRM vendor for industries built natively on the Salesforce CRM platform. Its tailored solutions may help fill a hole in the existing Salesforce portfolio, enabling new growth. In this blog, we review the acquisition and what it may mean for Salesforce moving forward.
Salesforce Improves Its Industry CRM Offerings
As a provider with a wide set of industry-focused CRM offerings, Vlocity has the potential to address a limitation of the existing Salesforce acquisition portfolio. Salesforce has had considerable success building out a strong brand in its primary markets—CRM, sales, and marketing. By enabling Salesforce to branch out further into vertical industries, the Vlocity acquisition will have a strategic payoff.
Buyers should be aware that industry-specific solutions often require additional consulting services to learn how to sell best given the unique details of their business model.
The acquisition of Vlocity puts Salesforce in a position to expand into more markets.
Integrating Platforms
It is not yet clear how Vlocity's platform services will integrate with or work alongside the existing Salesforce Customer 360 Platform. One of the marketing challenges Salesforce will face as it moves forward is the need to clearly delineate its platform offerings, making it clear to buyers where they should go for different services.
Technology platform acquisitions can sometimes slow down enterprises by presenting barriers to integration with existing product lines. Often, when software products are acquired, they need to go through a long process of integration with the parent product, which can open a window of time for competitors to get ahead.
Bottom Line
As a leader in CRM software for its target markets, it is only natural that Salesforce would expand to acquire CRM applications for vertical markets as well. With Vlocity, Salesforce can leverage its well-known brand to reach buyers in more specific market areas.