Salesforce Purchases Tableau Software
On 10th of June 2019, Salesforce Inc acquired big data firm Tableau software, making it Salesforce’s biggest investment (worth $15.3 billion) by far. Prior to this, the biggest investment that Salesforce had made was for the purchase of cloud-based software company MuleSoft in 2018; the deal was worth $5.9 billion.
With the acquisition of Tableau, Salesforce plans to empower its customers with data insights. Tableau integration will allow users to analyze big-data from an array of databases as well as from customer segmentation & their intent analysis. Additionally, customers will also be able to harness the benefits of impactful dashboard reporting as Tableau is a powerful & versatile business intelligence tool.
The news follows Google’s announcement to acquire Looker (on 6th June 2019). Looker is an analytics startup similar to Tableau that has raised more than $280 million. For the right to integrate the tool with its Google Cloud Platform, Google paid $2.6 billion in the agreement, which will be completed this year.
Shares of Tableau witnessed an upsurge by 35% & became worth $169.50, while those of Salesforce dropped by 5% to $156.43 in premarket trading.
The acquisitions by Salesforce & Google imply that organizations nowadays are witnessing a digital renaissance & aim to transform in-a-way that equips them to acquire, store, process & analyze large quantities of data from several different platforms on one unified platform.
The acquisition, according to Wedbush Securities analyst Steve Koenig, is a reflection of Salesforce’s commitment to providing each of its customers with a 360-degree experience, which starts with the gathering of vital customer data and ends with data analysis to produce insightful insights.
Koenig also said that market rumors suggesting that Salesforce has purchased Tableau to make up for its sluggish organic growth may be to blame for the decline in the face value of Salesforce shares.
Big data analytics encompasses trend mapping, text analytics, analysis of structured & unstructured data, establishing co-relations between several variables such as market trends & customer behavior & also helps in segmenting the buying prospects across several clusters on the basis of analysis of their demographic, firmographic, fit-data, technographic data, psychological data, cookie-data as well as on the basis of their research methodologies & past buying history.
Delving into all these insights, equip companies to make precise & fast business decisions, which are beneficial for delivering phenomenal experiences to customers, keeping abreast with the latest industry trends & thereby help companies achieve their bottom-line goal of optimizing conversions.
Marc Benioff, co-CEO of Salesforce, expressed his excitement about the partnership and said that while Tableau aids in data visualization and comprehension, Salesforce aids in customer engagement and analysis. He further added that the deal will add up to $400 million to the overall revenue of the company in 2020 & the adjusted profits will be in the range of $2.51 to $2.53 per share.
