Salesforce to Acquire ClickSoftware for $1.35 Billion

Salesforce.com has signed a definitive agreement to acquire ClickSoftware, a provider of field service management solutions, for approximately $1.35 billion.

The addition of ClickSoftware will enhance Salesforce Service Cloud and Salesforce Field Service Lightning, which harnesses the latest in dispatching, mobile workforce empowerment, and Internet-connected technologies on a single, centralized platform.

"Delivering exceptional field service is an increasingly important priority for companies across industries, with more than 70 percent of customer service leaders making significant investments to transform their mobile workforce," said Bill Patterson, executive vice president and general manager of Salesforce Service Cloud, in a statement. "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."

"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," said Mark Cattini, CEO of ClickSoftware, in a statement. "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."

Salesforce introduced Field Service Lightning in 2016 and has partnered with ClickSoftware since then to deliver proactive, intelligent field service.

With ClickSoftware and Field Service Lightning, if a mobile employee gets delayed by traffic, a dispatcher can quickly route another field technician to the job so the customer's appointment does not get delayed. These interactions are then automatically updated across the entire Salesforce platform so everyone has complete visibility.

The acquisition, while sudden, didn't surprise many.

"A lot of analysts have been waiting for somebody to snap Click Software up. Complex products and increased customer demand for higher levels of service have made field service management a crucial area of growth," says Marshall Lager, research principal at G2. "Click has an impressive market presence, and its users report high satisfaction; it was almost inevitable that a platform like Salesforce would move to acquire it.

"Salesforce Field Service Lightning is a good product, but Click is a great product. Acquiring Click will give Service Cloud a commanding presence in field service management," Lager continues. "G2's data indicates that Click answers its users' needs considerably better than Salesforce Field Service Lightning in several key areas. Look for this acquisition to lead to quick improvements in dispatch capabilities, user role management, location tracking, and communications with both clients and field technicians."

Matt Fairhurst, CEO and co-founder of mobile workforce management solutions provider Skedulo, a Salesforce partner, was equally enthusiastic about the deal.

"This acquisition demonstrates how technology for the deskless and mobile workforce is becoming a dominant and necessary opportunity in tech. Field service is perhaps the most long-standing example of the mobile workforce, but really only represents less than 15 percent of all of the people that get work done, every single day away from a desk and outside of the office," he says.

This latest acquisition comes just two months after Salesforce acquired Tableau Software for $15.7 billion.

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