Salesforce’s $2 Billion Acquisition Faces Workforce Reductions

In a presentation this week, Salesforce informed Own employees that certain positions will not be necessary “post harmonisation.” The staff in such jobs will be let go on January 31. 

According to the company’s presentation certain positions will be “transitional” and required for a set short-term period of three to twelve months in order to ease integration.

The transaction was announced in September by Salesforce, the leading provider of customer relations software. Own announced the closing of the transaction on LinkedIn on Monday. On Tuesday a Salesforce representative declined to comment on the layoffs.

Following years of fast expansion, Salesforce has tightened its acquisition strategy which can be seen by the immediately announced employment layoffs. Large mergers like Tableau in 2019 and Slack in 2021 increased the total workforce by hundreds which increased costs and technical complexity.

Beginning in late 2022, activist investors began to criticise Salesforce’s tendency to expand through acquisitions. As a result, the firm made adjustments including disbanding its mergers and acquisitions committee and laying off 10% of its employees at the beginning of last year. 

Salesforce, a company based in San Francisco has stated that it will approach future acquisitions with greater caution.

Salesforce’s largest acquisition since Slack is Own, a company that specialises in data security across software platforms. About 1,000 employees of Own are part of the $1.9 billion merger according to a source familiar with the company who spoke on condition of confidentiality.

According to the majority of observers, Own will support Salesforce’s Data Cloud service which aids users in organising and analysing data from various apps. Salesforce also said earlier this month that it would help promote its new generative AI agent product by adding over 1,000 individuals.