It’s not usually you see a longtime firm burn by way of three CEOs in lower than a 12 months. However by way of circumstances past its management, that’s what has occurred at Slack, the corporate Salesforce acquired in 2020 for $28 billion. In November, Slack launched Denise Dresser as the newest particular person to occupy the nook workplace.
Dresser acknowledges it wasn’t straightforward to step into the position beneath these circumstances, however she is settling in. “You already know, like something, it’s all the time onerous to step into any new firm and do it in a manner that’s swish, however I feel the crew gave me loads of teaching, and we actually noticed the imaginative and prescient collectively,” Dresser advised TechCrunch.
She grew up within the suburbs outdoors of Boston, was educated on the College of Massachusetts at Amherst the place she studied accounting and worked at Salesforce for the final dozen years in numerous government roles.
Her predecessor, Lidiane Jones, was simply 10 months into the job when she introduced she was leaving to be CEO at Bumble, pushed by the attract of operating a stand-alone public firm. Jones herself had changed firm co-founder Stewart Butterfield when he introduced that he was leaving on the finish of 2022.
It’s troublesome changing a founder-CEO as Jones did. It could possibly be much more difficult to take over simply 10 months later for his successor, however some government turnover is anticipated within the years following an acquisition, says Arjun Bhatia, a William Blair analyst who follows Salesforce. “You desire a secure management crew, after all, and also you need somebody who’s specializing in it, however the CEO turnover we’ve seen shouldn’t be regarding at this level,” Bhatia advised TechCrunch. “If that turns into extra recurring, definitely that view may change, however I feel it’s a pure course after an acquisition like this for an organization like Slack to search out its place contained in the Salesforce ecosystem.”
Dresser says that she’s merely constructing on what her predecessors did earlier than she received there, whereas bringing her personal persona to the job. “I ask plenty of questions, and I positively am an accountant at coronary heart,” she mentioned. “So I prefer to be organized and I’ll proceed that on, but it surely’s not prefer it’s an enormous pull. I feel the muse is already there, and it’s an extremely well-run group.”
How has Slack fared at Large CRM?
Once you have a look at the value that Salesforce paid to personal Slack, even giving some leeway for 2020 inventory costs and the over-exuberance of the interval, it nonetheless seems like a attain. The idea on the time was that Slack could possibly be the communication layer on prime of all of the enterprise software program that Salesforce sells. It’s nonetheless the hope, the truth is, however income development has slowed dramatically at Slack since its acquisition.
We don’t have precise income numbers as a result of Salesforce stopped reporting them final spring, but it surely does share the proportion of development from the prior 12 months. Progress has slowed considerably from 46% YoY in Q32023 to only 16% in Q42024. For essentially the most half, the pattern has been down — and it’s as much as Dresser to show that round.
Picture Credit: Salesforce
Slack may change this pattern by discovering new enterprise alternatives and retaining current prospects completely satisfied whereas on the similar time not being so intently tied to Salesforce that it loses prospects who aren’t Salesforce-centric.
Dresser could also be caught between these seemingly conflicting necessities, says Brent Leary, principal analyst at CRM Necessities. He, too, has been monitoring Salesforce since its earliest days. “She’s received to have the ability to determine what the precise stability is between Slack as a standalone model that continues to draw non-Salesforce prospects, whereas enabling Salesforce prospects to make use of Slack in every single place throughout the platform they should collaborate,” Leary mentioned.
However Dresser doesn’t assume it’s all that difficult. “I don’t know if I feel it’s that robust. I feel it was the unique imaginative and prescient when the 2 corporations got here collectively,” she mentioned. “I feel there’s an actual recognition that there’s one thing very particular right here that we wish to nurture and proceed. And I feel that’s been a fairly constant theme from the very starting.”
The potential of generative AI
One large change she must handle has been the event of generative AI in software program, in Slack and throughout the Salesforce household of merchandise. Dresser says that AI is a pure match for Slack as a result of as a communications platform with a lot of embedded data, it would assist customers harness, perceive and discover data nuggets within the mass of knowledge.
“When you consider it from a higher-level perspective, Slack has a lot of the world’s conversations taking place in unstructured information,” she mentioned. “After which you consider Salesforce having this unbelievable set of buyer information, a number of the world’s most valued information. The chance to deliver structured and unstructured information into Slack and combine these actually creates this highly effective platform for the longer term.”
All of that relies upon, after all, on execution: You’ll be able to’t simply sprinkle AI fairy mud on a product and hope it’s going to work. However Dresser claims that AI helped her rise up to hurry in her new place rather more shortly than would have been doable with out with the ability to entry summaries of lengthy product threads. Summarization is an enormous promoting level for generative AI, and utilizing it to save lots of time understanding lengthy conversational threads could possibly be an enormous use case. However once more, it will depend on the standard of the summaries.
One other large difficulty Dresser faces is the best way to compete with Microsoft, which brings Groups to the desk mixed with Workplace 365, Dynamics 365, and AI within the type of Microsoft Copilot rolled out throughout the platform, says J. P. Gownder, an analyst at Forrester Analysis. “It’s logical for Slack to attempt to develop its person base by integrating Salesforce extra intently, but it surely have to be cautious to not alienate current prospects, who’re tremendously loyal to what’s provided right now. Within the meantime, Microsoft Groups is a behemoth that has an opportunity to seize much more minutes by way of Copilot,” Gownder advised TechCrunch.
However Bhatia factors out that Microsoft nonetheless works finest contained in the Microsoft ecosystem, and Slack could have a bonus in that regard. “Microsoft doesn’t have that interoperability play as a lot. Their benefit by far is distribution. And two large benefits that Slack has of their market are interoperability and ease of use,” he mentioned.
Yet another diploma of problem for Dresser is that the remaining Slack co-founder, CTO Cal Henderson, left on the beginning of March, changed by none aside from Salesforce co-founder and CTO Parker Harris. Despite the fact that Harris brings an extended historical past of constructing Salesforce, Slack is shedding an individual who has a deep understanding of Slack’s technical underpinnings.
Dresser definitely understands that she faces these challenges forward, that she must win over workers and prospects and discover a approach to hold Slack rising and very important contained in the huge Salesforce ecosystem. However she says her position is actually about making human connections, and the remainder will work itself out.
“I attempt to simply assist individuals perceive that I’m right here as a result of I’m deeply, deeply obsessed with what we are able to do for the world, for our customers, and our workers as properly at Slack and the broader Salesforce — and I wouldn’t be right here if I wasn’t.”
