- Francisco Partners recently announced that it is selling ClickSoftware to Salesforce for an enterprise value of $1.35 billion. These are the details behind the deal.
Private equity firm Francisco Partners recently announced that it entered a definitive agreement to sell ClickSoftware to Salesforce for an enterprise value of $1.4 billion. ClickSoftware is considered a leading provider of field service management solutions and optimization technology. And ClickSoftware arms field service professionals and mobile workers with innovative, AI-driven technologies, and real-time schedule and route optimization at scale to improve their efficiency and effectiveness.
Launched in 1997, ClickSoftware is a pioneer in applying complex algorithms and artificial intelligence to workforce management and today helps manage over 1 million field resources around the world in a wide variety of industries including for organizations like Bosch, Deutsche Telekom, Ericsson, and Unisys.
“Since inception, Click has had a unique technology to optimize service. It has been our pleasure to partner with the Click team for these last four years as we worked with them to accelerate innovation and growth,” said Francisco Partners partner Matt Spetzler. “We are grateful for the opportunity to support Click and all of its great employees. We wish them continued success as part of Salesforce,” added Petri Oksanen, partner at Francisco Partners.
Salesforce said that the addition of ClickSoftware will enhance Salesforce Service Cloud’s leadership as the #1 service platform, empowering every service employee from the contact center to the field to deliver more connected, intelligent customer service.
“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,” added ClickSoftware CEO Mark Cattini. “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.”
ClickSoftware enables companies to intelligently schedule and optimize field service work. And Salesforce Field Service Lightning, built on Service Cloud, harnesses the latest in dispatching, mobile workforce empowerment and IoT technologies to empower companies to connect their entire service workforce on a single and centralized platform. With the combined capabilities of Field Service Lightning and ClickSoftware, Salesforce will be positioned to lead the way to the future of field service.
“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,” explained Salesforce Service Cloud GM and EVP Bill Patterson. “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.”
Salesforce launched Field Service Lightning in 2016 to empower the mobile workforce with a 360-degree view of the customer, predictive insights, and an offline-first mobile app. And ClickSoftware and Salesforce have partnered since Field Service Lightning launched 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 — customers, sales, customer service, and field service — has complete visibility.
The acquisition is expected to close during Salesforce’s fiscal quarter ending October 31, 2019, subject to customary closing conditions, including the expiration of the waiting period under the Hart-Scott-Rodino Antitrust Improvements Act and Israeli antitrust clearance. Goldman Sachs acted as the exclusive financial advisor and Paul Hastings acted as legal advisor to Francisco Partners.
