Salesforce To Acquire Israeli-Founded Firm ClickSoftware For $1.35 Billion

CRM giant Salesforce announced on Thursday that it has signed a definitive agreement to acquire ClickSoftware, a leader in field service management solutions originally founded in Israel. The deal is expected to close for approximately $1.35 billion and comes on the heels of Salesforce’s acquisition for over $15 billion of data visualization software company Tableau, its biggest buy to date. 

ClickSoftware Technologies was founded in 1997 by Moshe BenBassat and was originally headquartered in Petach Tikvah with offices in California. In 2015, US private equity fund Francisco Partners acquired the Israeli company for $438 million, after which it de-listed from the NASDAQ. The company employs some 200 people in Israel and its clients include multinationals such as Bosch, Deutsche Telekom, Ericsson, and PG&E. ClickSoftware says it now has some 700 employees in eight locations across the world.

Salesforce said in a statement that the acquisition of ClickSoftware is set to “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 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,” said Bill Patterson, EVP and GM of Salesforce Service Cloud in the statement announcing the deal.

Salesforce said that ClickSoftware’s technology enables companies to intelligently schedule and optimize field service work. “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, 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,” the US tech giant said.

“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. “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.”

The acquisition is expected to close during Salesforce’s fiscal quarter ending October 31, 2019, subject to regulatory approval in the US and Israel.