SAP to acquire Emarsys in an aggressive move
The News On October 1st, 2020 SAP announced its intent to acquire Emarsys, a leader in the personalization area and omnichannel customer engagement management specialist. The transaction is expected to be completed in Q2/2020 and still subject to regulatory approval. The purchasing price is not disclosed. According to Crunchbase, Emarsys was funded with $55.3M US by Vector Capital in two funding rounds 2015 and 2016. Not being a financial analyst, I would expect a purchasing price of north of $ 500M US. Emarsys positions itself as a customer engagement platform that combines omni-channel automation, personalization, loyalty management and reporting/analytics. The company has more than 1,500 customers, makes about 2/3 of its revenues in the EMEA region and has a pretty strong partner network including technology and agency partners. Key commerce integrations include Adobe (Magento), Salesforce, Shopify and, of course SAP Commerce. On top of this, the platform brings prebuilt industry specific use cases and analytics into the fold. According to Christian Klein, CEO SAP, “once the transaction closes, SAP will enable brands to connect every part of their business to the customer, including experience data. We will deliver a portfolio for a ‘commerce anywhere’ strategy allowing for hyperpersonalized digital commerce experiences across all channels at any time”. Bob Stutz, president SAP Customer Experience, adds that “with Emarsys technology, SAP Customer Experience solutions can link commerce signals with the back office and activate the preferred channel of the customer with a relevant and consistently personalized message, allowing customers the freedom to choose their own engagement”. The bigger Picture The ability to segment in real time becomes more and more important,...
Why TikTok is a fit for Microsoft, Walmart and Oracle
Will ByteDance be able to sell some of its non-Chinese TikTok business or not? TikTok, the app that is all the rage with millenials who post thirty second movie clips and seem to have tremendous fun with it. And which got valued at more than $ 50 bn US before it was threatened with a ban in the US. It is less than a week to the deadline for an enforced shut down of the infrastructure. Time to jot down a number of seemingly, but not so random thoughts. Microsoft, in combination with Walmart, and Oracle, along with some unnamed additional investors, appear to be the frontrunners for making a deal. There are rumours about at least Twitter and Netflix showing some interest, too. If they are allowed to make a deal, and then willing to make it given the boundaries that are set by both, the US and the Chinese governments. There is tremendous pressure exerted by the US government citing a threat to national security because it could provide data about US users to China. This would make it necessary to ban the app in the USA if the US business stays under Chinese control. India already banned the app back in June 2020. China, in turn, updated its export control rules, restricting the export of “technology based on data analysis for personalized information recommendation services” (login required). This is pretty much exactly what TikTok does. This means that the sale of technologies that are implemented by TikTok are now subject to ByteDance as the owner of TikTok getting a governmental approval. It is not unreasonable to...
Salesforce brings its Field Service solution forward by a notch or two
The News On September 1, 2020 Salesforce announced its next round of updates to its Field Service Management solution. Eric Jacobson, Salesforce VP Product Management, Field Service and Gary Brandeleer, Senior Director Product Management, Field Service gave me an interesting briefing and demo beforehand. The new releases are all about efficient processing of the engagement throughout the whole process. In detail they are about Dynamic job scheduling Using Einstein Recommendation Builder to ensure that service technicians have the right spare parts available Asset management capabilities that allow companies a detailed view into the installed base at their customers. This is developed in cooperation with ServiceMax Improvements to the appointment assistant to provide as accurate as possible information to the customer about the arrival time of the service technician. The various features shall be made generally available through the next 6 months; as this is a forward looking statement, this may be subject to change. For your convenience, find the complete announcement below. Introducing the Next Generation of Field Service at Salesforce: AI-Powered Tools for Trusted, Mission-Critical Field Service By Mark Cattini, SVP of Field Service Management Today we are announcing the next generation of Salesforce Field Service, equipping teams across industries with AI-powered tools to deliver trusted, mission-critical field service. Built on the world’s #1 CRM, Salesforce Field Service includes new appointment scheduling and optimization capabilities, AI-driven guidance for dispatchers, asset performance insights and automated customer communications, all of which help ensure jobs are completed the first time, on time, every time. When the pandemic first hit, many industries that send employees out to complete jobs in the field...