Slack的韌性：近期領導層轉變和未來展望

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Slack’s new CEO aims to bring stability after a rough time | ENBLE

Image source: ENBLE.com

It’s not often you see an established company burn through three CEOs in less than a year. But through circumstances beyond its control, that’s exactly what has happened at Slack, the company Salesforce acquired in 2020 for a whopping $28 billion. In November, Slack introduced Denise Dresser as the latest person to occupy the corner office.

Denise Dresser: Stepping into Challenging Shoes

Denise Dresser acknowledges it wasn’t easy to step into the role under these circumstances, but she is settling in. “You know, like anything, it’s always hard to step into any new company and do it in a way that’s graceful, but I think the team gave me plenty of coaching, and we really saw the vision together,” Dresser told ENBLE.

Dresser comes from humble beginnings, growing up in the suburbs outside of Boston. She was educated at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, where she studied accounting. During the last twelve years, she worked at Salesforce in various executive roles, gaining valuable experience along the way.

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A Chain of Leadership Changes

Her predecessor, Lidiane Jones, was just 10 months into the job when she announced she was leaving to become the CEO at Bumble, driven by the allure of running a stand-alone public company. Jones herself had replaced company co-founder Stewart Butterfield when he announced that he would be leaving at the end of 2022.

It’s difficult replacing a founder-CEO as Jones did. It could be even more challenging to take over just 10 months later for his successor, but some executive turnover is expected in the years following an acquisition, says Arjun Bhatia, a William Blair analyst who follows Salesforce. “You want a stable leadership team, of course, and you want someone who’s focusing on it, but the CEO turnover we’ve seen is not concerning at this point,” Bhatia told ENBLE. “If that becomes more recurring, certainly that view might change, but I think it’s a natural course after an acquisition like this for a company like Slack to find its place inside the Salesforce ecosystem.”

Dresser says that she’s simply building on what her predecessors did before she got there, while bringing her own personality to the job. “I ask a lot of questions, and I definitely am an accountant at heart,” she said. “So I like to be organized, and I’ll continue that on, but it’s not like it’s a big pull. I think the foundation is already there, and it’s an incredibly well-run organization.”

How has Slack Fared at Big CRM?

When you look at the price that Salesforce paid to own Slack, it still feels like a reach. The belief at the time was that Slack could be the communication layer on top of all the business software that Salesforce sells. It’s still the hope, but revenue growth has slowed dramatically at Slack since its acquisition.

We don’t have exact revenue numbers because Salesforce stopped reporting them last spring, but it does share the percentage of growth from the prior year. Growth has slowed significantly from 46% YoY in Q32023 to just 16% in Q42024. For the most part, the trend has been down — and it’s up to Dresser to turn that around.

Slack could change this trend by finding new business opportunities and keeping existing customers happy while not being too closely tied to Salesforce that it loses customers who aren’t Salesforce-centric.

Q&A Section

Q: What are some potential business opportunities that Slack could explore?

A: Slack could consider integrating with other popular business software applications to expand its user base and increase revenue opportunities. For example, partnerships with project management tools or customer relationship management platforms could create new avenues for growth.

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问题：Slack计划如何应对来自Microsoft Teams的竞争？

A：与Microsoft Teams的竞争对Slack来说是一个重大挑战。然而，Slack具有互操作性和易用性的优势。它可以触及Microsoft生态系统之外的用户，这对寻求灵活性和无缝协作体验的企业可能具有吸引力。

生成AI的潜力

Dresser需要处理的一个重大变化是在Slack中以及Salesforce产品系列中发展生成AI。AI非常适合Slack，因为作为一个拥有大量嵌入式知识的通信平台，它可以帮助用户在海量信息中掌握、理解和找到有价值的知识点。

她说：“从更高层次来看，Slack中发生了大量世界范围的对话，这些对话发生在非结构化数据中。” “然后你想想Salesforce拥有这些难以置信的客户数据，是全球最有价值的数据之一。将结构化和非结构化数据引入Slack并整合这些数据真的创造了未来的强大平台。”

然而，有效的实施和执行至关重要。简单应用AI而不经深思熟虑将不会产生期望的结果。Dresser声称AI帮助她在新职位上比以往更快地适应，因为她可以访问对长产品线程的摘要。摘要是生成AI的一个巨大卖点，将其用于节省理解长对话线程所需的时间可能是一个重要用例。但再次强调，这取决于摘要的质量。

未来面临的众多挑战

Dresser面临的另一个挑战是来自Microsoft的竞争，Microsoft将Teams与Office 365、Dynamics 365以及通过Microsoft Copilot在整个平台上推出的AI结合起来。Forrester Research的分析师J. P. Gownder声称，Slack在试图通过与Salesforce更紧密集成来扩大用户群的同时，必须小心不要疏远现有客户。Microsoft Teams是一个强大的竞争对手，有潜力获得更多市场份额。

然而，Bhatia指出，Microsoft在Microsoft生态系统内运行效果最好，这使Slack在互操作性和易用性方面具有优势。他说：“微软并没有像此前一样有互操作性。他们迄今的优势在于分发。而Slack在市场上的两个优势分别是互操作性和易用性。”

技术领导的转变

Dresser面临的另一个困难在于剩下的Slack联合创始人、CTO Cal Henderson于三月初离职，并由Salesforce联合创始人和CTO Parker Harris接替。虽然Harris有着构建Salesforce的悠久历史，但Slack正在失去一个对Slack技术基础有深刻理解的人物。

Dresser确实意识到她在前方将面临这些挑战。她需要赢得员工和客户的支持，同时找到一种方式来使Slack在庞大的Salesforce生态系统中持续增长和保持活力。但她说她的角色实际上是建立人际关系，其余的事情会自然而然地解决。

参考资料： – ENBLE.com

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