2020年3月11日，世界衛生組織正式定性新冠肺炎為全球大流行，而在兩年後的今天仍持續擾亂許多人的生活與生計。線上活動與遠距工作成為主流，一波又一波的數位化為科技產業帶來高速成長機會。在此之中，軟體即服務（Software as a Service, SaaS）在所有服務之中獲得最多投資與廣泛應用。科技巨頭與新創產業見狀紛紛轉型既有軟體以進軍軟體即服務市場，並希望此一危機將成為擴大它們市場份額的轉機。Salesforce作為客戶關係管理（Customer Relationship Management, CRM）以及軟體即服務業中最早的公司之一，眼見市場競爭加劇，便於2020年7月21日宣布以277億美元併購團隊溝通業領導者之一的Slack。
本研究將Salesforce併購Slack案例以事前、事中以及事後三大架構進行分析: 事前分析外部總體環境以及雙方內部商業資源與動機，事中分析以自由現金流兩折現法估算兩企業獨立估值以檢視綜效與過度支付是否存在，事後分析則透過累積異常報酬法（Cumulative Abnormal Return ，CAR）檢視市場對此併購案之反應。
本研究總結此一併購是Salesforce串連既有水平應用軟體，擴大其生態系影響以及崛起成為下一代科技業巨頭之策略基礎。雖然Salesforce明顯過度支付，但市場對此反應平淡。這是由於商業生態系概念仍是一個大眾較不熟悉的市場主張，仍需要經過更長的時間才能全面檢視這宗巨大併購案對於軟體即服務業的影響。

On March 11, 2020, the World Health Organization declared COVID-19 a global pandemic, and continue to disrupt so many lives and livelihood. Online activities and remote working became mainstream and waves of digitalization brought large growing opportunities to the tech sector. Among all, Software as a Service, SaaS, was one of the most invested and widely adopted services. Seeing this, IT giants and startups entered the SaaS market with pivoted products in hope of making the pandemic crisis a chance to broaden their market presence. With increased market competition, Salesforce, one of the earliest SaaS companies and leader of Customer Relationship Management, CRM, announced to buy Slack, one of the team communication leaders, with 27.7 Billion on 07/21/2021.
This paper analyzes Salesforce’s acquisition of Slack in three parts: Ex-ante analysis of the macro environment and internal business resources and motives, During-event analysis with standalone value estimations by Discounted Cash Flow (DCF) method in the examination for overpayment and synergy, and Ex-post analysis with market reaction examination through Cumulative Abnormal Return (CAR) method.
We concluded that the deal was the foundation of Salesforce’s strategy laid out for concatenating existing horizontal Applications, broadening Salesforce’s ecosystem influence, and ultimately rising as one of the next generation software giants. Though Salesforce has significantly overpaid, market reaction is subtle. As the ecosystem concept is still a relatively new market proposition, we think it will require longer period to fully examine the effect of this mega acquisition’s impact on the SaaS industry.

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