The Business Value of Slack

The Business Value of Slack IDC Research, Sponsored by Slack THE BUSINESS VALUE OF SLACK FOR SALES 1

Table of Contents 01 The Business Value of Slack for sales 02 The Business Value of Slack for engineering 03 The Business Value of Slack for hr 04 The Business Value of Slack for marketing 05 The Business Value of Slack for customer support

THE BUSINESS VALUE OF SLACK 32% “I’ve had more contact with other internal Less email teams during the first six months of using Slack, than I’ve had during my prior six years at the company.”. 23% “Slack made us heroes in the company.” Fewer meetings This is what the Slack-connected enterprise looks and sounds like. But what business value does Slack drive, and how does that take shape across different roles within an organization? To find out, IDC interviewed organizations spanning 5 countries, 11 industries, and ranged from a couple dozen employees to over 10,000. The observed data provided insights into how the adoption of Slack added value to members of the sales, engineering, HR, marketing, and customer support teams. Read on to see the findings, organized by role. Excerpted from IDC research, sponsored by Slack, The Business Value of Slack, 2017 THE BUSINESS VALUE OF SLACK 3

01 — The Business Value of Slack for Sales

WIN MORE DEALS WITH SLACK Sales teams are able to spend less time digging through account details and more time addressing the needs of the customer, and ultimately, moving deals forward. 5% 25% 0.2% More likely to win Increase in potential Increase in annual 2 a deal deals won per year 1 revenue “The sales team has been able to increase its productivity more than the other teams. I’d say 20% higher productivity, contributing to 5% higher revenue.” “We keep all of our communications related to a specific proposal in one channel with Slack. We have everything from pre-sale all the way until the campaign is executed and the sale has been made.” 1 IDC estimate based on average metrics of sales organizations using Slack that participated in this study that include: 3% more deals in pipeline with Slack, 5% higher deal win percentage with Slack, and 13% less time to close deals with Slack 2 Average increase of $904K in annual revenue; Analysis based on companies with average revenue of $514M Excerpted from IDC research, sponsored by Slack, The Business Value of Slack, 2017 THE BUSINESS VALUE OF SLACK FOR SALES 5 1 2

RESPOND TO SALES OPPORTUNITIES FASTER Less internal back and forth during the deal cycle allows every aspect of the sales process to run more efficiently, from responding to leads, to closing deals. 21% 16% 13% Faster response time Quicker to issue Shorter overall 1 to sales lead sales offer sales cycle “The sales team is very busy and traveling all the time, and Slack is super user-friendly, especially on mobile. Just being able to quickly access documents and communicate with one another is really cutting down on the time it takes to follow up with leads and put together a proposal.” 1 Based on time it takes to close a deal Excerpted from IDC research, sponsored by Slack, The Business Value of Slack, 2017 THE BUSINESS VALUE OF SLACK FOR SALES 6

FOSTER TRANSPARENCY AND COLLABORATION Slack channels increase the depth and breadth of information sales teams have access to, as well as a provide an avenue to share out updates and learnings in real time. Of sales leaders surveyed... 100% 86% 86% Find Slack helps them Say it’s easier to share Say Slack gives better collaborate key learnings with them better access with non-sales teams Slack to information in the field “Slack has helped promote information sharing across our sales verticals, as well as generally increase access to knowledge across our business.” Excerpted from IDC research, sponsored by Slack, The Business Value of Slack, 2017 THE BUSINESS VALUE OF SLACK FOR SALES 7

02 — The Business Value of Slack For Engineering

SPEED UP DEVELOPMENT Centralized tools, automated workflows, and reduced context switching between applications result in more products and services delivered on time. 24% 23% 5% Increase in features Faster time to market More engineering delivered on time output delivered “The engineering team is spending more time moving our own product forward with Slack. They are shipping more code faster.” “The impact of Slack is really faster time to market. In some cases, we’re the first to market, so we are beating competitors and effectively positioning our product in the market.” Excerpted from IDC research, sponsored by Slack, The Business Value of Slack, 2017 THE BUSINESS VALUE OF SLACK FOR ENGINEERING 9

AUTOMATE WORKFLOWS THROUGH INTEGRATIONS Slack integrates automated tools into a single place, allowing engineers to spend less time with iterative, lower value tasks, and more time focused on product development and design. 27% “One of the engineers was able to set up Less time a system that automatically pulled all of needed to test our support center tickets and move them and iterate into Slack.” “What we’ve seen is the engineering team really taking advantage of Slack’s integrations with Jira and GitHub... Teams have done things like set up specific channels to automatically notify them of each build, and subsequently use those same channels to resolve issues as they come up.” Excerpted from IDC research, sponsored by Slack, The Business Value of Slack, 2017 THE BUSINESS VALUE OF SLACK FOR ENGINEERING 10

SQUASH BUGS FASTER Slack centralizes feedback and increases discoverability of relevant information, which equips engineers with the context to respond to bugs more quickly and accurately. Less time needed to identify and resolve 21% engineering-related bugs “We can use Slack to evaluate “The data discoverability has customer feedback in real been the biggest benefit on time, and the team can start the engineering side. When working on solutions for all this data is in a place that problems before the problem everybody can search, it’s is even called in.” much, much easier later to go back and track things down.” Excerpted from IDC research, sponsored by Slack, The Business Value of Slack, 2017 THE BUSINESS VALUE OF SLACK FOR ENGINEERING 11

03 — The Business Value of Slack for HR

RECRUIT MORE EFFECTIVELY It’s easier to find the right person for the job when you can move candidates through the hiring pipeline quicker with Slack. 3% “Our recruiting team uses Slack to Reduction in facilitate a more seamless and effective time to hire new interview process. This helps us optimize employees interviewing candidates, which makes that process easier for us internally.” “Instead of grabbing links and copy- pasting them in an email, HR can share that information directly in Slack... I would say that has reduced hiring time by 5% to 10%.” Excerpted from IDC research, sponsored by Slack, The Business Value of Slack, 2017 THE BUSINESS VALUE OF SLACK FOR HR 13

ONBOARD EMPLOYEES MORE QUICKLY AND KEEP THEM HAPPIER OVER TIME Faster onboarding means employees can more quickly do the jobs they were brought on to do; while the increased access between teammates fosters a more pleasant and productive culture. 24% “I would say new employees are at full Faster to reach productivity ~25% sooner because there full employee are fewer questions asked – they know productivity where documents are and where to access them with Slack.” “You can very quickly get up-to-speed and there’s a lot of stuff in Slack that you can look for as a new employee. It’s incredibly helpful for not starting at zero.” 10% “Slack really helps to facilitate culture at Improvement the company… and allows everybody who in employee needs to be involved to be collaborating satisfaction and accessible.” Excerpted from IDC research, sponsored by Slack, The Business Value of Slack, 2017 THE BUSINESS VALUE OF SLACK FOR HR 14

04 — The Business Value of Slack for Marketing

EXECUTE AND ITERATE CAMPAIGNS MORE QUICKLY Through the use of channels in Slack, marketers have reduced the time needed to approve budget, review creative, and plan media spend. Ultimately, this means quicker campaign cycles and more campaigns shipped each year. 16% “Coordinating messaging, adjustments, Faster execution optimizations, learnings, product of marketing development updates, approvals: all of campaigns that is being done through Slack.” 8% “We work by projects for marketing, so Less time each project has its own channel, and needed to all discussion is centralized within that launch marketing channel. Instead of having multiple campaigns emails... now everything is happening in one specific Slack channel.” Excerpted from IDC research, sponsored by Slack, The Business Value of Slack, 2017 THE BUSINESS VALUE OF SLACK FOR MARKETING 16

IMPROVE COORDINATION WITH INTERNAL AND EXTERNAL STAKEHOLDERS ALIKE Slack helps to bring marketers (and agency partners where applicable) in lockstep, so that projects are kicked off with alignment and on time. Less time is spent on searching for progress reports or asking for the latest creative, leaving more time for higher- value tasks that help to better realize each marketer’s potential. “Launching a new brand from scratch with an agency has typically taken anywhere from six to eight months. We recently did it in about two-and-a-half to three months, and a good part of that was due to the ability to coordinate with our agencies over Slack.” “Since we were sharing a lot of versions within emails, we sometimes were not sharing the right version with clients or people were using old versions to add modifications. I know that for a fact it’s not happening anymore with Slack. Just this, I would say cuts down on campaign time by 15%.” Excerpted from IDC research, sponsored by Slack, The Business Value of Slack, 2017 THE BUSINESS VALUE OF SLACK FOR MARKETING 17

05 — The Business Value of Slack for Customer Support

THE BUSINESS VALUE OF SLACK FOR CUSTOMER SUPPORT Resolve customer tickets with more speed and precision by tapping into the collective knowledge base available in Slack. Integrations with customer support software allow support teams to triage issues quickly and transparently, monitor social chatter and buzz, and even respond to customers directly from Slack. 31% 8% 7% Average reduction in More tickets More tickets ticket resolution time routed correctly resolved correctly Excerpted from IDC research, sponsored by Slack, The Business Value of Slack, 2017 THE BUSINESS VALUE OF SLACK FOR CUSTOMER SUPPORT 19

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