Salesforce Cuts 200 Jobs From Marketing Cloud Thanks To ExactTarget Acquisition

Advertisement

Marc Benioff

Business Insider/Julie Bort

Salesforce.com CEO Marc Benioff

Salesforce confirmed last week that it eliminated 200 jobs from its Marketing Cloud unit, blaming the cuts on overlapping roles thanks to its $2.5 billion acquisition of ExactTarget this summer.

Advertisement

"Combining ExactTarget with our existing marketing cloud is providing greater level of synergies. And as a result, we are reducing our total headcount by approximately 200 people," CFO Graham Smith told analysts during its quarterly conference call, after CBC News in Canada broke the news.

About one-third of those jobs will be cut in Canada, Salesforce also told CBC.

Could there be even more cuts? We'll see.

The company's profit margins were hit hard by the ExactTarget acquisition and Salesforce's 9-year, estimated $300 million deal with Oracle, Smith said during the conference call.

Advertisement

Salesforce is looking for more "synergies in cost savings" to make up for that, he said.

Overall, Salesforce added 1,900 new employees in the quarter from ExactTarget and its total headcount is now at more than 12,500 people.

Benioff has also put ExactTarget's CEO, Scott Dorsey, in charge of Marketing Cloud. This is the unit formed by combining acquisitions Buddy Media, Radian6 and ExactTarget.