Salesforce Acquires Servicetrace: Expanding into RPA with Mulesoft

Salesforce Enters the Robotic Process Automation Arena with Servicetrace Acquisition

Robotic process automation (RPA) has experienced significant growth in recent years, attracting substantial investment and mergers & acquisitions involving major players like SAP, IBM, and ServiceNow. The IPO of UIPath in April resulted in a market capitalization exceeding $30 billion.

Speculation regarding Salesforce’s potential involvement in the RPA market has been ongoing, and the company has now announced its intention to acquire German RPA firm Servicetrace, marking its initial foray into this technology.

Integration with MuleSoft

Salesforce plans to integrate Servicetrace into MuleSoft, which it acquired in 2018 for $6.5 billion. The financial details of the acquisition have not been disclosed, indicating a deal of a smaller scale.

This integration is expected to complement MuleSoft’s existing API integration capabilities by adding an automation layer to its toolkit.

According to a blog post by MuleSoft CEO Brent Hayward, the addition of Servicetrace will enable the delivery of a unified platform encompassing integration, API management, and RPA.

This platform will enhance the Salesforce Customer 360, empowering organizations to create connected experiences across various touchpoints. The new RPA functionalities will also bolster Salesforce’s Einstein Automate solution, facilitating end-to-end workflow automation across diverse systems, including those for service, sales, and specific industries.

Bridging the Gap Between Legacy and Modern Systems

While Salesforce’s artificial intelligence layer, Einstein, caters to companies utilizing more contemporary tools for automation, RPA is particularly well-suited for automating processes within older, legacy operations.

This acquisition represents a potential step towards bridging the gap between these older on-premise tools and more modern cloud-based software solutions.

Industry Analyst Perspective

Brent Leary, founder and principal analyst at CRM Essentials, believes this acquisition adds another dimension to Salesforce’s suite of digital transformation tools.

He notes that this move follows closely on the heels of Salesforce’s acquisition of Slack and highlights the increasing importance of process and workflow automation driven by real-time data from multiple sources for successful digital transformation.

Leary emphasizes that the acquisition provides a crucial component to the puzzle for Salesforce and MuleSoft.

RPA Adoption is Still in Early Stages

Despite appearing to enter the market relatively late, Salesforce’s move aligns with insights from industry experts.

Laela Sturdy, general partner at CapitalG, stated in a May survey that RPA adoption is still in its nascent stages, despite its significant potential.

“We are far from witnessing market maturity in this space,” Sturdy explained. “RPA adoption remains in its early infancy when considering its vast potential. Many companies are only now beginning to explore the numerous applications across various industries.”

She further noted that as more enterprises experiment with RPA, they will uncover an increasing number of potential use cases.

Servicetrace: A Mature RPA Provider

Founded in 2004, Servicetrace predates the widespread recognition of RPA as a distinct technology.

Public records from Crunchbase and PitchBook do not indicate any external funding rounds for the company, however, its website suggests a well-established organization with a comprehensive product offering.

Servicetrace’s customer base includes prominent companies such as Fujitsu, Siemens, Merck, and Deutsche Telekom.