Thoughts on a Salesforce Informatica Acquisition

While I do not expect any of the powers that may be considering such an acquisition to read this, so many people messaged me over the weekend about the news Salesforce was considering acquiring Informatica, I thought I’d put my pros/cons thoughts in writing.

These are all from the perspective of an independent, having worked with both companies’ products and appreciated their benefits in general in the past.

Frankly, I am more puzzled than not by the timing of this consideration. A few years ago, when Salesforce decided on MuleSoft, this would have made sense as an alternative Integration solution, Back in 2020–2021, amid the foundational developments of Data Cloud which included enhancements like identity resolution and integration pipelines, the synergy would have been more apparent.

Here are the potential pros and challenges as I see them today. Dialogue and discussions are always welcome.

Risk: Two Integration Stacks

MuleSoft and PowerCenter represent divergent approaches to data integration:

• MuleSoft: Excels in creating a 3-tier architecture that enhances application development across multiple data sources, providing flexibility and resilience.
• PowerCenter: Offers robust control over data access whether in batch, streaming, or federation modes, underpinned by their metadata layer.

The coexistence of these two solutions within Salesforce can lead to conflicts in sales and architectural recommendations, especially since MuleSoft’s connectors are integral to Data Cloud’s data integration today.

Risk? Two Different Single Source of Truth Approaches

Informatica is a market leader in the Master Data Management (MDM) space, having expanded the product since its acquisition of Siperian. However, while Informatica MDM can complement Salesforce Data Cloud, the architectural approach and philosophy are not aligned today.

Informatica’s approach has been different from Salesforce’s Data Cloud approach.

Informatica traditionally positioned MDM as an IT-centric tool. While the product does what it says it can do, I have seen three main challenges with Informatica’s appraoch:

• Golden Record centricity: one customer record and view to meet the entire business need has not worked as well for business outcomes.
• MDM as an IT tool vs. business capability. e.g., There are very few business (vs. IT) users of Informatica MDM. It is also up to IT to come up with and deliver the business benefits vs. unified profiles being created in service of a business outcome.
• Multiple Single Sources of Truth: To expand its market share, Informatica positioned its MDM repository to also store and act on transactional data.

Thus, I could see both architecture vision and sales motion conflicts in the early days of an acquisition. How such views are reconciled will be key.

That said, Informatica MDM has many strengths that can play nicely with Data Cloud:

• A long history of tackling different industries’ data challenges
• Data Stewardship and near real-time features
• Providing a persistent ID for organizations that want one

I do believe Data Cloud’s “Key Ring” approach has significant benefits over the golden record. There are merits to both. The best approach, in my opinion, is a Key Ring with a Master Key ID that can evolve over time.

I can imagine potential accelerators in an acquisition as well. Data Cloud could expand the “bring your own lake” architecture to Informatica’s MDM repository, speeding up integration benefits.

Pro? Additional Data Management Tools

Over the years, Informatica acquired many data management-focused companies and extended their feature sets. Data Cleansing, Data Profiling, and Data Enrichment (e.g., Address Doctor) are examples of solutions that meet such needs.

Salesforce historically left this to the partner ecosystem. AppExchange solutions offer ease of use benefits, and when it comes to data management , offering solutions that are accessible to and embraced by CRM Admins and business users. Informatica, on the other hand, sold tools primarily to IT, requiring external data for processing.

More tools can be good. The Pro is more in marketing until the applications can be seamlessly incorporated into the Salesforce security model and embraced by Salesforce users. Otherwise, I see this as two business units selling to the same company.

Neutral: Different Data Management Approaches

To expand on the above, whereas Informatica would suggest building cross-application data management solutions where at least some aspects of data need to be extracted/processed outside the business app, Salesforce data management solutions often work within the business app, governor limits, security boundaries, and most importantly taking advantage of both the data and rich metadata within the solution stacks.

The buyers are also different. Informatica not being a sponsor of Dreamforce’23 is a good indication of this.

Neutral: Two Different Marketplaces

Salesforce CRM grew and expanded partially through the success of AppExchange, delivering expanded functionality.

Salesforce’s Data Marketplace had a few different iterations (Data.com, Data Marketplace), the current bet seems to be on Data Cloud Data Enrichment solutions. Informatica has its own marketplace.

Integrating these under a common umbrella can be powerful in simplification though making them work for all relevant solutions: Tableau, Data Cloud, AI, … will take time.

Risk: Sales Motion Conflicts

As the Salesforce portfolio expanded through acquisitions, a common ask from the customer and partner ecosystem has been a “consistent value proposition and architecture approach”. Customers want their needs understood and the right solutions proposed vs. what a sales team may be measured on. I recall more than a few people wondering what Salesforce’s approach to Customer 360 was back in 2019, with C360 Audiences, C360 Data Manager, and other products making pitches similarly but differently enough that it caused some friction.

Salesforce’s current approach is much simpler and easier to understand, though the journey is just beginning: A single source of truth, with Data Cloud as the system fo reference providing unified profiles (Identity Resolution) and contextual firewalls (Data Spaces) at scale to power any functional or technical use case. MuleSoft is the recommended ingress — egress approach for custom integrations for customers that need it, or it works with other modern integration technologies.

Conclusion: Wait and See

Acquisitions are about the future vs. now. With any potential integration, unification and harmonization will take time before benefits are realized.

Informatica’s tagline evolved to “Where Data and AI comes to Life,” demonstrating a desire to be closer to value realization. With Salesforce, Informatica can also expand solutions in mid-market, i.e., greater revenue potential.

The only obvious conclusion is to wait and see.

What’s your view? Thanks for reading