Slack introduces 'Grid,' its long-anticipated enterprise product

Dive Brief:

Slack Enterprise Grid, Slack’s large enterprise product, is now available, according to a Slack blog. Slack says "dozens" of company are already using the product, including PayPal, Capital One and IBM.
Slack Enterprise Grid includes new features adapted to help large enterprises use Slack effectively, including unlimited workspaces, shared channels for collaboration, security and administrative controls, all under a unified structure.
Slack also announced a new collaboration with SAP that will enable bots to deliver real-time reporting and "feedback on performance goals, message-based expense and travel management, and options for running chatops development workflows in Slack."

Dive Insight:

Companies like Slack and Dropbox, which originally targeted consumers or smaller businesses, are realizing that the key to future growth lies in gaining businesses as clients. As a result they are pivoting their products to ensure greater enterprise appeal. They also recognize that now, more than ever, businesses need streamlined ways for their employees to work to ensure better productivity and efficiency.

"The workforce today is increasingly global and dynamic, and the desire to communicate and collaborate is universal," said Vlad Shmunis, CEO of RingCentral. "The problem today is that most workplace communications solutions are not designed for speed. To tackle this challenge, we’re seeing the rise of collaboration communications – it’s about the cross pollination of a messaging centric platform that integrates easily with other business apps and other business communications capabilities."

Competition is heating up in the collaboration space. Now, Microsoft, Facebook and Slack all have tools catered to big business. Slack was even nice enough to welcome Microsoft Teams to the market with a full page ad in The New York Times.

Microsoft has the advantage in the space as it already has a large roster of enterprise clients. Slack and Workplace by Facebook will have to continue to grow their customer base to stay competitive.