Slack gains more than 1,000 clients in S.Korea in just two years 

The seven hottest tech companies and startups in South Korea earned a new nickname, a word combining their first syllables. What they also have in common is that they are clients of Slack Technologies, LLC. 

Coincidence? Perhaps not, said Slack Korea’s country manager Joung Eung-sub during an interview with the Korea Economic Daily. 

The internet giant Naver Corp. and its messenger subsidiary LINE Corp, as well as South Korea’s biggest messenger operator Kakao Corp. are all clients of the San Francisco-based corporate communications platform. Startups were also quick to adopt the new service, including Woowa Brothers Corp., which operates the country’s top food delivery app Baedal Minjok (Baemin); the largest e-commerce marketplace Coupang; used goods trading app Karrot Market; and Viva Republica Inc. which owns internet banking app Toss. 

Joung noted that these local luminaries are just a few of Slack’s more than 1,000 clients in South Korea. “We were able to achieve this number in just two years since establishing a local office in early 2020,” the former head of Cloud HCM/ digitization advocate at SAP said. 

Slack Technologies was founded in 2009 in Vancouver, Canada. The former game developer launched the namesake corporate communications platform Slack in August 2013. Since then, it has integrated more than 2,500 apps to the platform and set up offices in dozens of countries with multiple locations in the United States and Canada. 

“Just as Koreans say ‘KakaoTalk me,’ it is common for people abroad to use a similar phrase but with Slack,” Joung explained.

CHALLENGES INTO OPPORTUNITIES

The COVID-19 pandemic gave an opportunity to Slack as more companies encouraged teleworking following the governments’ stay-at-home measures and lockdowns.

In Q2 2020, its revenue reached $215.9 million, a 49% jump from the same period the prior year. 

Helped by the strong performance, the company added overseas offices in South Korea, Germany, and France. 

The first set of users were developers in North America.

In Slack, everyone in an organization has access to the same shared and searchable information, leading to more transparent and efficient communications. The over 2,500 apps that are compatible with the platform include virtual conference tools, status updates on projects, and surveys.

There are also different Channels, through which users can engage in group chats.

Woowa Brothers began implementing Slack to its communications strategy a year ago when the employees started working from home. The startup currently has 3,500 Channels, in which the staffs request vacation days or check each other’s off days for scheduling purposes.

Developers at Viva Republica Inc., the operator of fintech platform Toss, use Slack Channels to form study groups. Samsung Electronics Co., Lotte Corp.’s Lotte ON, and HYBE Co. are using the corporate communication platform. 

In a bid to intensify competition with Microsoft Teams, US computer juggernaut Salesforce acquired Slack for $27.7 billion in mostly cash in July 2021.

Utilizing the parent company’s artificial intelligence and data analytics capabilities, Slack plans to offer customized services. 

The head of the Korea office said Slack will become as integral to companies as operating systems are, adding that there are some 70 data specialists with doctoral degrees in the San Francisco headquarters working to this goal. 

Write to See-eun Lee at see@hankyung.com
Jee Abbey Lee edited this article.