Case Study 11 Slack Imagine that you are placed in a group of four strangers and each of you is sent to a different location in your city. Upon reaching that location, you are given an envelope that contains a task that you and your group members have been assigned to complete together. The only way that you can communicate is by using a phone that has been provided to each member of your group at your respective locations. Now, for comparison, think about your last experience working on a group project for school. Make a list of all of the different forms of technology that you used to communicate and coordinate with your group members. Your list probably includes calendar applications, to-do lists, cell phones, text messaging, cloud storage, productivity software, email, the Internet, and more. Consider the disparity between these two scenarios. The first scenario is consistent with the constraints of collaboration before the advent of the Summary: Information Systems Management While Butterfield's second attempt at developing a game was again abandoned in 2012, the process of developing the game yielded an outcome that would become the silver lining of all silver linings. Development teams for the game were spread between three cities: New York, San Francisco, and Vancouver. The chat tool they had been using to collaborate was stripped down and clunkythe developers decided to invent their own collaboration platform to facilitate their work.326 Despite having no initial intention to commercialize the collaboration tool, Butterfield realized that what they'd created had potential. Rather than switching over to try to sell their platform immediately, they pushed it out to friends and colleagues at other companies for unofcial trials; the bigger the group, the better.327 After multiple rounds of revisions to the tool, it was ready to go out into the wild in 2014. Interested users were required to request an invitation to access the tool; thousands of people submitted requests on the first day. A few months later, the company rebranded itself as Slack Technologies. (Slack is actually an acronym for "Searchable Log of All Conversations and Knowledge\"). Slack Attack Summary: Information Systems Management While Butterfield's second attempt at developing a game was again abandoned in 2012, the process of developing the game yielded an outcome that would become the silver lining of all silver linings. Development teams for the game were spread between three cities: New York, San Francisco, and Vancouver. The chat tool they had been using to collaborate was stripped down and clunkythe developers decided to invent their own collaboration platform to facilitate their work.326 Despite having no initial intention to commercialize the collaboration tool, Butterfield realized that what they'd created had potential. Rather than switching over to try to sell their platform immediately, they pushed it out to friends and colleagues at other companies for unofcial trials; the bigger the group, the better.327 After multiple rounds of revisions to the tool, it was ready to go out into the wild in 2014. Interested users were required to request an invitation to access the tool; thousands of people submitted requests on the first day. A few months later, the company rebranded itself as Slack Technologies. (Slack is actually an acronym for "Searchable Log of All Conversations and Knowledge\"). Slack Attack Slack Attack Slack rapidly grew its user base over the next several years, with 140,000 daily active users in 2014 to over 1 million active daily users in 2015 and then breaking through 3 million active daily users by 2016. Shadowing this growth was extensive funding, as Slack brought in multiple rounds of funding totaling over $100 million each round, which in sum would approach $1 billion worth of investments by 2019. Slack has continuously worked to improve its platform and expand its functionality. Today, it features channels for messaging, embedded le sharing, voice and video calls, native integrations with other platforms (Google Drive, Dropbox, Zoom, Salesforce, etc.), security and privacy controls, searchable histories, and so on.328 To gauge adoption potential, the company developed its own target indicating that it takes teams about 2,000 messages before they reach the tipping point of buying in long-term. Of the teams that reached that point, 93 percent are still using Slack. Based on its success and upward trajectory, Slack filed for a direct listing on the New York Stock Exchange in June 2019. The reference price to begin trading was $26, and the share price topped out at $38.62 at the end of the daya Summary: Information Systems Management 8 lack-i ng ? Slack turned out to be one of the fastest-growing tech companies of all time, but can it sustain this type of rapid growth and profitability? Many tech companies offer various combinations of collaboration tools (e.g., Microsoft Teams, which leads in security and compliance), and with Slack's creation of a new market for enterpriselevel collaboration platforms, competitors are now focusing on stealing Slack's first-mover-advantage market share. Further, with the disruption to the economy from COVE19, it will be more difficult for Slack to engage with large corporate clients and close deals due to travel and meeting restrictions. Future revenue projects are uncertain. Will Slack continue its string of successes, or has the company left too much slack in the line for other companies to reel in? Questions 1111. Have you tried Slack? If so, think about your experience. If not, take a few minutes to install Slack and check it out for yourself. (At a minimum, take a few minutes to browse the Slack website.) In either case, consider why it has became sn normlar. Be rpar'lv tn share vnnr fhnncrhts with the class. 442 Summary: Information Systems Management Questions 11-11. Have you tried Slack? If so, think about your experience. If not, take a few minutes to install Slack and check it out for yourself. (At a minimum, take a few minutes to browse the Slack website.) In either case, consider why it has become so popular. Be ready to share your thoughts with the class. 11-12. Despite its wild success and growing demand, Slack continues to offer a freemium model (i.e., people can use the software for free and then pay if they want advanced features, extended access, or enterprise functionality). With an extensive customer base, why wouldn't Slack do away with this model and charge everyone who wants to use the platform? 11-13. Why would a company want to spend money on Slack when users likely already have access to NIicrosoft Ofce solutions and/or Google Docs? Wouldn't these provide enough collaboration opportunities? 11-14. Most tech companies choose to follow a conventional initial public offering (1P0) process; Slack chose a direct listing. Do some research about the differences between these two processeswhy do you think Slack chose the