Salesforce: Multi-Cloud Adoption Drives Big Deal Growth, Harvesting Margin And Earnings Growth

Phiromya Intawongpan

Salesforce (NYSE:CRM) is the number one CRM service provider globally, and it has expanded its cloud services into sales, service, digital, platform, and data cloud. These multi-cloud platforms are becoming the core technology platforms for enterprises. They increased their deals of more than $1 million by 80% in Q3 FY23. The adoption of multi-cloud solutions is driving their topline growth. Their expense management initiatives enable them to expand their operating margins and grow their free cash flow. I am initiating a "Hold" recommendation with a fair value of $250 per share.

Please note that as the Salesforce fiscal year ends at the close of January, all references to FY23 in this article correspond to their official FY24.

It is evident that Salesforce has already established itself as a leader in the CRM platform, among Oracle (ORCL), SAP (SAP), and Microsoft (MSFT). To further expand, they have diversified their cloud offerings into data analytics, services, digital, and platforms through acquisitions. The multi-cloud strategy provides them with more runway for future growth. Firstly, the total addressable market is growing at a 13% annual rate, according to their management, and most importantly, this growth spans across all these cloud platforms.

Salesforce FY23 Capital Market Day

Secondly, Salesforce possesses massive customer data, enabling them to conduct large-scale machine learning models and apply AI to these data clouds. These data analytics can add tremendous value for their customers by enhancing sales conductivity and sales pipelines.

Lastly, the multi-cloud offering can fully leverage their sales force and massive customer base. Cross-selling can significantly improve their sales productivity, thereby enhancing their margins and profitability.

During Q3 FY23, large deals exceeding $1 million grew by 80% year over year. I believe that is the major takeaway from the earnings call. Additionally, nine out of the top 10 deals included six or more cloud services. It's worth noting that the data cloud was involved in six of their top 10 deals in the quarter, and they added a net total of 1,000 new customers to their Data Cloud business. I find the growth impressive, and I anticipate that the data cloud could continue to expand in the near future.

Their data cloud includes analytics and integration. On one hand, Tableau provides their customers with the most advanced, end-to-end analytics solutions, using AI models to predict outcomes. These data analytics leverage massive datasets from these enterprises' CRM systems, adding tremendous value for customers. On the other hand, Salesforce's integration offering, powered by MuleSoft, enables enterprises to connect data from multiple systems. These integration capabilities help enterprises aggregate their operating data, allowing them to apply additional data analytics or AI machine learning to these massive datasets.

Salesforce has experienced growth of more than 20% in the past, and the major challenge has been their low margin and the conversion of free cash flows. They pursued significant acquisitions to extend their leadership beyond CRM to other cloud platforms. These large deals and high stock options have impacted their margin profile over time. Starting from FY22, they initiated share buybacks without any dividend payouts. The majority of their free cash flow has been directed towards acquisitions in the past. On the balance sheet, they are quite strong with a net cash position, and the net debt leverage was -0.3x at the end of FY22.

Salesforce 10Ks

For significant deals, they acquired Slack for $27.7 billion in 2021, Tableau Software for $15.7 billion in 2019, and MuleSoft for $6.5 billion in 2018. The prices for these deals were quite high; for instance, Slack was only generating around $1 billion in revenue during the acquisition, meaning Salesforce paid more than 27x of sales. I acknowledge that Salesforce has done an excellent job integrating these businesses, cross-selling, and fully monetizing their massive customer base. As disclosed in their Capital Market Day, they have successfully grown these acquired businesses.

Salesforce FY23 Capital Market Day

During Q3 FY23, they achieved 10% constant currency sales growth and 52.9% adjusted operating profit growth. The robust earnings growth is attributed to their multi-cloud large deals, as discussed previously. Their Data Cloud grew by 22% year over year, which is quite impressive to me. Their real-time customer data platform is really taking off to drive their growth.

Salesforce Quarterly Earnings

For the full-year guidance, they raised both the topline and bottom line. They predict an 11% revenue growth for the full year and a non-GAAP operating margin of 30.5%. I think the confidence to raise the guidance for the full year stems from these large deal sales and the growth in their Data Cloud. I believe their sales momentum is quite strong, and the guidance appears realistic. During the earnings call, they pointed out that the Data Cloud integrated an astonishing 6.4 trillion records, which represents a 140% year-over-year growth. It is quite notable for this explosive growth of data records.

Salesforce Quarterly Earnings

The model's assumptions for FY23 are in line with their official guidance, with 11% top-line growth and a reported operating margin of 14.5%. The reported operating margin represents a significant leap for Salesforce, as they only earned a 3.3% margin last fiscal year. For normalized revenue growth, I assume 12% organic revenue growth and 2.5% acquisition growth. The organic revenue growth assumption aligns quite closely with the total addressable market growth. Given their acquisition history, I do believe my acquisition growth assumption is on the conservative side.

The model assumes their margin will continue to expand over time, primarily driven by operating leverage and internal initiatives for expense management. The operating margin is predicted to reach 21.7% by FY32, still a relatively low figure compared to other pure SaaS companies.

Salesforce DCF - Author's Calculation

The model employs a 10% discount rate, 4% terminal growth rate, and a 23.5% tax rate. Based on my calculations, the estimated fair value is $250 per share.

High Stock Options: Stock option expenses represented more than 10% in the past, which is relatively high compared to established software companies like Microsoft and Adobe (ADBE). The good news is that Salesforce started to repurchase their stocks from the last fiscal year, and it's more likely that they will have, for the first time in history, a reduction in shares outstanding at the end of this fiscal year.

High Sales and Marketing Spending: Salesforce has allocated a significant budget to sales and marketing events, with these expenses accounting for more than 43% of total sales. It is evident that they are heavily investing in advertising to attract new customers. With their focus on the digital and self-service model, as well as partner-led sales initiatives, the results may take a while to materialize. I recommend investors closely examine these sales and marketing expenditures over time, as they are crucial to future margin expansion.

The substantial growth in large deals across multi-cloud platforms is crucial for their future expansion, and I believe their Data Cloud will continue to grow rapidly, driven by AI and data analytics. I am initiating a "Hold" recommendation with a fair value of $250 per share.

Could HubSpot Become the Next Salesforce?

cloud computing team business

HubSpot (NYSE: HUBS) has grown rapidly since its public debut nine years ago. From 2014 to 2022, the cloud-based customer relationship management (CRM) and marketing software provider grew its revenues at a compound annual rate of 40% as its total number of customers grew from 13,607 to 167,386. Its adjusted operating margin also improved from negative 27.7% in 2014 to positive 9.8% in 2022.

HubSpot's stock has risen by a whopping 1,868% from its IPO price of $25 -- which would have turned a $2,000 investment into over $39,000. But with an enterprise value of $24 billion, it's still only a tenth as valuable as cloud-based CRM leader Salesforce, which has an enterprise value of $241 billion. Can HubSpot keep growing over the next few decades and become as big as Salesforce one day?

Image source: Getty Images.

Cloud-based CRM platforms like those offered by HubSpot and Salesforce make it easier for companies to store, organize, and analyze information about their individual customers. Putting all of that information in a centralized cloud-based location also enables companies to analyze sales trends and make faster, data-driven decisions.

HubSpot and Salesforce also provide marketing tools for crafting lower-cost "inbound" marketing campaigns -- such as social media campaigns, viral videos, or blogs -- which drive consumers to seek out brands on their own. They also provide lead generation and search engine optimization (SEO) tools to boost a company's online exposure.

Their two business models sound similar, but HubSpot primarily targets smaller businesses while Salesforce focuses on larger enterprises. HubSpot's CRM platform is a lot simpler than Salesforce's platform, but HubSpot offers it as a free service to tether more customers to the marketing and analytics services it charges for. Salesforce's CRM platform is a paid service that serves as a launchpad for its other cloud-based marketing, analytics, data visualization, app development, and collaboration services.

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Simply put, HubSpot is a smaller CRM and marketing play, while Salesforce is a cloud software giant that competes more intensively against other enterprise software heavyweights like Microsoft and Adobe.

According to IDC, Salesforce controls 23% of the global CRM market, while its closest competitors -- Microsoft, Adobe, SAP, and Oracle -- each hold mid-single digit shares. HubSpot doesn't even make the top-five list.

HubSpot expects its revenue to rise by 24% to $2.1 billion this year as macroeconomic headwinds curb its near-term growth. From 2022 to 2025, analysts expect its revenue to continue rising at a compound annual rate of 21% and reach $3.04 billion by the final year.

That would be comparable to the $3.05 billion in revenue that Salesforce booked in its fiscal 2013 (which ended in January 2013). From its fiscal 2013 to fiscal 2023, Salesforce grew its revenues at a compound annual rate of 26% to reach $31.4 billion. But from fiscal 2023 to fiscal 2026, analysts expect its revenues will only rise at a compound annual rate of 11% as its business matures.

That growth slowdown highlights another key difference between the two companies. Salesforce leveraged its first-mover advantage to become the top CRM company, but that market's growth is cooling off. HubSpot carved out a niche for itself that allowed it to avoid going toe-to-toe against Salesforce, but it probably can't grow as rapidly as Salesforce did over the past decade given the state of the CRM market.

However, HubSpot believes it can continue to grow as smaller businesses continue to scale up their cloud-based CRM systems and marketing campaigns. It also expects its development of new artificial intelligence (AI) tools for generating digital content, summarizing calls and emails, creating chatbots, analyzing data, and optimizing marketing campaigns to boost its revenue per customer and widen its competitive moat. It could also acquire smaller companies to expand its ecosystem.

According to a forecast from Grand View Research, the global CRM market could still grow at a compound annual rate of 14% from 2023 to 2030. If HubSpot's sales simply keep pace with that market, it could generate $5.2 billion in revenue in 2030. If it continues to grow at a slower compound annual rate of 13% over the following 15 years, it could generate $31 billion in revenue by 2045 -- which would make it comparable to today's Salesforce.

But a lot of things could prevent HubSpot from ever reaching that lofty target. Salesforce, Microsoft, and the other enterprise CRM leaders could launch more free CRM services for small businesses, challenging HubSpot in its niche. Recessions, geopolitical conflicts, and other macro headwinds could stunt HubSpot's growth. The rise of new AI-driven services could disrupt older CRM and inbound marketing services.

How those longer-term challenges might play out is impossible to predict, so investors should instead focus on HubSpot's core strengths: It is still growing rapidly, its margins are expanding, and analysts expect it to turn profitable on a generally accepted accounting principles (GAAP) basis by 2025. In other words, HubSpot still has plenty of room to grow -- even if it never becomes a megacap cloud software giant like Salesforce.

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Leo Sun has positions in Adobe. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Adobe, HubSpot, Microsoft, Oracle, and Salesforce. The Motley Fool recommends the following options: long January 2024 $420 calls on Adobe and short January 2024 $430 calls on Adobe. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.

Could HubSpot Become the Next Salesforce? was originally published by The Motley Fool

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