Klarna has confirmed to CX Today that it has stopped using Workday and Salesforce's CRM solutions.
Yet, despite reports suggesting it’s replacing them with AI, Klarna is instead using Deel as its HR platform and has pulled together other SaaS tools to replace its CRM functionality.
While Klarna didn't confirm these "other" tools, it's blending alternative third-party and in-house solutions.
Klarna will also continue to leverage Slack and - therefore - remain a Salesforce partner. It's just no longer leveraging its CRM apps.
The "buy now pay later" services provider shared this update with CX Today after suggesting that particular publications misinterpreted remarks by Sebastian Siemiatkowski, CEO of Klarna.
In doing so, they made it seem like Klarna is using AI to replace many of their SaaS apps altogether. However, it's switching them with SaaS alternatives, converging capabilities, and layering over AI.
Indeed, a Klarna spokesperson told CX Today: "We have a number of large internal initiatives that combine AI, standardization, and simplification to enable us to shut down several software-as-a-service providers.
This consolidation, supported by AI, will help create a much more lightweight tech stack, allowing us to run the business more effectively and with higher quality.
Previous media reports had made their way through to Marc Benioff, CEO of Salesforce, who couldn’t make heads or tails of how Klarna could just rip out systems like Salesforce and Workday.
Just two weeks ago, he told the Big Technology Podcast: "We want to know exactly what they're doing to manage their employee information, their financial information, their customer information… what the technology specifically is."
“If you make a provocative statement and say, "Listen, the future of software is not what you're using now. It's this great new thing," you have to at least tell us what the great new thing is.”
Yet, there appears to be no "great new thing". Ultimately, it's a chopping-back exercise that prioritizes particular apps and in-house innovation to pull everything together. The Klarna spokesperson continued:
We don't want to talk publicly about how we're solving each use case other than to say we have - of course - solved for the data management aspects raised by Marc. We're a licensed bank so we have good processes for handling personal data.
However, it's fascinating to consider how Klarna didn't seek out a direct CRM platform alternative as it did with Workday. That may embolden those who have questioned the future of CRM solutions.
Sam Lessin, former VP of Product at Facebook, is one such person, claiming last month that his venture capital firm now uses Google’s AI application NotebookLM as a CRM alternative.
NotebookLM assists users in interacting with their documents, generating summaries, answers, and explanations based on uploaded content.
In a post on X, Lessin asserted that he can’t imagine how “any structured CRM product that requires work to update and maintain will survive this shift.” Here’s his full post:
Short all the structured CRM companies... a personal example with NotebookLM. pic.twitter.com/6ky5mCxNbJ
— sam lessin ☠️ (@lessin) October 29, 2024
Yet, it doesn't seem that Google itself views applications like NotebookLM as a "CRM killer". Indeed, it reportedly investigated an acquisition of HubSpot earlier this year.
Moreover, even if CRM solutions do face an existential threat, Salesforce is much more than a CRM provider now. It’s a data and AI business, too.
