Salesforce Quietly Becomes a Giant in Contracting With US Government

Salesforce has become a big software seller to the government, with over 1,400 contracts since 2017.
All but two of these contracts were facilitated through third parties.
Salesforce has exceeded Google in government work, but it lags other giants like Microsoft.
Salesforce has become a prolific contractor with US government agencies, nearly quadrupling the number of government contracts it has engaged with in the past five years.
The cloud-software giant has landed at least 1,443 contracts with government agencies since 2017. In comparison, Salesforce had engaged in only 363 government contracts between December 1, 2005, and September 1, 2017. This year alone, Salesforce exceeded that number with 384 contracts.
Salesforce’s work appears to far supersede Google’s, which has had about 800 government contracts in the past five years. But Salesforce’s work with federal agencies doesn’t match that of Microsoft, which has been involved in more than 14,000 contracts in five years, or Amazon, which had about 2,100 contracts over that period. These numbers, though limited by what’s stated in the contract descriptions, can provide a general sense of scale and comparison.
Salesforce sells cloud storage, cloud software, and tools for licensing, permitting, and inspections to federal customers. Insider is reporting the contracts that explicitly mention Salesforce in their descriptions, though it’s unclear how many other contracts may exist that are tied to the company.
All but two of these contracts were executed using third parties that sold its technology to government agencies. The tactic is common for companies working with the government because it’s often cheaper to use intermediaries, as Insider has reported.
In Salesforce’s case, it has the added effect of obfuscating a large source of income for the company.
These contracts have become a major source of revenue for Salesforce. For instance, a contract with the Department of Veterans Affairs — which is explicitly for Salesforce Enterprise License Agreements — is worth $414 million. It was executed through V3Gate, a third-party reseller.
Salesforce did not respond to a request for comment.
Over the past five years, the companies that Salesforce has used most often to sell its technology to the government are:
Carahsoft (476 contracts) Agility Technologies (109 contracts) Acumen Solutions (68 contracts) FedBiz IT Solutions (65 contracts) Deloitte (48 contracts) V3Gate (31 contracts) Capgemini Government Solutions (30 contracts) Lancer Information Solutions (27 contracts) Accenture Federal Services (24 contracts)
The 10 agencies that Salesforce has sold its technology to most often in the past five years are:
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