Ricky Kapur, Head of Asia Pacific at Zoom (centre left in pic), is often surprised by how many of Zoom’s customers have implemented and adopted Zoom, sometimes in ways that the company didn’t necessarily expect or anticipate.
“We do see a lot of companies bring together the entire Zoom platform, be it Meetings, Zoom Phone, Zoom Team Chat, Zoom Rooms – physical as well as virtual spaces – to help people connect frictionlessly,” he said during a panel discussion at the recent Zoom Work Transformation Summit APAC entitled ‘Using technology to drive growth in every economic climate’.
“In this growing economic uncertainty, one thing is clear; that technology is more critical than ever before. Connecting with globally disparate employees, customers, and colleagues requires new thinking and new approaches.”
Kapur noted that the world is essentially in the middle of a continuous journey for hybrid work and collaboration.
“For some companies, office spaces have resumed operations. For others, office spaces never really fully shut down.
“And for other organisations, they’ve gone to a purely hybrid model. We know that hybrid work and collaboration is about keeping connections alive and allowing people to build relationships in a hybrid world. But it’s also being able to provide a great mix of in-office collaboration that we all need, yet with flexibility and productivity in mind.”
For one of the other panellists, Ian Treweek, Head of Information Communications & Technology at The Disability Trust (far left in pic), Zoom was part of an overall strategy that empowered the organisation to facilitate its staff to work in a hybrid fashion.
“As a disability services provider in New South Wales in Australia, we’re spread across about 140 locations that range from a standard office environment all the way through to a group home that might only have some participants and one or two offices in it. That’s why when we’re looking at technology, we have to get something that meets our needs as well as is relatively easy to use for our customers,” he said.
“When I walk around the office, it’s really interesting to see everyone, even though they may be all in, they’re all on a meeting, either on Zoom or Teams, and so what that allows is work flexibility. If someone has to stay home and he or she has got a sick child, that person is still fully collaborating with the rest of the team that are in the office. That makes a huge difference, because it brings people together and pulls them in, and they’re involved in some of the work that’s going on, which otherwise they’d be completely isolated.”
Treweek also noted that Zoom allowed the Trust’s customers (or ‘participants’) to collaborate even throughout the COVID-19 pandemic.
“We had a group of our participants that would get together and make music and when we’re in lockdown, one of the wonderful things to see was they kept making music, but they were using Zoom. So they’re all in houses singing and dancing and having a great time, but we wouldn’t be able to do it without the Zoom platform, which was great.”
Work Transformation Summit APAC 2023 brought together several of Zoom’s senior management as well as other industry experts to discuss how organisations collaborate, engage customers, deliver on business goals, and maintain employee happiness in the rapidly-evolving modern work landscape.
In a discussion with Jim Maholic, Founder of management consulting firm Common Sense Strategy, Zoom’s Chief Financial Officer Kelly Steckelberg (centre right in pic) noted that Zoom was always looking for ways to invest more in innovation, with IT being a critical part for the company. “In these times of uncertainty and economic constraints, everybody’s thinking about where they want to invest and where they want the highest ROI. It’s all about prioritisation.”
Maholic (far right in pic) agreed with Steckelberg that there was a need for CIOs to think about measuring the success of their IT strategy and quantify that so that CFOs have confidence in the strategy being put forwards.
“One of the things I counsel CIOs on frequently is to understand the business impact of your IT proposal. The executive leadership team and the board evaluate proposals through this lens, does the proposal increase sales, cut expenses, optimise assets, or mitigate risks? If it doesn’t do one of those four things, there’s a pretty slim chance it moves forward.
“How do I communicate that it either increases sales, cuts cost, optimises assets, or mitigates risks? As I coach CIOs, I say that it’s not about how cool your technology is; it’s about how you impact the lens through which executives evaluate these projects.”
