Interview: Derek Pando, head of international and partner marketing, Zoom Video Communications

Zoom is seeing over 300 million meeting participants daily, on the back of consumers and businesses switching to video conferencing as the pandemic hit. The company is expanding its services, even as normalcy and employees gradually return to the workplace. Derek Pando, in a conversation with Devika Singh, talks about addressing Zoom’s security concerns, its new events platform, and staying relevant post pandemic.

How has the pandemic changed your plans for India? How much does India contribute to your global business?

While we do not break down our numbers by geography, India is among the top three performing countries for Zoom. It was an important country for us even in the pre-Covid times, but the pandemic accelerated our plans for this market. Our free users in the country grew 67 times between January and April. The influx of Indian users that we have seen this year presents an opportunity for us, and we are listening and adapting to the market. Hence, we have doubled down our investments in the country. We opened a technology centre in Bengaluru recently, and have been hiring in the country as we realised that it is important to have employees whom our customers can call and seek support. We also plan to launch our HaaS (hardware-as-a-service) solutions here. A major push has been in the tier II and III cities, and every announcement has been translated and localised in nine Indian languages.

Subscription-based services find fewer takers in India. Will you be tailoring your pricing for the country?

Our pricing follows the global structure, which is very competitive with other solutions in the market. For instance, under the Zoom Meetings Enterprise plan, customers can host up to 500 participants along with unlimited cloud storage and transcription support, which is available at Rs 1,800 a month — this comes to Rs 60 a day. We also recently announced INR support on the platform, so users can transact in Indian currency easily. Going ahead, we do plan to restrategise our pricing in the country, given the growing user base here.

Do you think platforms like yours will be as relevant, and hence sustainable, post pandemic?

In the last few months, businesses and consumers from across segments have experienced the flexibility that working virtually offers. Several businesses, which were physical-only, have adapted to the virtual way of working. For use cases like education, online offers greater access. Students, who live at a distance from the physical centres, can attend classes through video conferencing. Similarly, it is easier to visit a doctor virtually or meet a bank manager to discuss a loan. This creates a more level playing field. Now that businesses have learned and accessed the best of both worlds — virtual and physical — they will tap both.

Tell us about your recently launched events platform OnZoom. How will you be monetising it?

OnZoom is being run as a beta version for users in the US, and we plan to extend the service globally in the first half of 2021. As the pandemic hit, we saw entrepreneurs across the globe pivot to offering virtual services overnight. We witnessed musicians, chefs, fitness instructors giving virtual classes, and comedians holding shows online. OnZoom is an effort to cater to this segment. Using this service, which is being offered free to our existing paying customers, entrepreneurs can commercialise their efforts, schedule shows or classes, sell tickets, etc. At the moment, we are trying to understand how this feature can add value; over time, we will monetise it.

In terms of safety and security, Zoom is perceived to lag behind its competitors. How are you addressing this?

In pre-Covid times, our platform was mostly used by businesses who were sophisticated and knew the safe practices. With the influx of new users, who have never interacted with our technology, we faced issues and, hence, had to adjust to being more open and transparent to build trust. Zoom is a new brand and consumers are learning about us. We had to remind people that we are an American company. The information about security has been made more accessible on our website, and as marketers, we have driven people there more aggressively. We have developed more in-depth content about our infrastructure and security practices. Building trust is a long-term process, and we are going to do it through communication.

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