Keywords

Social Media, Zoom, Covid-19, Communication Platform, Entrepreneur.

Introduction

During the most recent twenty years in scholarly discipline and the executives activity marketing has been the subject of changes. Numerous researchers and professionals concur that a portion of the old promoting precepts appear to lose ground while the famous during the 60s and 70's mass marketing has become less successful (Coviello & Brodie, 2001; Constantinides, 2006). The expanding media, globalizing market and the development of another age of Information and Communication Technologies – main are the Internet which is the most conspicuous of them – are changing the advertising rules and market elements by debilitating the corporate serious position (Porter & Michael, 2001).

What appears to arise is an agreement on the need to re-characterize marketing draws near (Heaton, 2006); (Thomas, 2007). Researchers have contended in the past for a relationship-centered marketing as an elective promoting approach (Gronroos, 1994a; Gummesson, 2008) while others recommend a client zeroed in worldview dependent on receptiveness, commitment, collaboration, cocreation and affinity to help clients (Von Hippel & Katz, 2002; Grönroos, 1994b); (Prahalad & Ramaswamy, 2004); (Deighton & Konrfeld, 2009). In the ever growing change in the marketing setting the job of the Internet and particularly the improvements to the job the Social Media† become essential. Social media interfaces individuals across the globe where they can stay in touch and offer their encounters. The different online media stages have various elements that are accessible for use by the supporters. Social networking has additionally made it simpler for individuals to work together, because of the way that it opens up the worldwide market and it is likewise less expensive to publicize. The public authority just as the private area has been in the bleeding edge with regards to the utilization of web-based media. For promoting tacticians, the message is straightforward: making due in the age of the enabled client requires less reliance on customary mass-showcasing strategies; understanding the job of innovation in moulding the commercial center and all the more significantly captivating the Social Media as a feature of the advertising tool stash turns into an essential goal. Social media for business is as of now not discretionary. It's a fundamental method to arrive at your clients, acquire important experiences, and develop your image. Also, the organizations began utilizing extraordinary characteristics of web and have moved their market technique to online business. Web has become one of the most beneficial apparatuses of advancing the items and administrations to draw in the interest group. Some of them got into the market as an e retailer; some others became content supplier, exchange intermediary, market maker or specialist co-op. In any case, perhaps the main reason that caused them to enter into the market is low hindrances to passage. Hereafter, the organizations started adding on the web framework to their plan of action too. Moreover, they changed the income models as a result of the exceptional profit from the web and adjusted and re-established the vital components of customary advertising. When of these pivotal turns of events; Social media has likewise turned into a defining moment because of its sensible chances from the point of view of business, for example, cost viability, efficient and commitment with clients. At the point when the world was inundated by a COVID-19 pandemic emergency, different exercises couldn't be done regularly. Exercises might proceed from home during an emergency by the utilization of a cell phone through the web, on the grounds that practically all individuals have their own cell phone, without requiring extra acquisition of equipment. For formal learning, individuals can make a move to utilize web-based media stages to attempt discussions effectively by utilizing PDAs, even tablets. Teens or grown-ups who are as yet considering in advanced education establishments can embrace ceaseless learning for their work tasks. For instance, they can utilize these instruments to impart through social media like the What Sapp, Telegram, Zoom, Microsoft Team, and Edmodo applications to interface with companions and teachers. On other hand, the expanded utilization of the web-based media has brought new difficulties with regards to the security of data. Client should subsequently get their workers and advances from outer and interior dangers. One of the methodologies is the utilization and encode the secret phrase to sign in to the gateway where every one of the people approved to get to the entry is given a unique password to just known client. Meetings through zoom or say zoom cloud meetings is software that allows video teleconferencing made by Zoom Video Communications. One could see the rise in the use of Zoom meeting in COVID-19 pandemic.

The main objective of this research is to enable reader(s) to understand the success factors that led to the massive success of Zoom video communications platform in a short span of nine years. The case also highlights the issues that crops up because the platform, once used by limited users basically few types of enterprises, was suddenly used by every type of user from a student to an academician to a government employee to party animals etc that surfaced various security and privacy concerns that haunted the company management. Moreover due to the Corona Virus pandemic most people were home bound due to nationwide lockdowns that led to adoption of the platform all the more for myriad purposes. Due to faster adoption and its use by multitude of users led to its scrutiny by various experts including government bodies, cyber security experts etc that either banned its use or issued directives to the citizens to be careful of the application. Reader(s) have lot of scope of understanding the privacy and security concerns related to the platform and how Eric and his team very responsively dealt with each concern and embarked on a journey to fix every problem and bug that users faced. In the process developed a more robust platform with enriched features. The case also leaves reader(s) thought provoked as the future is hazy for Zoom as once the pandemic ceases to create havoc and the people will resume normal professional and personal life and many new start-ups and established organizations develop equally competent product(s), will it or will it not affect its success.

Literature Background

Social Media

According to getting key influencers i.e those who influence the customers are easy to find by the means of social media, which helps in making connection with them and create brand advocates. Nonetheless, to assemble campaigns and cultivate online informal showcasing (WOM), trust should be set up and therefore built up to beat any hesitance with respect to the eventual customers. Since the start of presentation, interpersonal organization destinations (SNSs, for example, Facebook, Twitter, and WhatsApp have drawn in large number of clients every day, used as a significant part in the day by day rehearses. Albeit the super mechanical elements stay reliable, the way of life that develop around these informal community destinations fluctuate. Informal organization destinations can be characterized as electronic administrations that empower people to foster a public or semi-public profile in framework, gather a rundown of different clients with whom they share an association, and view their rundown of connections made by others inside the framework. Web-based Media is a benefit to construct trust between the clients and the organization in a manner that has never been seen with the conventional media. Social Media made clients more modern and assisted them with growing new strategies in looking, assessing, picking and purchasing services and products (Albors et al., 2008).

Late exploration uncovers new client conduct patterns established in Social Media use. For instance the interest for tweaked items and the ability of clients to get effectively associated with the course of item improvement are expanding (Prahalad & Ramaswamy, 2004); (Piller & Walcher, 2006); (Kim et al., 2008);(Parise & Guinan, 2008);(Eikelman et al., 2008); clients are restless to express their opinion in more phases of the business cycle. Moreover cutthroat tension and the acknowledgment by advertisers that they need to recover some command over the client controlled Social Media space has incited numerous organizations to put resources into Social Media presence (Barwise & Styler, 2002) foster intends to dispatch marketing exercises in this area soon.

Today, social media has turned into a basic business part for their development because of the advantages the organizations can acquire. First advantage is that it can build organization global exposure around the world. As web-based media is one of the most expense proficient advertising technique, it can connect more with the crowd. For instance, utilizing open source CMS (content administration framework) to make the organization's site and distributing to the web. With the site, individuals can just scrutinize the substance, which comprises a ton of valuable data about the organization and their administrations. The common substance from the organization can prompt obtaining new clients, colleagues and even supporters. The following advantage is that it can further develop consumer loyalty, as web-based media makes a voice for both the organization and the clients, permit them to feel liked realizing that their remarks or message are being taken note. Moreover, associations utilize customized reaction as it more viable in this interaction contrasted with answering with computerized message. Finally, web-based media can furnish associations with data about their rivals by checking them and keeping close tabs. Such data incorporates how they collaborate with their clients, their posts, content and plan. By looking at their exhibitions, the association can really take a look at their own presentation and decide how they will confront their rivals.

Social Media and Zoom

Social media today, permits individuals to share their live encounters to no limits. The development of intuitive web administrations changes the manner in which clients convey, notwithstanding their new capacity to make and distribute more substance of their own. In the competition to stay serious and applicable, numerous of all shapes and sizes organizations use the openly accessible social media daises to draw in interchanges among the representatives. With the consistent progression in data innovation (IT), the idea of organizations from all perspectives has been changed to adjust and endure, and web-based media stage are seemingly accepted to play as one of the critical devices in the advancement of business showcasing. To empower viable online media application towards business measures particularly in the hour of the COVID-19 pandemic, a few variables should be considered prior to putting resources into such huge expansion. Advances in data and correspondence innovations offer new freedoms (Kenny, 2005); (Wiederhold, 2020) noticed that the reception of new correspondence advancements infrequently come without knocks, Nadler hypothesized Zoom as arising out of the third skin idea where members are not locked in as human entertainers yet 'smoothed' into an entirety of third skin including individual, foundation, and innovation. Video gatherings have as of late invaded numerous parts of our life and changed the manner in which we collaborate with one another, web-based media have turned into a principle wellspring of correspondence as contended by (Bright & Logan, 2018), who expressed that determined by progresses in innovation and advanced mobile phone access, web-based media have mixed themselves into our lives in an extraordinary way. The fast ascent of web-based media utilization was trailed by clients giving indications of online media exhaustion. In view of past research (e.g., (Bright et al., 2015; Lee et al., 2016; Dhir et al., 2018). Characterized web-based media weakness as a circumstance whereby web-based media clients experience the ill effects of mental depletion in the wake of encountering different innovative, instructive and informative over-burdens through their support and connections on the diverse web-based online media stages. (Shensa et al., 2017) researched the effect of social media on its users (Dhir et al., 2015). They found that members who visited social media stages all the more every now and again introduced essentially more burdensome side effects while the time spent via web-based media didn't appear to assume a huge part.

Case Body - About Zoom

Established in 2011 and headquartered in San Jose, California, Zoom is breaking grounds in video communications technology area, with an easy, concrete cloud platform for any type of video and audio conferencing, across cell phones, desktops and other infrastructures. Zoom is the first programming based meeting room platform used throughout the world in meetings, gatherings, seminars etc, just as official workplaces and classrooms. Zoom allows any kind of organization and syndicates to unite their groups in a frictionless domain to complete their virtual conferencing tasks. Zoom is listed on NASDAQ and traded in an open market.

Zoom – a Pegasus among the Unicorns of Silicon Valley

According to Greek Mythology, Pegasus, a pure white winged horse, rose from the volatile sea with a drop of Medusa’s blood and the offspring of the Olympian God Poseidon. Pegasus is a metaphor of strength rising from the volatile sea. Zoom is a Pegasus that rose to success by each passing year garnering profits after profits racing ahead its competitors and other startups that were considered successfully disruptive Unicorns like Lyft and Uber to name a few. Eric held on to his belief of a video first platform for communications to be developed that will not only be simple to operate and versatile in terms of deployment but will give users a seamless video and audio experience whether they host a meeting, webinar, online classroom, birthday party, gatherings and congregations etc.

After US Government rejected his visa application six times, Eric finally succeeded in getting visa seventh time and he started working at WebEx in 1997. He dedicatedly worked overtime writing codes for video based communication platforms and mastered in it. Later in 2007, Cisco acquired WebEx for $3.2 Billion and Eric rose to the position of Corporate VP engineering. As part of his job he met many customers as a part of the installation process who often complained him about the difficult installation process, poor quality of audio and video and connectivity issues. He did try to convince the top management back at Cisco regarding customer problems but all in vain. Eric said to him at that juncture, ‘The reason I came to the USA was to harness the future of internet boom by building a portable video communication platform that could connect people seamlessly. What I am doing right now is working with a company that offers an inferior product’. I can’t waste any more time. After lot of resistance from his colleagues and dear wife, he left Cisco in 2011 and decided to chase his dreams and form his own company.

Eric always kept the forty engineers in high regards that left their high paying jobs at Cisco to join him in his endeavor to form the future’s best video communications platform by mere believing in him. Cisco’s then CEO also believed in him and invested around $3 Million in his venture and even helped him finding a suitable name for his company. Eric and his team worked hard and launched its first platform, Zoom 1.0, in 2013. In a short span of time after launch, Zoom reached 3 million users. In a year it reached 30 Million users and by 2015 its user base was 100 Millio Figure 1.

Zooms video first outlook attracted the attention of investors as all other platforms including Microsoft’s Skype started with audio first and adjusted video later on. In early 2017, Sequoia Capital invested $100 Million and the company was valued at $1 Billion entering the much acclaimed Unicorn club of startups. Nearly after two years, Zoom went public in April 2019 with shares value at $36 and the company was valued at a whopping $9.2 Billion Figure 2.

Within no time Zoom became the best performing IPO of 2019 as the value of the shares rose 72% on the first day and by 84% within a week. Zoom recorded profitability in 2019, a 118% rise in revenue growth from the previous financial year 2018 Figure 3.

This year by March end, its shares were traded 36 times its value that Eric anticipated in 2021. Eric’s net worth rose by 112% to $7 Billion. He is at 231 of the Bloomberg’s list of 500 richest people of the world. Zoom is valued at $38 Billion currently and is listed on NASDAQ. As per Sensor Tower, an app analytics firm, Zoom turned into the most downloaded Android App in India in between March 25 to April 10, outperforming the well-known web based life application TikTok. 300 Billion User use Zoom currently.

Eric could not contain his happiness as he sits late in his office at San Jose recollecting what went by in creating a rippling effect in the market that pushed Zoom to this current pinnacle of success. Nine years is a short span for recording such massive success in its field of business. Success comes with lot of foresight, a superior product market fit, extreme focus on the customers and a brand building exercise. It wasn’t easy but Eric and his team did build a platform that sells. Eric recalls the success areas:

Paramount Customer Focus (Moments of Truth for Zoom)

‘Life is about the quest for bliss. The best, most manageable bliss originates from satisfying customers. Conveying bliss is our main event at Zoom’. Eric since the initial days was highly focused on the customers, their needs and closely monitored their feedback so as to continually deliver the best product in order to delight them not only by exceeding their expectations but equally addressing to their concerns. The main reason for leaving his secure and high paying job at Cisco was unhappy customers.

Eric developed a culture of delivering happiness that drove its mission of making video communications frictionless. He believes in keeping both customers and employees cheerful. The aggregate of their happiness is more noteworthy than its parts. We live this way of thinking each day. We constructed a video-first interchanges stage that is adaptable, easy to use and solid. We react to our customers messages really rapidly, talk with them vis-à-vis on Zoom, truly hear them out and manufacture the highlights and products they request (additionally rapidly).

At Zoom, gathering and following up on customer input is the manner by which they've had the option to develop the best product. That is the reason why the current Net Promoter Score (readiness of customers to prescribe an organization's products or administrations to other people) of Zoom is 72 that is considered very good as per industry standards.

Eric believed that the current pandemic of Corona Virus has given Zoom much more success during March and April 2020, so he has to be really sensitive to the needs of various category of customers and community as a whole. So the company in many countries has made its services absolutely free for K-12 schools. It did not charge monthly fee from its users in China etc.

Unsurpassed Product Market Fit

It's incredibly packed, however the potential is immense. On the off chance that our product is superior to any others, we can endure – Eric Yuan. Starting a company way back in 2011 wasn’t easy as the market was competitive and crowded with established companies like Microsoft, Adobe, Citrix, Cisco, Polycom and new companies like Blue Jeans Network, Highfive, Join Me, Vidyo etc. Eric was highly focused to customer needs and always took customer feedback really very important. Since starting he developed a video first platform when all other companies including Microsoft’s Skype was developed on audio platform which later adjusted video in it. Moreover all other video conferencing platforms were very pricey. Eric along with his team worked out a very aggressive and unique pricing plan for its product Zoom. They offered its customers 3 in 1 package which consisted of video conferencing with HD Quality streaming, mobile and web meetings only at $9.99 Figure 4.

The cherry on the top was its Freemium model (Basic Model as shown in the figure above) that combined three features with a meeting limit of 40 minutes and 100 participants. So, Eric created a competitive advantage by offering a good quality product with aggressive pricing and Freemium model. It was coupled with word-of-mouth publicity from its early adopters especially junior employees within the organizations who evangelized the product. Thus, this bottom up approach accelerated the customer acquisition where for example 55% of $100,000 and much higher income customers were begun by a solitary representative's free preliminary.

Eric developed a video communications platform that was frictionless. This proved viral and was adopted by millions of users in no time as discussed above. It had an edge over other platforms as competitors like Cisco WebEx, Microsoft Skype, LogMeIn etc necessitated bulkier user accounts, downloaded applications and other software, chargeable group video calls etc which hampered the one to many model. On the contrary, Zoom allowed joining one to one meetings or group video calls without downloading an application or software and just by sharing URL’s to many participants faster. This was the major driving force in customer adoption. Zoom became the first ever platform to offer mobile screen sharing within a video conferencing call, users of mobile could start and join the meetings, send meeting URL’s via SMS’s, e-mails etc and use full features of the suite. Not to forget Eric initially developed Zoom platform for enterprises because he had understood the tough application set up problems faced by Cisco WebEx customers’ way back in 2010-11. That is why Eric developed a cloud based solution that practically didn’t call for any on premise hardware requirements. It uses a hybrid cloud model that is compatible with any virtual machine and can also run behind any company’s firewall and all meetings happened within the enterprises own private clouds. Thus any enterprise adopting Zoom can carry out their meetings locally while using Zoom’s public cloud infrastructure. Thus, URL’s and the easy access to Zoom’s platform became the pillars of success for Zoom.

Success Comes With a Price Tag – Zoom Caught Up In a Storm Of Privacy & Security Concerns

At Zoom we persevere on making a robust and versatile product with superior customer experience matching with the customer needs. Hence, we invest a lot of our energy tuning in to our users and calibrating the product to meet their requirements – Eric Yuan. On 1^st April 2020, Eric Yuan in his zoom blog post openly apologized to all the users, partners and other stakeholders of the possible security and privacy threats related to zoom video communications platform that surfaced previously in this year and was brought to spotlight by security and cybercrime experts. Eric had already addressed few security and privacy concerns raised earlier before apologizing in his blog post and vowing to work dedicatedly to remove all flaws from the platform.

Earlier in March before the apology, Motherboard carried out an investigation exposed that Zoom’s IOS app was transferring analytics data of its user to Face book SDK (Software Development Kit) used by zoom. There were reports of zoom bombings (unidentified hackers were crashing in the meetings and sharing pornographic and other objectionable content on the screen including audio abuse) from various schools and organizations around the world which has even led to the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) notice clients about potential dangers and presentation to outside components inside Zoom gatherings. Afterwards, Taiwan declared a sweeping prohibition on the use of Zoom inside the nation's fringes. In 2019, Apple needed to refresh its macOS after helplessness was found that permitted any site to persuasively join a client to a Zoom call with their camcorder enacted, without the client's authorization. Patrick Wardle, a macOS security analyst and previous programmer for the National Security Agency, has revealed two new local security vulnerabilities in the most recent form of the Mac Zoom customer where due to improper installation process hackers can easily install a malware and get user information and also piggyback the controls of camera and audio to record meetings 17 (Kara & Kaynak, 1997). In another case some Zoom calls were seen as steered through servers in territory China, making them subject to the laws of the Chinese government. An examination by The Intercept found that Zoom call back data information was being sent to the organization without the end to end encryption guaranteed in its showcasing materials.

Eric thought that it’s time to be responsive and to accept the concerns raised as the company’s reputation is at stake and the confidence of the million users and wrote in his blog post that, ‘these new use cases have helped us reveal unexpected issues with our foundation. Devoted columnists and security specialists have additionally assisted with recognizing previous ones. We value the examination and questions we have been getting – about how the administration functions, about our framework and limit, and about our privacy and security policies. These are the issues that will improve Zoom, both as an organization and for every one of its users’.

Eric opened up in his blog stating that initially zoom was built for enterprise users with full IT support that included financial services, telecom providers, government bodies, universities, healthcare etc. These enterprises had done an overall review of the zoom networks, layers of data centers and then only selected us for deployment. We had never anticipated that in the coming years every person will use zoom for myriad purposes and that will pose challenges in front of us. We take them really very seriously and will address each concern raised. Eric and his team started offering various tutorials and training sessions including interactive webinars so that users abreast themselves with the complete use of the platform and its features. By March 20^th, they published a blog post giving complete information to users on how to avoid zoom bombing by specifying the protective features of using waiting rooms, passwords, muting controls and disallowing screen sharing. By March 27^th, they removed Face book SDK in the IOS Client and reconfigured it to avoid collecting unnecessary information. By March 29th, they published the privacy policy after updating it informing users about the data collection norms. They also set up a dedicated privacy policy for K-12 schools where few settings were on by default like screen sharing for host only so that zoom bombing can be avoided.

Apart from addressing these concerns, Eric and team also removed controversial features like attendee attention tracker, LinkedIn Navigator App etc.

Moving on Eric assured the users that next 90 days will be thoroughly committed to deploying the resources to identify, address and fix issues proactively and be transparent to the users. Eric called it the 90 days freeze program.

90 Days Security Plan – an Initiative to Address Privacy and Security Issues and to Improve The Platform

Eric and his team had long meetings related to privacy and security concerns and taking into consideration all types of issues raised they decided to proceed systematically over the span of 90 day period and will be transparent about it to the users by informing them the gaps fixed and related features added and improved. Eric also decided to keep a weekly interactive webinar on every Wednesday to answer the queries of the users who wish to attend it. The commitments for the next 90 days, starting from April 1^st 2020, were enumerated by Eric and team and were as follows:

1. Establishing a component freeze, viably promptly, and moving all our engineering assets to concentrate on our greatest trust, security, and protection issues. Leading a far reaching audit with outsider specialists and delegate clients to comprehend and guarantee the security of the entirety of our new buyer use cases.
2. Setting up a transparency report that subtleties data identified with demands for information, records, and content.
3. Improving our present Bug Bounty program (A bug bounty program is a crowd-sourced model offered by numerous sites, companies and programming engineers by which people can get acknowledgment and pay for detailing bugs, particularly those relating to security adventures and vulnerabilities).
4. Propelling a CISO (Chief Information Security Officer) chamber in organization with driving CISOs from across the industry to encourage a progressing discourse in regards to security and protection best practices.
5. Drawing in a progression of synchronous white box infiltration tests to additionally distinguish and address issues.

After every week the privacy and security related bugs that were fixed and features improved were informed to the users via a transparency report. The reports that were published by Eric and team on their blog posts detailing the progress made are as follows:

90 Day Progress Plan – 15^th April 2020

Eric introduced Alex Stamos, previous CSO of Facebook and the executive of Stanford's Internet Observatory, who joined Zoom as an expert to assist with recognizing and actualize improved safety efforts. Zoom also worked with Luta Security to reboot the bug bounty program. Luta Security was established by Katie Moussouris, who made the absolute most significant vulnerability programs that are even used today. Some major security enhancements in the platform were done in these two weeks which were changes in default settings like waiting room on by default, password length increased with alphanumeric support, cloud recordings were made password protected, disabled participants changing their names during the meeting etc.

90 Days Progress Plan – 22^nd April 2020

Eric presented Lea Kissner, previously Global Lead of Privacy Technology at Google and Chief Privacy Officer of Humu, as a security specialist with Zoom. With her mastery in protection, ensuring clients, and encryption, Lea assumed an instrumental job in assisting Zoom make an increasingly safe Platform. The major enhancement done during this week was the choice given to users to choose a data centre region to be instrumental in conducting real time meetings and manage user accounts as they were skeptical about the data being routed through China.

90 Days Progress Plan – 29^th April 2020

After lot of iteration & testing of the previous version and consultation with the security and other advisors, Eric was ecstatic to launch Zoom 5.0 which supports AES 256-bit GCM encryption, one of the best encryption standards available across the world. This encryption migration was instrumental in gaining back the confidence of users who worried the leaking of the meeting data to hackers as the meetings were not end to end encrypted. Apart from this major enhancement, Eric and team also improved security features where Zoom hosts could report suspicious users to Zoom who can later permanently remove the user if found suspicious.

90 Days Progress Plans – 6^th May Onwards And Beyonds

As promised to its million users, Eric very dedicatedly and in a focused manner maintained the pace of addressing privacy and security concerns. He already had achieved milestones during 30 day period in April and continued to do so in May too in a quest to make the platform robust and free from bugs Figure 5. Major breakthrough in May was the acquisition of Key base which additionally fortified the security of video communication Platform as it expertise in building a secure messaging and file sharing platform with deep encryption. It helped Zoom build an end-to-end encrypted platform that was rolled out on May 22nd 2020 for feedback. During May the team also enhanced security features and changes in User Interface. This exercise of tackling with security and privacy issues will continue in the near future too.

Will Success and Product Improvements Amidst Security and Privacy Concerns Keep Zoom Growing Perpetually?

Even though Eric and his team has always been responsive to the needs of the users and is focused in improving and enhancing the video communications platform but the news of security and privacy concerns keeps cropping up now and then and many countries and governments around the world raise security concerns and warns its users to either avoid zoom communications platform or be vigilant in its use (Eikelmann et al., 2008).

Even zoom bombing cases were reported from various parts of the world especially in school virtual classrooms. Singapore government has banned school teachers to use Zoom. In India a Delhi based tutor, Harsh Chugh, has contended that the Zoom application ought to be prohibited for both official and individual purposes until a suitable law tending to information security issues is set up and has submitted his petition to the Supreme Court of India. Accepting his petition on 22nd May 2020, Supreme Court has requested reactions from the Central government and Zoom Video Communications Inc. to evaluate whether the video conferencing application ought to be restricted in India attributable to protection and information security concerns dependent on an open intrigue case recorded with the court. Eric has reacted on the issue by assuring that he and his team are indeed working continuously and improving the security and privacy of its users. Earlier Ministry of Home Affairs, Govt. of India had given a warning on the utilization of the platform, hailing it as perilous and defenseless against cybercrimes. Despite the fact that the Government hasn't prohibited Zoom in the nation, Government authorities have been banned from utilizing it

Since February CERT-In (the Indian Computer Emergency Response Team) an administration organization liable for making sure about Indian frameworks from cyber-attacks, has been researching video-conferencing application Zoom (Hodge, 2020). In particular, these examinations identify with episodes of passwords being taken and programmers accessing in-meeting video gatherings. It expressly expressed that Zoom was not a safe platform, and that it was not to be utilized by government officials and authorities for authentic business. Government of India also ran an ‘Innovation Challenge’ program during the Corona Virus pandemic invited Indian Tech companies to build an alternative platform to Zoom and if the platform will suffice the requirements the government of India will give one crore rupees to the winner.

Zoom arch rivals Microsoft, Cisco WebEx etc are also catching up with more secure and advanced features. Microsoft’s Skype had also introduced custom background like Zoom. Cisco WebEx in India was ranked number two in the ‘Business’ category of Google Play Store and ranked three on Apple App Store. Cisco WebEx has recorded more than 10 million downloads, and is appraised 4.1 out of 5. It is good with gadgets that run Android 5.0 or above. Cisco asserts that WebEx conveys more than six billion gatherings for each month, giving "industry-driving video and audio conferencing with sharing talk, and so on.

Sipping a hot cup of coffee reading daily news on his pad, Eric gave a long gaze at the sky and thought, ‘what all is in store for Zoom in the coming days’? We will keep on doing the correct things but how the future will be shaped for a cloud based video communications platform dealing with a lot of security and privacy concerns like us once the world get back to normal pace post Corona Virus pandemic. He is apprehensive yet hopeful.

Discussion

This case study is a classic example of how Zoom video Communications platform has reached the pinnacle of success within a very short span of nine years by following the right set of strategies firstly by building a video first cloud based communications platform that is frictionless and versatile and could be used on any platform, gadgets and set of software globally without a proper installation platform, secondly by making a product that fitted the market really well in terms of the pricing plans, basic free model that increased customer adoption, viral mechanics by the way meeting and webinar URL’s can be communicated faster, ease of joining and hosting a meeting etc in spite of the other established and new companies already exploring the video communications platform space in the market then and now and thirdly a consistent and committed customer focus starting from day one till today by working on the customers feedbacks, issues etc and overhauling their platform so as to give its customers the best video communications experience along with a simple yet feature rich robust platform with a sound security and privacy policy in place.

The case clearly gives an opportunity to the readers to understand and appreciate the efforts of an entrepreneur in starting a workable business platform that is soon counted in the Unicorn club of the silicon valley startups just by following his instincts and a quest to build a product that not only stands apart from other related businesses operating in the market but is also focused and open to change based on customer feedbacks and other stakeholders inputs. Eric Yuan, the CEO, and his team of forty engineers left their high paying jobs at Cisco WebEx just with an objective of solving the communications problems of enterprises (Then customers of Cisco WebEx) and developed a frictionless, Hassel free video communications platform. So this case delves deep into the concepts of Services Marketing Triangle; seven P’s of services marketing mix focusing on the product, process and people; the introduction and growth stages of the Product Life Cycle highlighting the strategies used to steer the product through these distinct stages.

Managerial Implication

After reading the case study, the reader(s) will be exposed to the following:

1. Appreciate the journey of an entrepreneur from ending a successful professional career to starting and leading the company to success from scratch by following instincts but with strong conviction in his dreams.
2. Strong customer focus and a strong customer feedback mechanism that led to the idea of a video first cloud based communication platform that was frictionless.
3. Creating and sustaining best product market fit that led to faster customer adoption.
4. Moments of Truth for Zoom - The responsiveness with which every user problem and issues were attended and fixed and continually endeavored to improve.
5. Possibilities of future growth of the organization amidst the pandemic situation, security and privacy concerns and the intense competition.

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Received: 06-Mar-2022, Manuscript No. AMSJ-22-11534; Editor assigned: 08-Mar-2022, PreQC No. AMSJ-22-11534(PQ); Reviewed: 22-Mar-2022, QC No. AMSJ-22-11534; Revised: 23-Mar-2022, Manuscript No. AMSJ-22-11534(R); Published: 26-Mar-2022