This material is exclusively prepared for Ringle Customers Material for your English session Zoom: The Competitiveness of Zoom 0 본 자료는 저작권 법에 의해 보호되는 저작물로, Ringle 사에 저작권이 존재합니다. 해당 자료에 대한 무단 복제/배포를 금하며, 해당 자료로 수익을 얻거나 이에 상응하는 혜택을 누릴 시 Ringle 과 사전 협의가 없는 경우 고소/고발 조치 될 수 있습니다. This material is exclusively prepared for Ringle Customers [Summary in English] Among the Silicon Valley startups that went public in recent years, there's one company whose stock price is still steadily rising. Zoom, a video communication services company, is growing fast and generating profits. ● A group of up-and-coming startups—Pinterest, Lyft, Uber, Slack, Zoom—was listed in 2019. Zoom remains the only one reporting steady performance in the stock market. None of the other companies are generating profit-making growth. ● When Zoom was listed, high-profile investors in Silicon Valley applauded its financial statements as “the most beautiful numbers and graphs [they’ve seen] in a long time.” Zoom has been a classic example of success, achieving both growth and profitability, while so many other startups fail to deliver on the performances they promised. ● On the first day of its IPO, Zoom set the offering price at $36 per share. After that, it went up 72% to $64. Zoom's stock has reached $160 as of March 2020. In stark contrast to the disappointing performances of many other tech startups and their inevitable fall in share prices, Zoom is hailed as an iconic SaaS (software as a service) company in Silicon Valley. In the video conferencing and online lecturing (webinar) tool market, Zoom is the industry leader, beating Google Hangout, Skype, and others. ● Google Hangout's growth strategy: Between 2014 and 2015, Google chose not to assign its top engineers to video conferencing, and instead allocated its focus on 1) AI/Deep Learning/Machine Learning, 2) Cloud Business, and 3) YouTube. According to insiders, Google had assessed that "the video communication tool field is less likely to generate added value than AI and machine learning. It is not easy to differentiate [the service] by way of technology, either. It makes more sense to maintain the current service quality. Google needs to center its enterprise capabilities on and gain a clear lead in the field of AI, where Google is in fierce competition with Amazon and Facebook. Also, Google needs to enter the cloud market and keep Amazon and Microsoft in check before it's too late. And so, in the case of video communication, the default in-app video chat on Google Calendar should be enough to maintain the status quo." This suggests that there is no plan to substantially invest in and upgrade Hangout. ● Skype's growth strategy: The Skype video communication and instant messaging tool enjoyed worldwide use in the early 2000s, and the company is now providing its service under Microsoft after three M&As. However, Microsoft has focused on the B2B-oriented 1 본 자료는 저작권 법에 의해 보호되는 저작물로, Ringle 사에 저작권이 존재합니다. 해당 자료에 대한 무단 복제/배포를 금하며, 해당 자료로 수익을 얻거나 이에 상응하는 혜택을 누릴 시 Ringle 과 사전 협의가 없는 경우 고소/고발 조치 될 수 있습니다. This material is exclusively prepared for Ringle Customers cloud and software market for the last four to five years, and did not consider Skype, a B2C platform, as its leading service. As a result, Skype has remained at similar service quality as Google Hangout. Skype's service and technology has remained fairly unchanged since 2010. ● Zoom's growth strategy: Zoom was founded in 2011 to provide video conferencing and online lecture tools that serve the ever-upgrading network environment. In the mid- to late- 2000s, most business communication was conducted face-to-face or through telephone conferences. In the latter half of the 2010s, the mainstream communication platform has turned to video meetings in line with the exponential growth of high-performance camera and microphone equipment. The founder of Zoom had the vision to build and serve an “up- to-date video conferencing tool.” ● What sets Zoom apart: When Zoom was about to launch its service, Google Hangout and Skype still required both the meeting organizer and participants to each have a user ID. They didn't provide voice or video recording features either. Google Hangout and Skype were serviceable video call and onscreen chatting software, but neither were professional video conferencing tools for academics and business users. On the other hand, Zoom allowed participants to sit in on video communication through just a simple click via a link shared by the organizer, making it so that only organizers need to be registered. Zoom also promised meetings of up to 100 people free of charge, which acted as a catalyst for its initial expansion. Zoom offered voice and video recording features as well. Later, they even applied voice-to-text technology and began to offer full meeting transcripts, which provided great use to their clients in business. By bringing together every contemporary resource to develop the most user-friendly video communication and lecture tool of the day, Zoom was able to become the top player in a field that Microsoft and Google failed to pay attention to. Zoom has managed to make the B2B market—companies and organizations—pay for its service. Zoom continues to successfully deliver profit- generating growth. Over the course of the pandemic and binding compliance to social distancing, Zoom’s growth is accelerating faster than any other company. ● Prestigious universities in the U.S., including Harvard, Stanford, and Yale, have chosen Zoom for their video conferencing tool in the process of transitioning classes online. ● The population of Zoom users in South korea was relatively small before the coronavirus. After the outbreak, Zoom has become the most commonly selected video conferencing tool for universities and workplaces in Korea. User numbers are increasing rapidly. 2 본 자료는 저작권 법에 의해 보호되는 저작물로, Ringle 사에 저작권이 존재합니다. 해당 자료에 대한 무단 복제/배포를 금하며, 해당 자료로 수익을 얻거나 이에 상응하는 혜택을 누릴 시 Ringle 과 사전 협의가 없는 경우 고소/고발 조치 될 수 있습니다. This material is exclusively prepared for Ringle Customers ● Zoom is recognized for its reliable service quality, despite its explosive growth in traffic. The founder of Zoom, Eric Yuan, is a Chinese immigrant and one of the latest symbols of the American Dream in Silicon Valley. He is writing the success story about becoming one of the most well-thought-of CEOs in the Bay Area. ● Born in 1970 in Shandong Province in China, Zoom founder Eric Yuan completed both his Bachelor's and Master's degrees in Computer Science in China. Reportedly, while traveling to see his girlfriend (now his wife) for over ten hours when he was a college student, he envisioned a video communication platform on which he can connect with her face-to-face every day, even from afar. ● Yuan first came across the world of the Internet in Beijing, where he had just finished graduate school and thought of starting his own business. After hearing a talk by Bill Gates by chance, Yuan decided to proceed with a video communication business in Silicon Valley. However, due to his poor English, his visa application was rejected eight times in two years. He finally managed to get one on his ninth try. Soon after, Yuan signed up as an early member and engineer of a real-time collaboration company WebEx, which had only 15 members at the time. He routinely worked late-night coding. Some years later, Cisco acquired WebEx, recognizing its value in B2B video communication. Again, Yuan was an engineer noted for working the hardest and longest. Not long after, he was made the Corporate Vice President of Engineering, responsible for Cisco's collaboration software development. ● By 2010, Yuan reckoned that WebEx was unable to develop products that could accommodate users' needs in the changing mobile and tablet PC environment. About 40 employees followed Yuan to start a new venture. He began to develop a next-generation service by creating simple, convenient, and intuitive video communication and lecture tools. Although the video communication tool field had been monopolized by the two giants Google (Google Hangout) and Microsoft (Skype), Yuan succeeded in developing a service that maximized customer convenience, attracting investment thanks to its massive user traffic. This was the birth of Zoom. ● Now, Yuan runs Silicon Valley's flagship B2B SaaS company Zoom, and is recognized as the role model CEO who upholds a corporate culture of employee satisfaction in service of professional productivity. In particular, more than any other leader in Silicon Valley, he is famous for creating an environment that respects and encourages diversity among employees. 3 본 자료는 저작권 법에 의해 보호되는 저작물로, Ringle 사에 저작권이 존재합니다. 해당 자료에 대한 무단 복제/배포를 금하며, 해당 자료로 수익을 얻거나 이에 상응하는 혜택을 누릴 시 Ringle 과 사전 협의가 없는 경우 고소/고발 조치 될 수 있습니다. This material is exclusively prepared for Ringle Customers When he was asked for "five things he wishes someone told him before he launched his startup," Eric Yuan said: ● Although the startup journey is long and tough, it's also fun and exciting. Don't be afraid to start— just go for it! ● You don't need to hire the people who are the most qualified on paper; instead, you should hire those with internal motivation and a self-directing mentality. ● Your company culture is the #1 most important thing to get right. Everything else flows from there. ● If your employees are not happy, nothing else at your company will go well.