In the coming months and years, Zoom will have to learn from its past to continue to maintain the market share it once held in the video communication industry. Just as Zoom once overcame Skype and Co, its vulnerable to losing a large volume of customers. From my perspective, Zoom must adapt in a different fashion from its original surge to the top. The video communication industry has a limited amount of innovation that can be transmitted as tangible value to the customer base. Today, every provider offers a very similar experience and price range for customers. Customer-facing tools such as breakout rooms, background blur, video filters, and reactions are found in almost every product. Backend issues that once concerned customers have been smoothed out, such as security and data breaches or issues with connectivity. Selection has returned to “which is the most convenient” rather than “which has the greatest experience.” For many of us, that means using what our employer offers. Microsoft and Google dominate the market in terms of paid users, illustrating the fact that mid-sized and large corporations are purchasing their suite of connect products. Zoom cannot compete with the offer of interconnection between multiple applications. For example, Microsoft connects video chat, email, document sharing, and more through one subscription service. It seems like a no-brainer for large corporations to pay for a product with more features. Zoom executives are already facing the consequences of the steep competition as they are set to lay off 1,300 employees in the coming months.
In my opinion, Zoom’s next steps should be aimed at maintaining its large customer base while investing in R&D for the next generation of products to create hype for the future. Zoom is now a household name, but large corporations have already switched to remote and hybrid work for two years now, meaning that there are more stable policies and partnerships. It is hard to forage new connections in a saturated landscape; therefore, resources should be allocated toward maintaining large customer pipelines that were formed during the pandemic, such as Fortune 500 companies and universities. Previous customers are more likely to stay loyal to the company and simple steps such as improved customer service or tailored solutions for pain points can strengthen relationships. Heavily catering to the needs of large customers while sourcing new targets through R&D will stabilize the bottom line while looking for new opportunities. For example, the AI craze and virtual reality are markets that may be less saturated, and investing in innovation or partnerships allows for the leveraging of the brand name. Imagine a virtual reality video chat powered by Zoom. In 2021, executives announced their first attempts to do just that through a partnership with Meta. The product in mind combines video chat with the Metaverse, creating virtual workrooms for long-distance conference meetings. It is still a few years off; however, it keeps the public’s attention on the two companies which, in turn, keeps the companies relevant in the mind of consumers. As long as Zoom can remain relevant and make strides to adapt to societal needs they will be primed to jump on the next big event that impacts the video chat industry.
Dual Waters 