This case won the Outstanding Case Writer Competition: Hot Topic 'Responding to shocks' category at The Case Centre Awards and Competitions 2022. #CaseAwards2022
Who – the protagonist
Eric Yuan, Zoom Video Communications Inc. (Zoom) CEO.
What?
Zoom is the online video conferencing app that exploded in popularity during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Zoom serves a wide cross-section of society, including large corporate companies, educational institutions and healthcare providers, and social gatherings between friends and family.
Zoom offers four main products: Zoom Meetings (synonymous with Zoom), Zoom Video Webinar, Zoom Phone and Zoom Rooms.
Why?
Zoom’s price had soared during the pandemic but some believed that it was just a matter of time before large rivals such as Webex by Cisco Systems, Google Meet, and Microsoft Teams caught up with Zoom’s industry leading product features.
To counter the competition, Zoom needed to continuously upgrade its products, but sceptics believed the American company’s primary driver of growth – social distancing due to the pandemic – would diminish as vaccines and therapies for COVID-19 became available.
However, some analysts suggested that part of the shift to remote work and online meetings would be permanent, suggesting a hybrid form of meetings between those at home and in the office.
When?
Eric left his job at Webex in 2011, with Cisco wanting to emphasise aspects of social networking, which went against Eric’s vision of a cross-platform video conferencing app for businesses. Taking several co-workers with him, Eric founded Zoom.
By 2018, Zoom were recording revenues of $151.5 million, and floated an initial public offering (IPO) in April 2019. By December of that year, Zoom’s market capitalisation was $18.8 billion, up 18% since its IPO.
Where?
Zoom is headquartered in San Jose, California, with 18 data centres located globally in cities such as Amsterdam, Frankfurt, Hong Kong, New York, and Melbourne.
Key quote
“Previous to Zoom, I felt like the debate around video conference apps was “Which do you feel is least terrible? Let’s use that one”… Zoom had an intersection of stable, high-quality performance plus ease-of-use, and the network effect started snowballing from there.”
A Silicon Valley power user.
What next?
What would it take for Zoom to ward off challengers? Would price sensitive customers go for the likes of Microsoft Teams and Google Meet, which came bundled at no incremental cost with suites of productivity software?
Had Eric missed a ‘silver bullet’? Something that might help Zoom dominate the world of business meetings beyond the pandemic? Or would other Zoom products like Rooms and Phone, and experiments with augmented reality and virtual reality to address issues of ‘Zoom fatigue’, do the trick?
2022 sees Malay and Gursimran claim S.P. Jain Institute of Management and Research's (SPJIMR) first Case Award.
Winning the award
Malay said: “It feels great to win this award. It means that others might find this case to be useful in their classroom. I am so pleased because the award will hopefully translate into more impact.”
Gursimran added: “Being recognised for the effort that went into writing this case is a testimony to the hard work and thought behind conceptualising, structuring, and delivering the case.”
Case popularity
Malay commented: “I think the case has proved popular because our focal company in the case - Zoom - is such a household name, and it’s not an open-and-shut case: students enjoy debating how Zoom might evolve.”
Gursimran said: “The topical subject, and the lucidity with which the educational themes are highlighted, in my opinion, make the case popular.”
Writing the case
Gursimran said: “Thinking and debating about Zoom's ultimate fate always excited us.
“One of the challenges was to find the financial information for Zoom’s competitors as some of them don’t provide standalone reporting. We used proxies and estimates from public sources to gather this competitive information.
Malay added: “It really caused us to think hard about applying the Tetra-Threat framework, not only as a rear-view mirror, analytical tool, but also a tool for forward looking, creative strategies.”
Case writing advice
Malay commented: “Writing a case is a bit like photography, which needs patience and preparation. In photography, you have to set up, hoping to capture the subject in a certain light. With case writing, authors need to be looking at a focal company or market: observing, capturing information, sense-making, and sometimes adjusting the angle. Eventually, you do capture something interesting, and then it’s fun to share the story of what you’ve found.”
Teaching the case
Malay said: “I have used this case in a required course at the Master’s level, and the participants have been quite engaged in thinking through what Zoom could do going forward. I also just finished using this case in an executive education setting. What was fascinating is that as we began analysing Zoom’s performance relative to competitors (question 1), ideas and comments for other questions just began to flow. As an instructor, I always look forward to a case that enables a strong interaction with participants. This, I think, does the job.
“I also found that it helps to use small ‘buzz groups’ in class or breakout rooms in an online setting – to enable quick brainstorming around ‘What should Zoom do, after the pandemic?’”
This competition was judged by Julian Birkinshaw, London Business School; Shaun Goldfinch, Curtin University; Michael Lewis, University of Bath School of Management; and Richard McCracken, The Case Centre.
“It’s great to see a case on Zoom – I might even use it in a course I teach.
“The case does a good job of describing the background and the current context facing Eric Yuan, and setting up the challenge he is facing today.”
“In many ways, this is a 'classic' strategy case and I can imagine students loving it.
“The case is nicely written and effectively captures some key insights, while the teaching note offers a very decent guide on how to teach the case.”
The case
Who – the protagonist
Eric Yuan, Zoom Video Communications Inc. (Zoom) CEO.
What?
Zoom is the online video conferencing app that exploded in popularity during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Zoom serves a wide cross-section of society, including large corporate companies, educational institutions and healthcare providers, and social gatherings between friends and family.
Zoom offers four main products: Zoom Meetings (synonymous with Zoom), Zoom Video Webinar, Zoom Phone and Zoom Rooms.
Why?
Zoom’s price had soared during the pandemic but some believed that it was just a matter of time before large rivals such as Webex by Cisco Systems, Google Meet, and Microsoft Teams caught up with Zoom’s industry leading product features.
To counter the competition, Zoom needed to continuously upgrade its products, but sceptics believed the American company’s primary driver of growth – social distancing due to the pandemic – would diminish as vaccines and therapies for COVID-19 became available.
However, some analysts suggested that part of the shift to remote work and online meetings would be permanent, suggesting a hybrid form of meetings between those at home and in the office.
When?
Eric left his job at Webex in 2011, with Cisco wanting to emphasise aspects of social networking, which went against Eric’s vision of a cross-platform video conferencing app for businesses. Taking several co-workers with him, Eric founded Zoom.
By 2018, Zoom were recording revenues of $151.5 million, and floated an initial public offering (IPO) in April 2019. By December of that year, Zoom’s market capitalisation was $18.8 billion, up 18% since its IPO.
Where?
Zoom is headquartered in San Jose, California, with 18 data centres located globally in cities such as Amsterdam, Frankfurt, Hong Kong, New York, and Melbourne.
Key quote
“Previous to Zoom, I felt like the debate around video conference apps was “Which do you feel is least terrible? Let’s use that one”… Zoom had an intersection of stable, high-quality performance plus ease-of-use, and the network effect started snowballing from there.”
A Silicon Valley power user.
What next?
What would it take for Zoom to ward off challengers? Would price sensitive customers go for the likes of Microsoft Teams and Google Meet, which came bundled at no incremental cost with suites of productivity software?
Had Eric missed a ‘silver bullet’? Something that might help Zoom dominate the world of business meetings beyond the pandemic? Or would other Zoom products like Rooms and Phone, and experiments with augmented reality and virtual reality to address issues of ‘Zoom fatigue’, do the trick?
Author perspective
2022 sees Malay and Gursimran claim S.P. Jain Institute of Management and Research's (SPJIMR) first Case Award.
Winning the award
Malay said: “It feels great to win this award. It means that others might find this case to be useful in their classroom. I am so pleased because the award will hopefully translate into more impact.”
Gursimran added: “Being recognised for the effort that went into writing this case is a testimony to the hard work and thought behind conceptualising, structuring, and delivering the case.”
Case popularity
Malay commented: “I think the case has proved popular because our focal company in the case - Zoom - is such a household name, and it’s not an open-and-shut case: students enjoy debating how Zoom might evolve.”
Gursimran said: “The topical subject, and the lucidity with which the educational themes are highlighted, in my opinion, make the case popular.”
Writing the case
Gursimran said: “Thinking and debating about Zoom's ultimate fate always excited us.
“One of the challenges was to find the financial information for Zoom’s competitors as some of them don’t provide standalone reporting. We used proxies and estimates from public sources to gather this competitive information.
Malay added: “It really caused us to think hard about applying the Tetra-Threat framework, not only as a rear-view mirror, analytical tool, but also a tool for forward looking, creative strategies.”
Case writing advice
Malay commented: “Writing a case is a bit like photography, which needs patience and preparation. In photography, you have to set up, hoping to capture the subject in a certain light. With case writing, authors need to be looking at a focal company or market: observing, capturing information, sense-making, and sometimes adjusting the angle. Eventually, you do capture something interesting, and then it’s fun to share the story of what you’ve found.”
Teaching the case
Malay said: “I have used this case in a required course at the Master’s level, and the participants have been quite engaged in thinking through what Zoom could do going forward. I also just finished using this case in an executive education setting. What was fascinating is that as we began analysing Zoom’s performance relative to competitors (question 1), ideas and comments for other questions just began to flow. As an instructor, I always look forward to a case that enables a strong interaction with participants. This, I think, does the job.
“I also found that it helps to use small ‘buzz groups’ in class or breakout rooms in an online setting – to enable quick brainstorming around ‘What should Zoom do, after the pandemic?’”
Judges viewpoint
This competition was judged by Julian Birkinshaw, London Business School; Shaun Goldfinch, Curtin University; Michael Lewis, University of Bath School of Management; and Richard McCracken, The Case Centre.
“It’s great to see a case on Zoom – I might even use it in a course I teach.
“The case does a good job of describing the background and the current context facing Eric Yuan, and setting up the challenge he is facing today.”
“In many ways, this is a 'classic' strategy case and I can imagine students loving it.
“The case is nicely written and effectively captures some key insights, while the teaching note offers a very decent guide on how to teach the case.”
