zoom business case study

Digital Innovation and Transformation

Mba student perspectives.

• Assignments
• Assignment: Digital Winners during the…

How Zoom Won the Pandemic

Zoom is an unambiguous winner in the COVID-19 era. This blog post dives into why Zoom succeeded while its competitors stumbled, how zoom creates and captures value, and what the future may hold for this software company.

When was the last time you ZOOMed into a meeting and thought, god I miss people? Zoom Video Conferencing, or just “Zoom” for short, is one of the most unambiguous winners of this pandemic. We’ve all used it, and the company’s share price reflects this, with more than a 500% increase at its peak, from the mid-march pre pandemic numbers. Figure 1 below shows Zoom’s stratospheric rise over the past year.

Figure 1- Zoom share price history.

Although digital teleconferencing is self-evidently a powerful safety and productivity tool during a pandemic where human contact can lead to infection or death, what is less clear is why zoom specifically succeeded so emphatically. For example, Skype, a competing video conferencing platform owned by Microsoft, was the incumbent player. Comedian Hasan Minhaj said it best in his Netflix comedy show:

“By the way Skype, how did you drop the ball here? This was your moment! You had a 17-year head start, and Zoom ate your lunch in two weeks. You’re a verb no one does! Your friend will be like, “Let me Skype you….. Cool send me the Zoom link”

Pathways to a Just Digital Future

-Hasan Minhaj ,Patriot Act, Volume 6, What happens if you Can’t Pay Rent?

Skype’s fall from grace is mostly linked to the company’s mismanagement since Microsoft’s acquisition in 2011, however, the essence of the issue came down to the product’s ease of use, and quality [1]. Whereas Skype focused on adding features more akin to Snapchat, rather than focusing on the core capability of video conferencing, Zoom’s developers were focused on creating the best possible video conferencing tool. Zoom’s slicker, easier to use, and generally higher quality/more stable product is why it was able to take the video conferencing crown [2].

We’ve established that the core product capabilities are superior, but how exactly does zoom create and capture value? Let’s start with how the product/service generates value for its customers. The ease of use of the platform is as simple as a few clicks. Everyone from children, to baby boom grandparents find the user interface to be seamless and easy. Furthermore, the platform allows for easy group meetings with video tiles arranged in a visually pleasing way, the ability to take polls, ask questions, raise hands, write on a digital whiteboard, and even react with emojis. These features allow digital meetings to run smoothly and efficiently on stable platform. Now let’s look at how Zoom makes money.

Zoom uses a Freemium and Software as a Service (SaaS) business model where businesses and organizations like HBS, pay a periodic subscription fee to give them access to more advanced features like hosting longer and larger meeting which is critical for longer business meetings or academic settings[3]. The free version allows user to get to know and use the product before committing. The 45 minute maximum meeting times  in the free version and limits on the number of participants quickly becomes a constraint , thus enabling  Zoom to convert many free users into paying users. This was in stark contrast to Evernote, another freemium company who gave too much away in their free version.

As vaccines are rolled out globally, the end of the pandemic appears to be within sight as we round the corner, however, Zoom is uniquely well positioned to continue to grow and capture value for two primary reasons.

Firstly, the cat is out of the bag. Knowledge workers around the world have been working from home for almost a year, and while many miss the office, a sizable fraction have never been happier, especially people who had long commutes. The pandemic forced companies to digitize far more quickly then they would have otherwise with a Mckinsey survey indicating that “…companies acted 20 to 25 times faster than expected. In the case of remote working, respondents actually say their companies moved 40 times more quickly than they thought possible before the pandemic.[4]”  Employers will be hard pressed to return their workers to full time in person work, the likely long term trend is for more employee choice in terms of where they will work [5].

Secondly, the company’s brand awareness has spiked since the pandemic has hit, and the company has developed a lot of Goodwill with its customers. As mentioned before, Skype has been dethroned. Figure 2 below shows Zoom’s absolute dominance in terms of google search trends when compared to other major players in the video conferencing space. The google search trends can be used as a barometer for brand awareness.

Figure 2- Google search trends for major video conferencing products.

In conclusion, Zoom’s focus on creating the best video conferencing product, combined with a complimentary business model and strong societal trends uniquely positions the company to continue to generate huge shareholder value, while helping businesses, schools, and other organizations continue their operations regardless of status of the pandemic.

[1] Kingsley-Hughes, Adrian. 2021. “Why Are We All Zooming And Not Skyping? | Zdnet”.  Zdnet . https://www.zdnet.com/article/why-are-we-all-zooming-and-not-skyping/.

[2] Stokel-Walker, Chris. 2021. “How Skype Lost Its Crown To Zoom”.  WIRED UK . https://www.wired.co.uk/article/skype-coronavirus-pandemic.

[3] “The Zoom Business Model – How Does Zoom Make Money?”. 2021.  Productmint . https://productmint.com/the-zoom-business-model-how-does-zoom-make-money/#:~:text=The%20business%20model%20of%20Zoom,due%20to%20its%20product’s%20superiority.

[4] “How COVID-19 Has Pushed Companies Over The Technology Tipping Point—And Transformed Business Forever”. 2021.  Mckinsey . https://www.mckinsey.com/business-functions/strategy-and-corporate-finance/our-insights/how-covid-19-has-pushed-companies-over-the-technology-tipping-point-and-transformed-business-forever.

[5] “Reimagining The Office And Work Life After COVID-19”. 2021.  Mckinsey . https://www.mckinsey.com/business-functions/organization/our-insights/reimagining-the-office-and-work-life-after-covid-19.

Student comments on How Zoom Won the Pandemic

The question of “why Zoom” has been really interesting to me during this pandemic. It seems like Microsoft had such a clear advantage with Skype, and even Cisco with Webex seems to have had a better starting point than Zoom. These were acquisitions made for $8.5B and $3.2B respectively, so it seemed like both Microsoft and Cisco were willing to make substantial investments in video conferencing. I have periodically checked to see what the drivers were of Zoom’s success over competitors, waiting to see a behind the scenes look into some brilliant marketing or distribution channels, but it really just seems to come down to Zoom having a better technological product! In particular, what seems to have set them up for success was not just ease of use, but more specifically ease of access. In a global pandemic with tons of new users looking for any solution, having a one-click solution that doesn’t require an account became a real advantage. To me, the success of Zoom really does feel like an argument for specialization and focus over corporate synergies and investment dollars.

As Zoom was becoming a household name at the onset of the pandemic, the company was also grappling with a class action lawsuit that many users are blissfully unaware of. Zoom was quietly sending user data with Facebook, even for Zoom users who do not have a Facebook account, in violation of California’s Consumer Privacy Act. Zoom allegedly removed the data-sharing feature in newer versions of the app, but questions into the company’s use of data remain. When companies in the technology arena grow as quickly as Zoom has, typically privacy, data responsibility, and security suffer. I think it is important that we continue to keep an eye on Zoom’s privacy policies and data usage because, to your point, the use-cases for this app are expanding from business meetings and academic and into private social meet-ups and more.

Read the full complaint here: https://www.cyberscoop.com/zoom-lawsuit-facebook-california-privacy-ccpa/

At the beginning of that crazy year, I personally do not even remember how I downloaded and started using Zoom. I do not even remember what occasion made me download it. Now I realize that it was so smooth and organic, any other use of tools (Teams, Google) seems like an exception, whereas Zoom becomes a standard tool for communications. However, I would love to have more filtering features (like blurring) in Zoom but maybe I am just a bad lazy non-educated user. 🙂

Very helpful analysis of the video conferencing platform that we all used almost every day since March 2020! I’m very interested in seeing how Zoom will position after the pandemic, for example I’m curious to see whether it will add extra features aimed at improving internal communication or task coordination within organizations, similar to Microsoft Team or Trello.

Leave a comment Cancel reply

You must be logged in to post a comment.

About Stanford GSB

• The Leadership
• Dean’s Updates
• School News & History
• Commencement
• Business, Government & Society
• Centers & Institutes
• Center for Entrepreneurial Studies
• Center for Social Innovation
• Stanford Seed

About the Experience

• Learning at Stanford GSB
• Experiential Learning
• Guest Speakers
• Entrepreneurship
• Social Innovation
• Communication
• Life at Stanford GSB
• Collaborative Environment
• Activities & Organizations
• Student Services
• Housing Options
• International Students

Full-Time Degree Programs

• Why Stanford MBA
• Academic Experience
• Financial Aid
• Why Stanford MSx
• Research Fellows Program
• See All Programs

Non-Degree & Certificate Programs

• Executive Education
• Stanford Executive Program
• Programs for Organizations
• The Difference
• Online Programs
• Stanford LEAD
• Seed Transformation Program
• Aspire Program
• Seed Spark Program
• Faculty Profiles
• Academic Areas
• Awards & Honors
• Conferences

Faculty Research

• Publications
• Working Papers
• Case Studies

Research Hub

• Research Labs & Initiatives
• Business Library
• Data, Analytics & Research Computing
• Behavioral Lab

Research Labs

• Cities, Housing & Society Lab
• Golub Capital Social Impact Lab

Research Initiatives

• Corporate Governance Research Initiative
• Corporations and Society Initiative
• Policy and Innovation Initiative
• Rapid Decarbonization Initiative
• Stanford Latino Entrepreneurship Initiative
• Value Chain Innovation Initiative
• Venture Capital Initiative
• Career & Success
• Climate & Sustainability
• Corporate Governance
• Culture & Society
• Finance & Investing
• Government & Politics
• Leadership & Management
• Markets and Trade
• Operations & Logistics
• Opportunity & Access
• Technology & AI
• Opinion & Analysis
• Email Newsletter

Welcome, Alumni

• Communities
• Digital Communities & Tools
• Regional Chapters
• Women’s Programs
• Identity Chapters
• Find Your Reunion
• Career Resources
• Job Search Resources
• Career & Life Transitions
• Programs & Webinars
• Career Video Library
• Alumni Education
• Research Resources
• Volunteering
• Alumni News
• Class Notes
• Alumni Voices
• Contact Alumni Relations
• Upcoming Events

Admission Events & Information Sessions

• MBA Program
• MSx Program
• PhD Program
• Alumni Events
• All Other Events
• Operations, Information & Technology
• Organizational Behavior
• Political Economy
• Classical Liberalism
• The Eddie Lunch
• Accounting Summer Camp
• California Econometrics Conference
• California Quantitative Marketing PhD Conference
• California School Conference
• China India Insights Conference
• Homo economicus, Evolving
• Political Economics (2023–24)
• Scaling Geologic Storage of CO2 (2023–24)
• A Resilient Pacific: Building Connections, Envisioning Solutions
• Adaptation and Innovation
• Changing Climate
• Civil Society
• Climate Impact Summit
• Climate Science
• Corporate Carbon Disclosures
• Earth’s Seafloor
• Environmental Justice
• Operations and Information Technology
• Organizations
• Sustainability Reporting and Control
• Taking the Pulse of the Planet
• Urban Infrastructure
• Watershed Restoration
• Junior Faculty Workshop on Financial Regulation and Banking
• Ken Singleton Celebration
• Marketing Camp
• Quantitative Marketing PhD Alumni Conference
• Presentations
• Theory and Inference in Accounting Research
• Stanford Closer Look Series
• Quick Guides
• Core Concepts
• Journal Articles
• Glossary of Terms
• Faculty & Staff
• Researchers & Students
• Research Approach
• Charitable Giving
• Financial Health
• Government Services
• Workers & Careers
• Short Course
• Adaptive & Iterative Experimentation
• Incentive Design
• Social Sciences & Behavioral Nudges
• Bandit Experiment Application
• Conferences & Events
• Get Involved
• Reading Materials
• Teaching & Curriculum
• Energy Entrepreneurship
• Faculty & Affiliates
• SOLE Report
• Responsible Supply Chains
• Current Study Usage
• Pre-Registration Information
• Participate in a Study

Zoom: Cultivating Human Connection in a Digital World

In the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic, millions of people turned to the Zoom digital communication platform each day to connect with colleagues, friends, and family. Collaboration has always been key to human survival, and Zoom offered a digitized human experience that let people continue to build their business and, equally importantly, connect with each other with trust, humor, and love despite the sudden closure of businesses, offices, and schools as communities went into pandemic lockdowns.

Founded in 2011, Zoom grew from an idea for sustaining founder Eric Yuan’s long-distance relationship to become the top player in the digital communications arena in 2020, with nearly a 45 percent share of the increasingly competitive video communications market and 350 million daily meeting participants worldwide. The case study explores the founding principles of Zoom, and its reliance on a cornerstone of developing and nurturing trust—both with its customers as well as internally, with its own workforce. That also meant dealing with missteps frankly in the pursuit of frictionless service as demand for Zoom conferences rose dramatically during the 2020 pandemic.

Learning Objective

• See the Current DEI Report
• Supporting Data
• Research & Insights
• Share Your Thoughts
• Search Fund Primer
• Affiliated Faculty
• Faculty Advisors
• Louis W. Foster Resource Center
• Defining Social Innovation
• Impact Compass
• Global Health Innovation Insights
• Faculty Affiliates
• Student Awards & Certificates
• Changemakers
• Dean Jonathan Levin
• Dean Garth Saloner
• Dean Robert Joss
• Dean Michael Spence
• Dean Robert Jaedicke
• Dean Rene McPherson
• Dean Arjay Miller
• Dean Ernest Arbuckle
• Dean Jacob Hugh Jackson
• Dean Willard Hotchkiss
• Faculty in Memoriam
• Stanford GSB Firsts
• Class of 2024 Candidates
• Certificate & Award Recipients
• Dean’s Remarks
• Keynote Address
• Teaching Approach
• Analysis and Measurement of Impact
• The Corporate Entrepreneur: Startup in a Grown-Up Enterprise
• Data-Driven Impact
• Designing Experiments for Impact
• Digital Marketing
• The Founder’s Right Hand
• Marketing for Measurable Change
• Product Management
• Public Policy Lab: Financial Challenges Facing US Cities
• Public Policy Lab: Homelessness in California
• Lab Features
• Curricular Integration
• View From The Top
• Formation of New Ventures
• Managing Growing Enterprises
• Startup Garage
• Explore Beyond the Classroom
• Stanford Venture Studio
• Summer Program
• Workshops & Events
• The Five Lenses of Entrepreneurship
• Leadership Labs
• Executive Challenge
• Arbuckle Leadership Fellows Program
• Selection Process
• Training Schedule
• Time Commitment
• Learning Expectations
• Post-Training Opportunities
• Who Should Apply
• Introductory T-Groups
• Leadership for Society Program
• Certificate
• 2024 Awardees
• 2023 Awardees
• 2022 Awardees
• 2021 Awardees
• 2020 Awardees
• 2019 Awardees
• 2018 Awardees
• Social Management Immersion Fund
• Stanford Impact Founder Fellowships
• Stanford Impact Leader Prizes
• Social Entrepreneurship
• Stanford GSB Impact Fund
• Economic Development
• Energy & Environment
• Stanford GSB Residences
• Environmental Leadership
• Stanford GSB Artwork
• A Closer Look
• California & the Bay Area
• Voices of Stanford GSB
• Business & Beneficial Technology
• Business & Sustainability
• Business & Free Markets
• Business, Government, and Society Forum
• Second Year
• Global Experiences
• JD/MBA Joint Degree
• MA Education/MBA Joint Degree
• MD/MBA Dual Degree
• MPP/MBA Joint Degree
• MS Computer Science/MBA Joint Degree
• MS Electrical Engineering/MBA Joint Degree
• MS Environment and Resources (E-IPER)/MBA Joint Degree
• Academic Calendar
• Clubs & Activities
• LGBTQ+ Students
• Military Veterans
• Minorities & People of Color
• Partners & Families
• Students with Disabilities
• Student Support
• Residential Life
• Student Voices
• MBA Alumni Voices
• A Week in the Life
• Career Support
• Employment Outcomes
• Cost of Attendance
• Knight-Hennessy Scholars Program
• Yellow Ribbon Program
• BOLD Fellows Fund
• Application Process
• Loan Forgiveness
• Contact the Financial Aid Office
• Evaluation Criteria
• GMAT & GRE
• English Language Proficiency
• Personal Information, Activities & Awards
• Professional Experience
• Letters of Recommendation
• Optional Short Answer Questions
• Application Fee
• Reapplication
• Deferred Enrollment
• Joint & Dual Degrees
• Entering Class Profile
• Event Schedule
• Ambassadors
• New & Noteworthy
• Ask a Question
• See Why Stanford MSx
• Is MSx Right for You?
• MSx Stories
• Leadership Development
• How You Will Learn
• Admission Events
• Personal Information
• GMAT, GRE & EA
• English Proficiency Tests
• Career Change
• Career Advancement
• Daycare, Schools & Camps
• U.S. Citizens and Permanent Residents
• Requirements
• Requirements: Behavioral
• Requirements: Quantitative
• Requirements: Macro
• Requirements: Micro
• Annual Evaluations
• Field Examination
• Research Activities
• Research Papers
• Dissertation
• Oral Examination
• Current Students
• Education & CV
• International Applicants
• Statement of Purpose
• Reapplicants
• Application Fee Waiver
• Deadline & Decisions
• Job Market Candidates
• Academic Placements
• Stay in Touch
• Faculty Mentors
• Current Fellows
• Standard Track
• Fellowship & Benefits
• Group Enrollment
• Program Formats
• Developing a Program
• Diversity & Inclusion
• Strategic Transformation
• Program Experience
• Contact Client Services
• Campus Experience
• Live Online Experience
• Silicon Valley & Bay Area
• Digital Credentials
• Faculty Spotlights
• Participant Spotlights
• Eligibility
• International Participants
• Stanford Ignite
• Frequently Asked Questions
• Founding Donors
• Location Information
• Participant Profile
• Network Membership
• Program Impact
• Collaborators
• Entrepreneur Profiles
• Company Spotlights
• Seed Transformation Network
• Responsibilities
• Current Coaches
• How to Apply
• Meet the Consultants
• Meet the Interns
• Intern Profiles
• Collaborate
• Research Library
• News & Insights
• Program Contacts
• Databases & Datasets
• Research Guides
• Consultations
• Research Workshops
• Career Research
• Research Data Services
• Course Reserves
• Course Research Guides
• Material Loan Periods
• Fines & Other Charges
• Document Delivery
• Interlibrary Loan
• Equipment Checkout
• Print & Scan
• MBA & MSx Students
• PhD Students
• Other Stanford Students
• Faculty Assistants
• Research Assistants
• Stanford GSB Alumni
• Telling Our Story
• Staff Directory
• Site Registration
• Alumni Directory
• Alumni Email
• Privacy Settings & My Profile
• Success Stories
• The Story of Circles
• Support Women’s Circles
• Stanford Women on Boards Initiative
• Alumnae Spotlights
• Insights & Research
• Industry & Professional
• Entrepreneurial Commitment Group
• Recent Alumni
• Half-Century Club
• Fall Reunions
• Spring Reunions
• MBA 25th Reunion
• Half-Century Club Reunion
• Faculty Lectures
• Ernest C. Arbuckle Award
• Alison Elliott Exceptional Achievement Award
• ENCORE Award
• Excellence in Leadership Award
• John W. Gardner Volunteer Leadership Award
• Robert K. Jaedicke Faculty Award
• Jack McDonald Military Service Appreciation Award
• Jerry I. Porras Latino Leadership Award
• Tapestry Award
• Student & Alumni Events
• Executive Recruiters
• Interviewing
• Land the Perfect Job with LinkedIn
• Negotiating
• Elevator Pitch
• Email Best Practices
• Resumes & Cover Letters
• Self-Assessment
• Whitney Birdwell Ball
• Margaret Brooks
• Bryn Panee Burkhart
• Margaret Chan
• Ricki Frankel
• Peter Gandolfo
• Cindy W. Greig
• Natalie Guillen
• Carly Janson
• Sloan Klein
• Sherri Appel Lassila
• Stuart Meyer
• Tanisha Parrish
• Virginia Roberson
• Philippe Taieb
• Michael Takagawa
• Terra Winston
• Johanna Wise
• Debbie Wolter
• Rebecca Zucker
• Complimentary Coaching
• Changing Careers
• Work-Life Integration
• Career Breaks
• Flexible Work
• Encore Careers
• Join a Board
• D&B Hoovers
• Data Axle (ReferenceUSA)
• EBSCO Business Source
• Global Newsstream
• Market Share Reporter
• ProQuest One Business
• RKMA Market Research Handbook Series
• Student Clubs
• Entrepreneurial Students
• Stanford GSB Trust
• Alumni Community
• How to Volunteer
• Springboard Sessions
• Consulting Projects
• 2020 – 2029
• 2010 – 2019
• 2000 – 2009
• 1990 – 1999
• 1980 – 1989
• 1970 – 1979
• 1960 – 1969
• 1950 – 1959
• 1940 – 1949
• Service Areas
• ACT History
• ACT Awards Celebration
• ACT Governance Structure
• Building Leadership for ACT
• Individual Leadership Positions
• Leadership Role Overview
• Purpose of the ACT Management Board
• Contact ACT
• Business & Nonprofit Communities
• Reunion Volunteers
• Ways to Give
• Fiscal Year Report
• Business School Fund Leadership Council
• Planned Giving Options
• Planned Giving Benefits
• Planned Gifts and Reunions
• Legacy Partners
• Giving News & Stories
• Giving Deadlines
• Development Staff
• Submit Class Notes
• Class Secretaries
• Board of Directors
• Health Care
• Sustainability
• Class Takeaways
• All Else Equal: Making Better Decisions
• If/Then: Business, Leadership, Society
• Grit & Growth
• Think Fast, Talk Smart
• Spring 2022
• Spring 2021
• Autumn 2020
• Summer 2020
• Winter 2020
• In the Media
• For Journalists
• DCI Fellows
• Other Auditors
• Academic Calendar & Deadlines
• Course Materials
• Entrepreneurial Resources
• Campus Drive Grove
• Campus Drive Lawn
• CEMEX Auditorium
• King Community Court
• Seawell Family Boardroom
• Stanford GSB Bowl
• Stanford Investors Common
• Town Square
• Vidalakis Courtyard
• Vidalakis Dining Hall
• Catering Services
• Policies & Guidelines
• Reservations
• Contact Faculty Recruiting
• Lecturer Positions
• Postdoctoral Positions
• Accommodations
• CMC-Managed Interviews
• Recruiter-Managed Interviews
• Virtual Interviews
• Campus & Virtual
• Search for Candidates
• Think Globally
• Recruiting Calendar
• Recruiting Policies
• Full-Time Employment
• Summer Employment
• Entrepreneurial Summer Program
• Global Management Immersion Experience
• Social-Purpose Summer Internships
• Process Overview
• Project Types
• Client Eligibility Criteria
• Client Screening
• ACT Leadership
• Social Innovation & Nonprofit Management Resources
• Develop Your Organization’s Talent
• Centers & Initiatives
• Student Fellowships

• Product overview
• All features
• Latest feature release
• App integrations

CAPABILITIES

• project icon Project management
• Project views
• Custom fields
• Status updates
• goal icon Goals and reporting
• Reporting dashboards
• workflow icon Workflows and automation
• portfolio icon Resource management
• Capacity planning
• Time tracking
• my-task icon Admin and security
• Admin console
• asana-intelligence icon Asana AI
• list icon Starter
• premium icon Advanced
• briefcase icon Enterprise
• Goal management
• Organizational planning
• Campaign management
• Creative production
• Content calendars
• Marketing strategic planning
• Resource planning
• Project intake
• Product launches
• Employee onboarding
• View all uses arrow-right icon
• Project plans
• Team goals & objectives
• Team continuity
• Meeting agenda
• View all templates arrow-right icon
• Work management resources Discover best practices, watch webinars, get insights
• Customer stories See how the world's best organizations drive work innovation with Asana
• Help Center Get lots of tips, tricks, and advice to get the most from Asana
• Asana Academy Sign up for interactive courses and webinars to learn Asana
• Developers Learn more about building apps on the Asana platform
• Community programs Connect with and learn from Asana customers around the world
• Events Find out about upcoming events near you
• Partners Learn more about our partner programs
• Support Need help? Contact the Asana support team
• Asana for nonprofits Get more information on our nonprofit discount program, and apply.

Featured Reads

Zoom saves 133 work weeks per year with Asana

Automation efficiencies.

Save 133 work weeks per year through efficiencies in automation, process standardization, and reduced context switching

Team visibility

Connect technical and business teams’ work in one platform

90% program adoption

Achieved over 90% adoption of IT’s Bring Your Own Device program

At the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, everyone from businesses to prime ministers signed up for a Zoom account. The leading communications provider connects millions of companies, friends, and families with video, voice, chat, and content sharing tools. And for businesses in particular, video conferencing plays a starring role when they can’t meet with customers in person and teams can’t physically work side by side.

Zoom grew from just over 2400 employees in January 2020 to more than 5700 global employees as of June 2021 and the Business Services & IT department keeps them all connected. Gregory Daniels, Senior Manager for Technology Program Management, leads a team that focuses on IT project and program management. They oversee systems changes and deployments such as Zoom’s Okta rollout and the companywide Bring Your Own Device program. These global initiatives, with budgets in the millions of dollars, affect just about everyone at the company.

Greg has also worked to develop Zoom’s project management culture, but when he joined, teams were struggling to collaborate in a mix of spreadsheets, emails, and work management platforms. The mishmash just wasn’t working:

Engineering and development teams used Jira, but marketing and sales teams didn’t, making visibility into upcoming feature releases difficult.

Some teams fielded work requests from all directions, which made it difficult to scope and prioritize inbound projects.

Status updates for executives were presented in a slide deck that teams manually updated in a tedious process.

Zoom’s workforce needed a more effective way to communicate as the company scaled up.

As Zoom grew, we wanted a standard view of everything going on so we could prioritize work and make business decisions. We needed visibility, accountability, consistency in how work gets done, and knowledge sharing across teams.”

A solution to bridge technical teams and business teams

Greg and his IT colleagues began to evaluate work management platforms. A top priority was to unite Zoom’s technical and business teams to eliminate those last-minute launch scrambles. They needed a platform that had a Jira integration, and that was flexible enough to accommodate different workflows from different departments.

It was clear that Asana is the market leader in work management, and we wanted to have that business relationship.”

Rollout: teaching people to manage projects the Zoom way

IT rolled out Asana to five departments initially, and as managers brought projects into the platform, their teammates followed. More and more groups came on board as they saw the value of centralizing work, with one easy-to-share link to an Asana project that contains everything. IT also achieved leadership buy-in by moving monthly business reviews into Asana.

Greg says, “Once we made Asana official, the pent-up demand for a work management tool spilled over and we saw many more people using it over time.” Zoom’s time savings from working in Asana grew 200% year over year as adoption increased.

Greg’s team used the Asana rollout to teach people general organizational skills and the “Zoom way” of getting things done. “Asana is our classroom to help people learn a new way to manage projects,” he says. “We use it to teach fundamental project management skills and how to work in a repeatable, scalable way to achieve results.”

Today, Zoom has a few Asana experts in each department who train new employees on their group’s workflows, while Greg’s team is available for additional training and complex project design. They often show off the Security team’s Asana setup as an example of how to structure  Portfolios , and standardize projects.

How technical and non-technical teams work together in Asana

Departments across Zoom use Asana as a source of truth.

The engineering-business connection  Engineering teams manage day-to-day tasks in Jira, synced to Asana, so they don’t need to update marketing on every little release. “It has completely unscrambled the scramble for us,” says Greg.

Marketing  The globally distributed marketing team uses Asana to plan campaigns and events, as well as to manage inbound requests from other teams at Zoom.

Business Services & IT  IT uses Asana for global rollouts and systems changes, such as the Bring Your Own Device program, which achieved 90%-plus enrollment. “Asana made change management easy,” Greg says. “We could track every tiny subtask needed to help Zoom employees understand the program. There was too much going on for a spreadsheet to be effective.”

Security  The Security team uses Asana to keep their projects up-to-date in real time, so everyone can see their status. This is vital for the team’s large technical implementations and enterprise-wide rollouts, which can involve up to 20 collaborators and many more stakeholders. The team uses Portfolios to organize continuous large-scale initiatives and  nested Portfolios  for projects within them.

When you're moving this fast as an organization, it’s important to be on the same page and have a centralized tool to hold people accountable.”

Teams rely on a standard set of Asana features but use them flexibly to match their processes.

Projects  are the source of truth, and  Project Overviews  provide context about goals, scope, time, and cost, so that nobody needs to ask the project manager.

Portfolios  group projects by their program, clarify team workloads and bandwidth, and let managers monitor status in one view.

Integrations  such as  Jira Cloud  connect technical and business teams. The  Zoom  integration lets meeting attendees take notes in an Asana task within a Zoom meeting. The  Zapier  integration helps automate steps in workflows, while the  Google Drive  integration connects files to the projects they belong to.

Forms  help teams collect inbound requests from internal sources in one channel. For example, the content creation team in Sales Ops Enablement collects all information upfront in their standard  Asana Form . Greg says, “It was process enforcement from day one. They share a form link, receive a secure request, scope, and provide a deadline estimate.”

They can quickly iterate on their process by changing fields in the Asana form. Zoom employees submit nearly 900 forms per month, and the efficiencies created save the company an estimated 335 days of work per year.

Templates  provide a jumping-off point for new projects, saving time and ensuring no steps are forgotten. “If I’m using an Asana template," says Greg, “an hour of project planning becomes just fifteen or twenty minutes. An hour-long kickoff meeting gets cut in half. The time savings are substantial.”

Zoom saves 667 work days per year

Today, Zoom saves an estimated 667 work days per year with Asana features like forms, comments, templates, and more. That’s more than two years of typical 40-hour workweeks.

Some teams have ditched manual executive slide deck updates, instead using Porfolios to give leaders a 30,000-foot view of all initiatives. It’s also easy to spot when groups are working on similar projects, so they can consolidate work and rally their efforts.

The  Anatomy of Work Index  found that this duplication is common, and knowledge workers are spending 13% of their time on work that’s already been completed. The issue becomes more likely when an employee uses many apps to get things done. But for Zoom, a central home for projects shines a light on redundancies.

When all schedules, tasks, and communications are in one place, remote collaboration is easier.

Organization and discipline helps companies scale

As Zoom’s project management capabilities continue to grow, more groups like Greg’s are emerging around the company. They continue to champion and innovate on the Zoom way to get things done, helping everyone execute quickly and at scale.

When employees work together in Asana, Zoom closes the distance between its teams—just as their products help close the distance between colleagues, loved ones, and even prime ministers.

Scaling is about empowering our individuals to use Asana without project managers as the gatekeepers. We like to keep things very flexible, with enough guidelines so people can create their own projects.”

Read related customer stories

Figma’s product team reduced meeting time by 50% with Asana

Coupa scales to support customers with Asana

Spotify teams drive programs forward with Asana

iCHEF supercharge productivity and collaboration with Asana

Get connected and scale your work

Empower your entire organization to do their best work with Asana.

• Harvard Business School →
• Faculty & Research →
• May 2021 (Revised June 2021)
• HBS Case Collection

Zoom Video Communications vs. Microsoft Teams

• Format: Print
• | Language: English

About The Author

Related Work

• Faculty Research
• Zoom Video Communications vs. Microsoft Teams  By: Andy Wu

The Business Value of Zoom: More Meaningful Connections, Improved Productivity, and Up To a 261% ROI

Updated on April 12, 2022

Published on March 02, 2022

• 01 Get more business value today - Jumplink to Get more business value today

Our customers happily share with us just how much impact Zoom’s unified communications platform has on their organizations and their connections with their customers. So we set out to quantify Zoom’s business value and provide a framework for organizations looking to understand their unified communications investment.

The good news is, a new research study indicates that Zoom's unified communications platform provides a 261% return on investment for a composite model organization with a payback in less than six months.

"The Total Economic Impact TM of Zoom’s Unified Communications Platform," a study commissioned by Zoom and conducted by Forrester Consulting, found that the composite model organization using Zoom could:

• Improve employee productivity by adding up to 52 minutes of productivity per employee per week
• Expedite sales cycle effectiveness by improving the time-to-value of sales by 70%
• Streamline internal IT support by reducing troubleshooting time by 75%
• Eliminate redundant technologies and reduce travel to save millions annually

To quantify these findings, Forrester Consulting interviewed a collection of decision-makers at four organizations that purchased and deployed Zoom for unified communications. While each customer varied in size and industry, each realized significant cost savings and economic benefits from implementing Zoom.

These data points helped Forrester Consulting build a financial model that shows a composite organization using Zoom experiences benefits of $46.23 million over three years versus costs of $12.81 million, adding up to a net present value of $33.42 million and an ROI of 261%.

The research also indicates that Zoom improved organizational resilience during the COVID-19 pandemic, enhanced employee and customer satisfaction, and boosted employee collaboration. This confirms what the world witnessed in the growth of Zoom’s customers and usage during the pandemic.

One IT services exec interviewed for the study, "The difficulty using our prior solutions had a negative impact on customer and client relationships. We were getting a number of complaints and started to look unprofessional."

Get more business value today

Need to make the business case for Zoom? Or perhaps for a better IT support solution? That’s included here. Check it out to get an analysis of the benefits of Zoom’s unified communications platform.

Download the study

Editor's note 3/2: This post was updated to add clarification around the composite model organization in the study.

You might also like

Zoom unveils immersive Experience Center in London

Zoom has opened its new Experience Center in London, where it showcases its innovative AI-powered collaboration solutions and commitment to sustainability with immersive meeting spaces and interactive demonstrations.

Caring, connecting, and transforming: How we’re celebrating Asian American, Native Hawaiian, and Pacific Islander Heritage Month

Zoom Cares stands firmly behind TAAF’s commitment to ensuring Asian American and Pacific Islander stories are celebrated as part of American history.

Zoom Cares: amplifying social impact with the power of Zoom

Zoom Cares helps nonprofits like Ready Set Push provide life-changing programs to people in need. Learn how they impact their communities.

Subscribe to the Zoom Blog

Get the latest Zoom posts directly in your email

By entering your email, you agree to our Privacy Policy .

Related Resources

Meet Zoom AI Companion, your new AI assistant!

Boost productivity and team collaboration with Zoom AI Companion, available at no additional cost with eligible paid Zoom plans.

How to build your best hybrid work environment

If you’re facing the challenges of setting up a successful hybrid workplace, here are some tips and strategies you can incorporate.

How to transform your CX

New study shows integrated UCaaS and contact center platforms are among top trends to transform the customer experience.

Our customers love us

Zoom - One Platform to Connect

Pipera 46D-46E-48 Road, Oregon Park, B Building, Floor 5, District 2, 020309, Romania

• Tech & innovation stories
• Business innovation
• Future horizons

09 Jul Zoom Success [Part 4] How Zoom’s clever business model delivers and captures value

As businesses had to revert to working from home, Zoom became a global phenomenon. Their growth in Q1 fiscal 2021 generated some notable profit results for the company. Their net income, an unadjusted profit metric, rose from $0.2 million in the year-ago quarter to $27.0 million in its most recent three months.

How do you grow a business like that? Read through this last episode of our series if you want to learn more about their economic model and how they make money.

#1 Strong freemium offering

Zoom is giving away an excellent product for free. People can set a free 40-minute conference call with up to 100 participants and enjoy the freedom to jump on video conference without having to download any application or software. It might not seem like a big deal, but it’s actually a driving force in Zoom’s adoption pace and virality.

The freemium model not only speeds up the rate at which Zoom’s conference URLs are shared from one-to-many users, it also allows potential customers to get to know their products, which increases awareness for Zoom through word-of-mouth.

This no-charge offer turns out to be the biggest money earner ever. Once people are happy with what they discover for free, they are more inclined to evangelize the product and buy the premium service. This goes for enterprises too. 55% of Zoom’s enterprise deals over 100,000 started with a single employee trialling a free version of the product .

The same bottoms-up approach from early adopters worked wonders for Facebook, Twitter, and Gmail.

#2 Their market is EVERYONE

In the first part of our series, we’ve highlighted what makes Zoom the go-to platform for video communications. We’ve also talked about how they succeeded in building a sensational brand . They’ve done things right even with their culture . All these areas – product, people, promotion – have set the ground for a market explosion. The work-from-home trend just pushed the pedal, landing Zoom on the biggest addressable markets ever. Because the reality is their market is no longer just teachers, students, trainers, and small businesses. Now, their market is everyone.

If you take a look at the Google Search results for video conferencing services in the last couple of months, it’s even easier to understand how the market exploded for Zoom. The nearest competitor to Zoom’s growth, in terms of search, is Skype with nearly 20%. But even way before the global lockdown, Zoom was already way ahead. The quarantine only fueled their growth.

#3 Hardware revenue, why not?

Hardware is not crucial to Zoom’s business, but it definitely brings in revenue and has great potential to become a more solid growth stream.

Zoom Rooms and Workspaces let businesses use computers, tablets, cameras, microphones, and more to hold virtual meetings. For larger-scale organizations, which need to hold meetings across different offices, Zoom comes in with the perfect setup because they also make integration with the hardware much easier.

They either offer their own set of hardware, which they co-created with other manufacturers, or they promote and recommend purchasing from Zoom-certified hardware providers. Such providers pay a percentage of every hardware sale to Zoom, which in return makes sure to promote their products to the company’s customers.

Zoom’s recent elevation of funding in a private company designing and developing video communication hardware shows that Zoom sees great potential in this new revenue stream. “ In the third quarter of fiscal year 2020, we made a $3.0 million strategic investment in a private company in the business of designing and developing video communications hardware. In the first quarter of fiscal year 2021, we made an additional $8.0 million strategic investment in this company ,” Zoom announced in early June. (Zoom’s fiscal 2020 ended Jan. 31, 2020).

To gain free access to the end-to-end case study on Zoom’s growth and success, you can  sign up to BottomUp Skills .

About BottomUp Skills

BottomUp Skills is  the e-learning platform  created and supported by the QUALITANCE global thought-leadership team for innovators, makers, and creatives who want to sharpen their skills in innovation, design thinking, and technology. Usually, such courses are exclusive to our clients such as Ford Motor Company, News Corp Australia, Breville, and many others around the world. Now, we have opened the paid subscription courses and made them available to everyone for life.

Popular Posts

Never miss the latest..

Please fill in this field.

Please provide a valid name.

Please provide a valid email address.

No Comments

Cosmic Centaurs

• May 5, 2022

Case Study: Zoom’s Hybrid Work Model Offices

As part of our research into the office of the future, we wanted to look at case studies of organizations that adopted a thoughtful and measured approach to rethinking their ways of working and office design. In comes Zoom!

Zoom is one of the world’s leading video conferencing tools. Its surge in popularity happened during the global pandemic, and today, Zoom has 300 million daily meeting participants. Zoom is a great tool for remote, hybrid, or distributed organizations providing their teams with a place to meet, connect, and collaborate. But more importantly (for the purposes of this article), as an organization, Zoom adopted a hybrid work model when Covid-19 restrictions were lifted.

This case study sheds light on Zoom’s approach to redesigning their offices in support of their new hybrid model.

Looking to (re)design your office, and adapt it to your employees' needs? Book a one-on-one with us today.

Zoom’s workstyles.

Zoom’s workforce grew from 2,400 to 6,100 between February 2021 and December 2021. Moreover, while the company has 10 global offices, their employees are located in 35 countries. The crushing majority of their staff works remotely and Zoom’s workforce is more spread out and diverse than ever before.

When rethinking their employee experience, Zoom relied on employee feedback and data. Here are some key data points taken from their website :

According to the Momentive | Zoom Future of Work Poll 2022, commissioned by Zoom, employees value choice in how they work: 69% of workers say it’s important for them to be able to choose whether they work in person, remotely, or in a hybrid work model . Almost half (45%) say it’s likely they would look for a new job if they are not able to work in their ideal location.

At a global level, a hybrid work environment is overwhelmingly preferred to solely in-person and solely remote, according to a 2021 report based on Qualtrics Research that Zoom commissioned.

In the post-pandemic workplace, fewer than 20% of employees will choose to work from a company location as their primary workplace. (Gartner, “The Future of Work Requires Executive Leaders to Embrace Radical Flexibility,” Suzanne Adnams, 11 May 2021.)

In response to that, Zoom is adopting employee-led workstyles, allowing each individual to choose their preferred work location: In person, Remote, Hybrid, and adapting their offices to support these choices.

Office Design Approach

Zoom wanted to ensure that their redesigned offices would support the new ways of working of their workforce. Their guiding principles for their office redesign was to provide offices that were:

Dynamic hubs, focused on collaboration, socializing, and customer interactions

Technologically enabled offices that create the best employee experience for all

Safe and focused on well-being and health

To support its new working model, Zoom redesigned its offices in Denver, Sydney, Amsterdam, and San Jose, ahead of welcoming employees back into the office when the time was right.

Their approach was iterative, and they launched proof-of-concepts, redesigning one space at a time and observing how employees interacted with these new spaces before committing to a total office redesign.

Here is how they did it:

1. Launching a Proof-of-Concept (POC) Office

Zoom launched an office pilot in their Sydney, London, Denver, and Amsterdam offices which served as a proof of concept for their offices in other locations. Because each of these offices has a different office and visitor population (mix of departments, open to customers, etc.) they were able to learn from each of these.

Each office has a different look and feel based on the teams and needs. These proof of concepts were essential in formulating what works best and identifying patterns within different teams, how employees naturally engage with each other, and how technologies are leveraged. The POCs also enabled Zoom to envision what their office spaces should look like and how each space can contribute to optimizing communication, connectedness, and work. According to FoolProof , following this approach also assists in aligning stakeholders and generating champions or advocates of change.

2. Redesign One Space at a Time

To ensure the office redesign was done efficiently and effectively, Zoom did not remodel all of its spaces at once. They opted for a conservative approach, by remodeling one space at a time and learning as they went, rather than committing to a total redesign.

3. Redesigning & Repurposing

Since Zoom is operating through a hybrid working model, they understand that physical spaces will not have to cater to the full employee population at any given moment. Zoom leveraged on-site resources by reusing furniture and adapting areas to create new spaces. For example, in Denver, Zoom’s previous office design included physical desks and cubicles which were reduced to create open and collaborative spaces. The furniture was then reused in other areas.

4. Leveraging Technology

As a tech company, Zoom leveraged technologies to enhance experiences within their workspaces. In the physical workspace, Zoom’s offices were equipped with virtual receptionists. They introduced “Mobile Pop-Up Zoom Rooms” that can be moved to different rooms and floors, based on the need, and plug-and-play hardware solutions in newly created spaces and virtual meeting rooms. It is no surprise that Zoom is investing heavily in these technologies, especially when 98% of all meetings will have at least one remote attendee.

5. Reinforcing Company Culture

Working with distributed teams makes it difficult to connect with team members. According to a 2020 study, 70% of remote workers feel left out of the workplace . So, Zoom has a dedicated employee engagement team tasked with developing recurrent rituals, utilizing large spaces for events, and conducting team-building activities to foster long-lasting relationships.

As a result of their employee engagement efforts, Zoom’s offices across regions provide areas for collaboration, individual work, formal and informal meeting rooms, and spaces to unwind and connect with others. This is particularly important in building connections and creating a healthy company culture. According to McKinsey , organizations with a healthy culture generate three times greater total returns to shareholders.

If you’re interested in following the same steps, book a one-on-one with us today.

The Results

Zoom’s offices now include spaces that support various activities and functions in line with their employees’ needs.

1. Formal Meeting Spaces

Zoom designed meeting rooms to connect those choosing to work on-premise with those working remotely, too. According to Zoom’s internal survey , only 1% of employees wished to be on-premise full time with over 50% preferring flexible or hybrid working.

Virtual meeting room - Amsterdam Office

2. Informal Meeting Spaces

Informal meeting spaces are also common in Zoom’s offices where team members can connect, collaborate, brainstorm new ideas, and enjoy each other’s company!

Informal meeting space - Amsterdam Office

Informal meeting space - Denver Office

3. Spaces for Individual Work

Zoom’s Denver office provides meeting rooms for private, and personal meetings.

Personal meeting room - Denver Office.

Personal meeting room - San Jose Offices

Space of individual work - Amsterdam Office

4. Multipurpose Spaces to Relax & Hold Conferences

Zoom’s Santa Barbara offices provide employees with a kitchen area that can double as a space for team get-togethers, conferences, or presentations.

Conference room & Relaxation Area - San Jose Office

Conference room & Relax Area - San Jose Office

Leaders tend to think of an office redesign as a once in a long while project. However, Zoom’s approach truly showcases the importance of listening to your employees' needs and using data to make better decisions, as well as the value of iterating and adapting progressively.

Bibliography:

https://blog.zoom.us/5-ways-rethinking-office-workspaces/

https://anacapaarchitecture.com/zoom-hq

https://explore.zoom.us/docs/doc/Hybrid_Office_Zoom.pdf

• Workplace Design
• Flexible Work

Recent Posts

What are Flexible Workspaces?

How to design offices that employees want to go to

7 things to consider when adopting a hybrid work model

Academy of Marketing Studies Journal (Print ISSN: 1095-6298; Online ISSN: 1528-2678)

Review Article: 2022 Vol: 26 Issue: 3

Zoom Video Communications Inc: Sustaining Competitive Advantage by Addressing and Enhancing user Privacy and Security: A Case Study

Shivendra Singh Chaudhary, Uttaranchal University

Diksha Panwar, IILM Graduate School of Management

Sakshi Gautam, Uttaranchal University

Sangeeta Sundriyal, Uttaranchal University

Citation Information : Singh Chaudhary, S., Panwar, D., Gawtam, S., & Sundriyal, S. (2020). Zoom video communications inc: sustaining competitive advantage by addressing and enhancing user privacy and security: a case study. Academy of marketing studies journal, 26(3), 1-14.

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. 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 instance, they can utilize these instruments to impart through social media like the WhatsApp, Telegram, Zoom, Microsoft Team, and Edmodo applications to interface with companions and teachers. 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. 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, The also 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 also focused on open to change based on customer feedbacks and other stakeholders inputs.

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 .

Figure 1: Zoom’s Meeting Participant Growth.

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 .

Figure 2: Giga-Size Initial Public Offering .

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 .

Figure 3: Zoom Revenue Growth.

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 .

Figure 4: Zoom Pricing.

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.

Figure 5: Key Takeaways During 30 Days Out Of 90 Days Freeze Program.

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.

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.

Albors, J., Ramos, J.C., & Hervas, J.L. (2008). New learning network paradigms: Communities of objectives, crowdsourcing, wikis and open source. International journal of information management , 28 (3), 194-202.

Indexed at , Google Scholar , Cross Ref

Barwise, P., & Styler, A. (2002). Marketing expenditure trends. London Business School Marketing Report , 47-59.

Google Scholar

Bright, L.F., Kleiser, S.B., & Grau, S.L. (2015). Too much Facebook? An exploratory examination of social media fatigue . Computers in Human Behavior , 44 , 148-155.

Bright, L.F., & Logan, K. (2018). Is my fear of missing out (FOMO) causing fatigue? Advertising, social media fatigue, and the implications for consumers and brands . Internet Research .

Coviello, N.E., & Brodie, R.J. (2001). Contemporary marketing practices of consumer and business‐to‐business firms: how different are they ?. Journal of Business & Industrial Marketing .

Constantinides, E. (2006). The marketing mix revisited: towards the 21st century marketing . Journal of marketing management , 22 (3-4), 407-438.

Deighton, J., & Kornfeld, L. (2009). Interactivity's unanticipated consequences for marketers and marketing. Journal of Interactive marketing , 23 (1), 4-10.

Dhir, A., Chen, S., & Nieminen, M. (2015). Predicting adolescent Internet addiction: The roles of demographics, technology accessibility, unwillingness to communicate and sought Internet gratifications . Computers in Human Behavior , 51 , 24-33.

Dhir, A., Yossatorn, Y., Kaur, P., & Chen, S. (2018). Online social media fatigue and psychological wellbeing—A study of compulsive use, fear of missing out, fatigue, anxiety and depression . International Journal of Information Management , 40 , 141-152.

Grönroos, C. (1994). Quo vadis, marketing? Toward a relationship marketing paradigm . Journal of marketing management , 10 (5), 347-360.

Gronroos, C. (1994). From marketing mix to relationship marketing: towards a paradigm shift in marketing . Asia-Australia Marketing Journal , 2 (1), 9-29.

Gummesson, E. (2008). Customer centricity: reality or a wild goose chase ?. European Business Review .

Heaton, T. (2006). TV News in a postmodern world: new metrics and principles.

Von Hippel, E., & Katz, R. (2002). Shifting innovation to users via toolkits . Management science , 48 (7), 821-833.

Hodge, R. (2020). Zoom security issues: Zoom buys security company, aims for end-to-end encryption. Retrieved August , 2 , 2020.

Kenny, A.J. (2005). Interaction in cyberspace: an online focus group . Journal of advanced nursing , 49 (4), 414-422.

Kara, A., & Kaynak, E. (1997 ). Markets of a single customer: exploiting conceptual developments in market segmentation . European journal of marketing .

Kim, J.H., Bae, Z. T., & Kang, S. H. (2008). The role of online brand community in new product development: Case studies on digital product manufacturers in Korea . International Journal of Innovation Management , 12 (03), 357-376.

Lee, A.R., Son, S.M., & Kim, K.K. (2016). Information and communication technology overload and social networking service fatigue: A stress perspective . Computers in Human Behavior , 55 , 51-61.

Parise, S., & Guinan, P.J. (2008). Marketing using web 2.0 . In Proceedings of the 41st Annual Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences (HICSS 2008) (pp. 281-281). IEEE.

Piller, F.T., & Walcher, D. (2006). Toolkits for idea competitions: a novel method to integrate users in new product development . R&d Management , 36 (3), 307-318.

Porter, M.E., & Michael; ilustraciones Gibbs. (2001). Strategy and the Internet.

Prahalad, C.K., & Ramaswamy, V. (2004). Co-creation experiences: The next practice in value creation . Journal of interactive marketing , 18 (3), 5-14.

Shensa, A., Escobar-Viera, C.G., Sidani, J.E., Bowman, N.D., Marshal, M.P., & Primack, B.A. (2017). Problematic social media use and depressive symptoms among US young adults: A nationally-representative study . Social science & medicine , 182 , 150-157.

Eikelmann, S., Hajj, J., & Peterson, M. (2008). Opinion piece: Web 2.0: Profiting from the threat . Journal of Direct, Data and Digital Marketing Practice , 9 (3), 293-295.

Thomas, A.R. (2007). The end of mass marketing: or, why all successful marketing is now direct marketing. Direct Marketing: An International Journal .

Wiederhold, B.K. (2020). Connecting through technology during the coronavirus disease 2019 pandemic: Avoiding “Zoom Fatigue”. Cyberpsychology, Behavior, and Social Networking , 23 (7), 437-438.

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

Market Differentiation: Zoom’s Growth Strategy

No one could have thought how life would change overnight. It has been a challenging year for everyone. But we humans are adaptable creatures and try to fit into a different environment or any situation.

Although initially, the idea of working or studying or be it any activity which we had to do from home was horrifying. The Pandemic did bring many difficulties and challenges during the year, but due to incredible technological advancements, we humans were usually able to carry on our lives (almost). One such Application that helped us survive during the Pandemic was Zoom. For anyone who wanted to talk to somebody, the phrase that would automatically come out is ‘Let’s talk on Zoom.’

Humble Beginnings

Eric Yuan initially founded zoom Video Communication (more famously known as just ZOOM) on April 21, 2011. Eric left Cisco in April 2011 along with 40 engineers to start a new company initially named Saasbee, Inc.

The organization faced difficulties finding investors since many thought the video telephony market was already saturated. It was only in May 2012; the organization changed its name to Zoom. The name was influenced by Thacher Hurd’s children’s book  Zoom City.  

In August 2012, Zoom launched the first version of its product , which allowed up to 15 people to video chat at once. 

The first two years, the company just had a small team (mostly engineers from WebEx). There were still few people other than the engineering group that Yuan took it upon himself to email any user who canceled the subscription. He said he would try and get them on a Zoom call to talk through their problems and see how he could fix them. One of the first customers of Zoom was Stanford University in November 2012. 

Before the Pandemic happened, many didn’t like the idea of a video calling tool, but everything changed overnight when people were forced to stay inside and carry on with their daily work. Soon it became the most downloaded apps.

What strategy helped Zoom differentiate in the sea of business conferencing applications?

Whenever the word Videoconferenceing would come up, the first thing that comes up in a person’s mind is downloading the software and understanding how to set it up along with many other complicated IT-related processes. But Zoom is different. Anyone could just send the invitation, and it would quickly launch the meeting. 

In 2013, around 3 million people participated in a Zoom meeting, whereas in 2014, Zoom had 30 million meeting participants. But it grew to 100 million in 2015. But in 2020, it experienced 200 million meetings every day .

The free version of Zoom can host up to 100 video participants at once, whereas Microsoft ( MSFT )-owned Skype’s free model allows for 50. It also features personalized tools, including the ability to pick different backgrounds, change the camera angles, hold encrypted private calls, send direct messages, and record sessions.

Another reason for it becoming so popular and giving it an edge is its user-friendly nature. People don’t need a login to access a meeting, and the interface is relatively intuitive. People started using up the service to keep in touch with friends, Family, conduct corporate meetings, and even host weddings, which had become quite a trend for some time. 

The app also provided  a built-in beautification filter , one of several services that further helped to stand out. Educational Institutions around the world also moved towards the platform to conduct classes online. 

Also, the app focused on large MNC’s such as the University of Sydney and Wells Fargo. Employees back at work found their own video conferencing tool difficult, whereas Zoom was user-friendly, smooth, and free zoom accounts. Therefore there was pressure on corporate IT to change their video-conferencing. 

Pandemic Effect: Power Booster to Zoom’s Business Strategy

On March 23, the time when countries were going under a lockdown, Zoom was downloaded 2.13 million times worldwide, from 2.04 million the day before, as per the app tracking firm Apptopia. Two months earlier, the app just had less than 56,000 global downloads a day.

It was found that the mobile app for Zoom was installed about 3.7 times more than Skype’s and 8.6 times more than Google Hangouts, therefore becoming the most favorite video calling app from March 2020 onwards.

The largest and fastest-growing market for Zoom are:- 

Due to an increase in the daily meetings in March 2020, Zoom’s stocks experienced a boost during the Pandemic, despite a turndown in the stock market. It experienced a massive jump from $70 in January to $150 in March (almost double of its original). By June 2020, the value of the company was $67 billion. 

Zoom became the most well-known video-conferencing app during the COVID-19 after gaining about 635 % in 2020. The nine-year-old app’s (Zoom) market crossed $140 billion in October 2020, surpassing Exxon Mobile, which was 130 years old. But it did experience a fall of more than 15% when the news broke in November 2020 about the vaccine’s efficiency. It was in January 2021 only that Zoom again raised $2 billion but through a common stock offering. 

Zoom 2019 market cap: $18.8B Airlines 2019 market cap: $78.1B Zoom current market cap: $44.5B Airlines current market cap: $27.0B Note: Airlines includes Delta, United, American and Jet Blue. — Will Hershey 🟢 (@maybebullish) March 23, 2020

Way Forward: Zoom’s growth Strategy

It now appears that Zoom has started expanding its footing across industries quickly as the coronavirus pandemic continues. For example,the company offers  its services to K-12 schools  for no charge in various countries like UAE, Germany, Canada, the UK, and the US. It also waived its monthly charge to all users in China.

Moreover, Zoom introduced a new accessibility feature to make the app more comfortable to use in September 2020 for those who have hearing or visually impaired. This included moving around the video windows in the gallery view, pin video windows to be spotlighted, improved keyboard shortcuts, new tools to adjust the size of closed captioning text, and sign language interpreters’ windows who can sit directly next to the speaker. 

Today Zoom has become one of the most successful and used applications in the world. Nine years ago, no one had heard of such an application, let alone imagine how it would contribute to helping humanity to survive and move on with their lives during the Pandemic. Today you can find the application on almost every device.  

According to  the 2020 Businesses @ Work report from Okta notes, “Zoom was the #1 fastest growing video conferencing app in 2016, and it hasn’t slowed down since. Over the past three years, Zoom has enjoyed an astounding 876% growth in number of customers in our network. For comparison, second-place Cisco Webex grew 91% over that same period.”

One of the major reasons that Zoom became successful is because of its easy accessibility. A customer (or a user) would use the product the more it is available to him/her. Everyone can use the application no matter how they can access or connect to the internet. This helped various people to use Zoom creatively.

With Zoom’s 4 word motto ‘Make Communication Frictionless’ , It certainly did smooth the communication process. In fact, so many weddings were also held through zoom. Anyways I will end the article here since I need to attend Zoom Meeting. Ciao!

-AMAZONPOLLY-ONLYWORDS-START-

Also, check out our most loved stories below

Johnnie Walker – The legend that keeps walking!

Johnnie Walker is a 200 years old brand but it is still going strong with its marketing strategies and bold attitude to challenge the conventional norms.

Starbucks prices products on value not cost. Why?

In value-based pricing, products are price based on the perceived value instead of cost. Starbucks has mastered the art of value-based pricing. How?

Nike doesn’t sell shoes. It sells an idea!!

Nike has built one of the most powerful brands in the world through its benefit based marketing strategy. What is this strategy and how Nike has used it?

Domino’s is not a pizza delivery company. What is it then?

How one step towards digital transformation completely changed the brand perception of Domino’s from a pizza delivery company to a technology company?

BlackRock, the story of the world’s largest shadow bank

BlackRock has $7.9 trillion worth of Asset Under Management which is equal to 91 sovereign wealth funds managed. What made it unknown but a massive banker?

Why does Tesla’s Zero Dollar Budget Marketing Strategy work?

Touted as the most valuable car company in the world, Tesla firmly sticks to its zero dollar marketing. Then what is Tesla’s marketing strategy?

The Nokia Saga – Rise, Fall and Return

Nokia is a perfect case study of a business that once invincible but failed to maintain leadership as it did not innovate as fast as its competitors did!

Yahoo! The story of strategic mistakes

Yahoo’s story or case study is full of strategic mistakes. From wrong to missed acquisitions, wrong CEOs, the list is endless. No matter how great the product was!!

Apple – A Unique Take on Social Media Strategy

Apple’s social media strategy is extremely unusual. In this piece, we connect Apple’s unique and successful take on social media to its core values.

-AMAZONPOLLY-ONLYWORDS-END-

Kashish M is an Undergraduate student from the Middle East. Apart from listening songs and learning new languages and exploring different culture over time she developed interests in writing and gained interest in exploring different parts of the accounting/finance world.

Related Posts

AI is Shattering the Chains of Traditional Procurement

Revolutionizing Supply Chain Planning with AI: The Future Unleashed

Is AI the death knell for traditional supply chain management?

Merchant-focused Business & Growth Strategy of Shopify

Business, Growth & Acquisition Strategy of Salesforce

Hybrid Business Strategy of IBM

Strategy Ingredients that make Natural Ice Cream a King

Investing in Consumer Staples: Profiting from Caution

Storytelling: The best strategy for brands

How Acquisitions Drive the Business Strategy of New York Times

Rely on Annual Planning at Your Peril

How does Vinted make money by selling Pre-Owned clothes?

N26 Business Model: Changing banking for the better

Sprinklr Business Model: Managing Unified Customer Experience

How does OpenTable make money | Business model

How does Paytm make money | Business Model

Write a comment cancel reply.

Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment.

• Advanced Strategies
• Brand Marketing
• Digital Marketing
• Luxury Business
• Startup Strategies
• 1 Minute Strategy Stories
• Business Or Revenue Model
• Forward Thinking Strategies
• Infographics
• Publish & Promote Your Article
• Write Article
• Testimonials
• TSS Programs
• Fight Against Covid
• Privacy Policy
• Terms and condition
• Refund/Cancellation Policy
• Master Sessions
• Live Courses
• Playbook & Guides

Type above and press Enter to search. Press Esc to cancel.

Case spotlight: Zoom Video Communications: Eric Yuan’s Leadership During COVID-19

Author perspective

Who – the protagonist.

Eric Yuan , founder and CEO, Zoom .

Zoom is a group video conference meetings platform that was initially created to serve the business sector.

As we now know, Zoom became a worldwide phenomenon overnight in 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

As businesses and schools closed their doors, many turned to Zoom for online meetings and classes. In addition, everyday activities such as exercise classes, religious services and birthday parties began being hosted via Zoom.

By June, Zoom Cloud Meetings was the most downloaded app on Google Play and the Apple App Store.

Zoom is headquartered in San Jose, California, but it has a team of established engineers in both the US and China.

Once Zoom has caught up with its own growth spurt, what direction does the company take?

Should Zoom remain focused on enterprise/business customers, or embrace a business-to-consumer model as well? And to what extent should the company develop new features internally, versus relying on its marketplace for app development?

AUTHOR PERSPECTIVE 

Leading by example

Scott said: “Eric’s leadership story focuses on his tactics and strategy for Zoom to rise to the opportunities presented by the pandemic against a backdrop of strains on the company that came from explosive growth.

“There were unprecedented demands on the product and tech infrastructure, a non-stop news cycle oscillating between praising Zoom’s decision to provide discounts or free products to schools and civic organisations, and pointing out the security challenges that resulted from the diffusion of an enterprise-focused product to a consumer application.  All of this happened at once, while internal corporate leaders also had to manage Zoom's own transition to remote work. Their ability to capture and then manage the growth was no accident: they relied on the culture and technical capabilities that Eric spent years building at Zoom well before the pandemic. Their readiness is a testament to Yuan’s extraordinary attitude and vision. 

“In our case interviews, the Zoom leadership team all focused on Eric’s extraordinary grace and determination to help the world.  Initially we weren’t sure if this was corporate spin, but then talking to Eric, we immediately ‘got it' and saw what all of his leadership team raved about.  He is a purpose-driven leader and his mission focus is genuine. There have been few historical episodes where one company could have profited so much from an external shock. The testament to Eric’s leadership is that his goal was first to do good.”

Writing a case remotely

Christopher commented: “Perhaps fittingly, this was the first case any of the three of us (Scott, Andy and I) have ever written entirely over Zoom: we conducted all the interviews with executives and our own internal meetings virtually by necessity, whereas in the past we would have flown to California to meet with executives in person. We were living the ‘remote work’ challenges that we wrote about in the case.

“In addition, the state of the world changed rapidly while we wrote, so week by week we had to adjust our view of the company as the company adjusted its view of itself. Everyone from the company we spoke with was living in the ‘eye of the storm’. We were very fortunate that they took the time to speak with us – they were working extremely long days." 

Knowing the subject

Andy observed: “The case is a rare example in which every business school student by now has deep experience with this particular product. They have a lot of preconceived notions about how it came about and what it does. We expect many instructors to teach this case via Zoom, which allows for a more meta learning moment. We’ve also taught this where the class was using Cisco Webex – the competing product that Eric Yuan and most of the original employees used to work on – and the irony of that scenario is also great for students to reflect on.

The authors

The protagonist

Educators can login to view a free educator preview copy of this case and its teaching note.

View more cases in the spotlight

Stay in touch with all the latest case news and views in our free newsletter,  Connect .

Read it online or sign up to have it delivered direct to your inbox!

Discover more

To revisit this article, visit My Profile, then View saved stories .

• The Big Story
• Newsletters
• Steven Levy's Plaintext Column
• WIRED Classics from the Archive
• WIRED Insider
• WIRED Consulting

Zoom took over the world. This is what will happen next

It’s a relatable start to Zoom’s earnings call webinar on June 2, reporting on the company’s results for the quarter ending April 30, 2020. Tom McCallum, head of investor relations, reads a brief introduction before handing over to Zoom founder and CEO Eric Yuan.

“And with that, let me turn it over to Eric,” he says, raising his eyes to the webcam.

The camera view switches to Yuan, wearing a navy polo shirt against the call’s bright blue digital background. This is his big moment: he’s about to report tremendous growth in revenue and customers, smashing estimates for the quarter.

Yuan’s lips move a little, but there’s no sound. His eyes glance around the screen as if he’s looking for something.

He’s on mute.

Yuan recovers from the 15 seconds of awkwardness and steams ahead with his prepared remarks, thanking frontline workers and reflecting on the role Zoom found itself plunged into as the Covid-19 pandemic abruptly made physical meetings inadvisable and stoked new demand for digital alternatives. “Navigating this process has been a humbling learning experience, giving us a newfound appreciation of what it means to be a video communications technology provider in times of need,” he says.

Zoom is the pandemic’s success story. As lockdowns around the world closed offices and made working from home compulsory for vast sections of the working population, businesses and individuals grasped for a way to carry on at a distance. If it felt like everyone was suddenly using Zoom, that’s because they were: in April, Zoom peaked at over 300 million daily meeting participants – up from ten million in December 2019. Its measurement of “annualised meeting minutes” jumped 20-fold, from 100 billion at the end of January to over two trillion in April. For the quarter ending April 30 2020, Zoom reported total revenue of $328.2 million, a 169 per cent increase from the same period last year.

Covid-19 forced the world of work to adapt. But is this a glimpse of the future of the workplace, or will our love affair with video technology dissolve as soon as the virus recedes, the office re-opens and Zoom fatigue sets in? Given a real choice, will we continue to do business via webcam – or will we leave our microphones permanently on mute?

As the novel coronavirus spread across the world, life didn’t change too much for employees of GitLab. While other knowledge workers packed up their laptops and wondered if they’d be back before their office plants died, the software company’s 1,300 staff stayed largely where they were.

GitLab, which makes a collaborative tool for software development, has operated as an all-remote company since it was founded in 2011, and now has team members across 65 countries. When Covid-19 hit, some employees had to leave coworking spaces and others had to grapple with children invading their home offices, but work continued mostly as usual. Meetings: all conducted over Zoom. Office socials, team lunches and pizza parties: also over Zoom.

“Zoom is a critical part of how we communicate,” says Darren Murph, GitLab’s head of remote, speaking (over Zoom) from his home in North Carolina. The company originally used Google Hangouts for video calls but switched to Zoom in 2016 as the platform could better accommodate large numbers of virtual meeting participants. Earlier this year, GitLab held an all-hands kickoff meeting with more than 600 attendees. “Most other tools would fold under that kind of load, and Zoom can handle massive scale without a problem,” Murph says.

GitLab’s company handbook includes extensive guidelines on how to use Zoom for meetings, catch-ups and social check-ins, some of which contradict the general consensus on video-call etiquette. One states that it’s completely fine to look away or not pay attention in a video meeting, and to respond “Sorry, what were you saying?” when someone mentions your name. “Otherwise, I'm essentially wasting 20 minutes of my day per call just looking into this webcam, even though I could be doing much better things,” Murph says. “You have to set the culture of, like, it's okay to manage your own attention.”

Under lockdown, the company added a new entry to the handbook: Zoom “juicebox chats”, a variation of its usual virtual coffee meetings for employees’ children to talk and compare toys during breaks from home-schooling.

Thanks to coronavirus, Murph believes that soon GitLab’s work-from-anywhere approach will not be unusual. “If your output is digital, I think now is the best time ever to consider leaving the office and switching to all-remote,” he says. In May, Google and Facebook said most of their employees would work from home until 2021, and Twitter said those who wanted to could now work from home forever.

Prithwiraj Choudhury, an associate professor at Harvard Business School who studies remote working and who has produced a case study on GitLab, says there are strategic as well as HR advantages to an all-remote team. It reduces the cost of office space and travel, can avoid complications with visas for foreign employees, and can appeal to a broader range of talent, such as parents seeking flexible arrangements or military spouses who move frequently. In his research, Choudhury – who says he is “probably the leading academic cheerleader” for remote working – has found that a company’s productivity can increase when people work away from the office.

Where an all-remote team may previously have seemed radical, the coronavirus pandemic forced many companies to give it a go, becoming unwitting participants in a global remote-working experiment (WIRED was among the guinea pigs, switching to Zoom for daily stand-ups, editorial meetings and Friday team drinks – the last with progressively dwindling enthusiasm as the weeks in lockdown mounted up).

Murph, who personally started working remotely “before 3G was invented”, says the main barrier is not technology but management. And Covid-19 has shown many managers that allowing their staff to work from home may not be as detrimental to productivity as they perhaps feared. Moving forward, if a job candidate asks about flexible working arrangements, “I think all companies now will have to have that answer, because of Covid,” Murph says. “There's no way you can just say, ‘Oh, we haven't thought about it.’”

With users around the world, Zoom began to notice an impact from coronavirus quite early, first in Asia and then across Europe. “You could say in January we started to sense there was something dramatic,” says Abe Smith, Zoom’s head of international. He speaks to me over Zoom from the Bay Area, briefly switching his digital background of the Golden Gate Bridge to one of the WIRED logo and then the British royal family by means of introduction.

At the end of February, Zoom suspended its 40-minute time limit for some free users in China, the country then most affected by the outbreak, and started posting tips and guidance for those new to working from home. “By February, we knew that there was something very, very dramatic in the making, so to speak,” Smith says. “By March it was full-on.”

Though many have only become familiar with the name in recent months, Zoom is not a new company; it was founded in 2011 and completed an initial public offering in 2019. Its origin story harks back to the 1990s, when Eric Yuan, then studying at Shandong University of Science and Technology in China, got fed up with taking a ten-hour train journey to visit his now-wife and wanted an easier way to see her face. He moved to the US in 1997 and worked at videoconferencing startup Webex, which was later taken over by Cisco, for 14 years before leaving to start his own company.

Cisco Webex remains a competitor in the enterprise videoconferencing space, and Zoom is also up against the likes of Microsoft Teams, Google Meet (née Hangouts), Skype, GoToMeeting and BlueJeans. Yet, as the coronavirus spread, it was Zoom that made the transition from brand to verb. In April, Microsoft reported that Teams had reached 200 million daily meeting participants and Google said Meet had more than 100 million, compared with Zoom’s 300 million.

Part of Zoom’s coronavirus success is likely due to the fact that individuals can join and host meetings, with some limitations, for free – although it also saw a steep rise in paying business users, boasting a 354 per cent year-over-year increase in customers with more than ten employees in its quarterly earnings report.

Feng Li, chair of information management at Cass Business School, City, University of London, says the trend for digital collaboration tools had already been growing but was greatly accelerated by Covid-19. One advantage Zoom had over competitors, he says, was its ease of use. “It's very simple, but very good at what it does.”

Karin Moser, a professor of organisational management at London South Bank University, says Zoom was “just a bit sexier” than alternatives and had some better features, such as screen-sharing, digital backgrounds and the option to see more participants on screen at once. Marketing and media attention may also have contributed to its popularity, she adds.

For the Zoom team, the sudden influx of new users posed a challenge. “I think business school students and computer science graduates will have studied this in years to come,” says Zoom CIO adviser Magnus Falk. “It’ll be one of those case studies.”

The company’s first priority was keeping up with demand. The platform is cloud-based, and Falk says that Zoom’s 17 data centres were being managed to run under capacity anyway, with different regions in different time zones so that one could fail over to another. “So there's quite a lot of inbuilt capacity in the network already,” he says. When this wasn’t enough, Zoom turned to public cloud services operated by Amazon and Oracle. “We were adding thousands of servers, virtually, in some of these cloud centres.”

Meanwhile, the number of customer enquiries and support tickets rocketed as people wanted to get set up immediately. “We had to be responsive, we had to be thoughtful, we had to be intelligent and compassionate, because it was a very stressful time for people,” Smith says. At the same time, Zoom employees were also having to deal with lockdown; the company’s headquarters is in San Jose, in California’s Bay Area, which brought in stay-at-home orders in March.

As Zoom gained popularity, it also came under increased scrutiny, with concerns raised about the platform’s security and privacy. One issue earned the moniker “Zoombombing”, to describe people crashing Zoom meetings by finding or guessing a meeting ID. “We prefer to call it uninvited guests,” Falk says.

One of the problems, he says, was the nature and number of new users during the pandemic. Zoom’s usual customer base was businesses, who would adopt security practices such as using passwords or putting attendees in a digital “waiting room” so they could only enter the meeting if approved by an admin. Suddenly, all sorts of people were using Zoom for all sorts of things.

Falk compares the phenomenon to when teenagers used to make public Facebook events for house parties, causing hundreds of people to turn up and trash the place. One Friday night, he says, someone at Zoom noticed that a celebrity with millions of followers (he wouldn’t say who) had posted about a relative’s charity-raising Zoom session – revealing not only the meeting ID but also the password. “We were all panicking a little bit – what could go wrong?” Falk says. He ended up joining the meeting, which had thankfully enabled the waiting room feature, and spoke to the host about security controls.

Zoombombing can be more than a prank; there have been examples of people infiltrating virtual synagogue events to hurl anti-Semitic abuse and of people screen-sharing pornographic videos or even child abuse material.

Other security issues centred around Zoom’s encryption. In its marketing, Zoom had claimed it used “end-to-end encryption”, but later admitted it was using this term incorrectly – something Falk says was “kind of an own goal”. Researchers at the University of Toronto’s Citizen Lab also found that encryption keys were occasionally being sent via China even when users were in the US – something that Zoom said was a mistake owing to servers failing over to Chinese data centres, and wouldn’t happen again. Citizen Lab highlighted the fact that Zoom has many engineers in China, employed through subsidiaries, which it suggested could “open up Zoom to pressure from Chinese authorities”.

Following a stream of negative media attention, on April 1 Yuan announced that the company would freeze work on new features and spend 90 days focusing solely on privacy and security. “It was that, you know, ‘Houston we have a problem’ moment,” Falk says. Omri Herscovici, a security researcher at Check Point Software Technologies who has previously found Zoom vulnerabilities says Zoom’s response showed it was taking the issues seriously. “That's actually a pretty encouraging statement from a vendor that size,” he says.

Within a month, the company hired prominent security researchers including former Facebook chief security officer Alex Stamos, upgraded its encryption, and made passwords and waiting rooms the default. It went on to acquire encrypted messaging company Keybase, and in mid-June announced that it would offer end-to-end encryption as an option for all users; people using the free “basic” version would need to verify their phone number in an effort to stop abuse.

Yuan also took to the Zoom blog to defend the company against what he described as “disheartening rumors and misinformation” about Zoom’s links with China outside of the specific data routing incident. He said that Zoom was open about its subsidiaries in China, and that this arrangement was similar to that of other multinational tech companies. He has been a US citizen since 2007.

But controversy over Zoom’s security is unlikely to disappear. In June, the company faced new criticism for censoring activists holding Zoom events to commemorate those killed during the Tiananmen Square protests. Zoom ended three such meetings and suspended or terminated the hosts’ accounts, even though the hosts were based in the US and Hong Kong. It seemed like yet another own goal.

Zoom says that it has to comply with local laws in the countries it operates in. In a blog post, the company explained that the Chinese government had identified four planned events that it said were illegal in China, and asked Zoom to stop them. During two of the events, Zoom staff could tell from meeting metadata that some attendees were based in mainland China and so stopped the meeting. Another was ended as Zoom staff saw that a previous meeting hosted by the same account had included participants from mainland China.

Zoom says it took this action because it did not have the ability to remove specific participants from a meeting or block participants from a specific country from attending, but admitted that it had fallen short. It later reinstated the hosts’ accounts. “Going forward Zoom will not allow requests from the Chinese government to impact anyone outside of mainland China,” the company wrote.

Read more: We’re stuck in a lockdown work from home purgatory

At one point during services at St Catharine’s Church in Gloucestershire, Reverend Jo Pestell used to say: “The Lord is here.” To which the congregation would respond: “His spirit is with us.” But with regular churchgoers now no longer “here” themselves, she found that the liturgy needed an update. “So I’m saying, ‘The Lord is with each household,’” she says.

St Catharine’s started holding Zoom church services on March 22, after which worshippers were no longer allowed to meet in person. “I chose to use Zoom because I felt like it would give us the best way of replicating what we did on a Sunday, in terms of people being able to see each other and interact with each other,” Pestell says. She estimates that 95 per cent of people have managed to join the virtual services, with some members dialling in by phone if they don’t have a smart device.

Zoom was designed as an enterprise tool, but when the pandemic hit it suddenly found itself actually enabling what so many tech companies try vainly to reproduce: community. There were Zoom coffee meetings, Zoom happy hours, endless Zoom pub quizzes. Gyms offered Zoom pilates classes and HIIT workouts; chefs put on Zoom cooking classes; choirs Zoomed together with their instruments. You could join a Zoom Alcoholics Anonymous meeting, or attend a Zoom Black Lives Matter protest. People had Zoom weddings – and, in a sad reflection of the times, Zoom funerals.

Many of these extra-curriculars, Zoom Head of UK and Ireland Phil Perry points out, also represent small businesses. “A yoga class isn’t just a social thing, there’s people that run their businesses that way.”

For many, Zoom became a social lifeline. The women’s committee at East London Mosque turned to video calls during lockdown as they were worried that women in their community could feel particularly isolated, especially with Ramadan approaching. They decided to try hosting a monthly Zoom event in Bengali and English. In the first meeting, they went over their 100-participant limit and had to upgrade their plan. “What was really interesting was this wasn't necessarily women that would ordinarily attend the mosque,” Ruhana Ali, a trustee of the mosque, says. Some weren’t even from London, joining from across the UK.

There were some teething issues; one particular concern was that men might try to join the women-only session or could be caught in the background of someone’s video. They decided this would be impossible to completely prevent, and so warned women joining that if they wore a headscarf they might want to keep it on for the call.

Both Ali and Pestell are considering holding Zoom events even after the coronavirus lockdown lifts. Pestell says that it has made services accessible to some people who wouldn’t be able to make it to church every week, such as people with disabilities and missionaries working overseas.

But while video offers some advantages, she says it is no real substitute for meeting in person. “There isn’t a comparison,” she says. “When I break bread on a Sunday and people are coming up for Communion, there’s that really personal moment of connection. That’s not there in the same way.”

This is a common sentiment among people I speak to: for all its potential efficiencies, a Zoom call just isn’t the same as an in-person meeting. Denise Freeman, a Manchester-based therapist, started using the service in April. While she found it a positive experience, it lacked an element of personal contact. Usually, she would take cues from a client’s body language during a therapy session, but only being able to see their head and shoulders meant she had to encourage clients to verbalise their feelings more. “I miss being able to look at the whole person, so I’m having to sort of delve a little bit deeper,” she says.

It’s this lack of body language and other contextual cues that cyberpsychologist Linda Kaye, a senior lecturer at Edge Hill University, says may be responsible for “Zoom fatigue” – the feeling of tiredness that many people report after spending time on webcam. “You're trying to pay more attention to those social cues that actually, that can become very effortful,” she says.

And then there’s the issue of eye contact. Sherry Turkle, professor of the social studies of science and technology at MIT and author of several influential books on our evolving relationships with technology, explains that in order to give other people the illusion of connection on a Zoom call, you have to deprive yourself of the same. “Very soon, you learn that to make other people think you're making eye contact, you have to stare not at anybody but the little green light on your computer, the aperture of the camera, so you feel completely alone.”

When MIT was no longer able to teach its regular classes due to coronavirus, Turkle, with her expertise in human-computer interaction, vowed to become the best Zoom teacher. But while she praises Zoom’s ease of use, something was missing. “No matter how good it gets, you have more polish, but you don't have presence.”

In her personal life, Turkle has also found videoconferencing to fall short. Watching a poetry reading that would usually have her enrapt until the lights went down, she felt she’d had enough after 20 minutes. When she held a Zoom Seder at the start of Passover, still early in the pandemic for the US, some people left early and others struggled to concentrate. “I knew I was supposed to feel happy that we were all together,” she says. “But it was more like we were supposed to feel that. It wasn't that we really were.”

At the beginning of June, British MPs lined up around Westminster to vote on whether to end virtual parliament, brought in to limit the spread of Covid-19. The socially-distanced queue was about one kilometre long, with MPs waiting more than 30 minutes to enter the chamber and cast their ayes and noes. While the motion was passed, to outsiders the spectacle looked farcical.

Post-pandemic, the same could be true of old workplace habits. “When you try to revert back to the old way of doing things, some of them will become very silly,” Feng Li says.

Most people won’t expect their workplaces to follow GitLab in going all-remote, at least not for now. “It's definitely going to be a hybrid model,” Li says. Moser predicts that more people will work some days in the office and some at home. “I think we were going that way anyway, but we would have gone at a much slower pace,” she says.

The advantages are obvious: no commute, savings on office space, environmental benefits and increased efficiencies due to people not having to travel between one meeting and the next.

Making the transition, however, isn’t as simple as just transposing the office on to video. Virtual management needs to be carefully handled; a culture of digital presenteeism can soon creep in, with people feeling they need to be visible online all the time, and technical limitations can stymie discussion or favour certain voices. Kaye points out that it can take more effort to make sure you get your turn in a Zoom meeting, meaning those with more confidence may dominate.

Moser is concerned that digital communication can lead to greater bias, owing to deindividuation effects: essentially, if we only see a person in the context of a virtual meeting, we may see them less as a full individual and more as a 2D representation of their role, gender, age or ethnic background. “You still get a different sense of the person if you are actually sharing physical space,” she says.

Extra effort is required to try to replicate “watercooler” moments, and creativity and culture are harder to digitise than just efficiency.

A greater reliance on video meetings could also have implications on the way organisations work as a whole. One advantage of video, Li says, is that it can be recorded to share or refer back to. “What that means is you can have a permanent record of a lot of this kind of organisational knowledge,” he says.

This point may seem obvious, but I get a glimpse of how it could change the way a company works when I speak to Mike Adams, co-founder and CEO of Grain, a startup built completely around Zoom (Adams is a big Zoom believer, having previously founded MissionU, a Zoom-based college alternative that sold to WeWork in 2018).

The purpose of Grain, which is currently in private beta, is to make it easier to take notes and share clips from Zoom meetings. Adams demonstrates how he can annotate a video call with notes and automated timestamps. He then shows how he can find and share video clips from an earlier meeting using a text search. The result is a meeting that is not just recorded, but easily searchable and shareable.

When I mention to Adams that it feels a bit ominous that all my offhand comments in meetings could be stored and resurfaced forever, he emphasises the need for an updated consent model for video recording.

“What you're creating is a searchable shared brain,” Adams says. “You're creating a contextualised history of the conversations that are happening in the act of doing work.”

Read more: ‘It’s bullshit’: Inside the weird, get-rich-quick world of dropshipping

Following its first-quarter results, the main question for Zoom is how many of its new users gained during the pandemic will stick around for the long run. In its financial guidance for the full 2021 fiscal year, it says it takes into account demand for remote work solutions but also assumes a higher rate of churn in the second half of the year than usual, owing to a higher number of people taking out monthly subscriptions in the first quarter. It puts expected revenue at between $1.775 billion and $1.8 billion.

In terms of the company’s future direction, Abe Smith highlights Zoom Phone, its answer to traditional enterprise phone systems, and Zoom Rooms, which fits out physical conference rooms for video meetings, as areas of focus. He envisages more potential business use cases for Zoom, such as sales teams incorporating video calls into their CRM or help-desk staff walking through problems over video instead of a phone call.

Dave Grant, Zoom’s manager of customer success EMEA, says the company has seen a rise in demand for online events, “so I think that's going to be an ever-growing part of what we offer.”

Grant sees future innovation also coming from Zoom’s app marketplace, which allows other tools to integrate with the platform. You can connect Zoom with Slack, for instance, in order to immediately start a video meeting from within the messaging app. “Every time we offer a new way to integrate an application that's as important to our customers as we are, then we're delivering more value,” he says.

Li says that Zoom’s ability to integrate with other platforms is an advantage. While Zoom is focused specifically on video, he says, we may soon see a company develop a whole new digital working environment, encapsulating all elements of the virtual workspace – an operating system for remote work. “That kind of competition is going to be extremely brutal, because if anyone succeeds at becoming the entry point for people, especially now people spend more and more time working online… Whoever succeeds in that is going to be extremely successful,” he says.

In Zoom’s Q1 earnings call, Yuan said that Zoom’s priority at the moment is keeping the service running smoothly, and that the company would then start to look at where to double down on growth areas. “For now, one thing we know for sure is the TAM [Total Available Market] is bigger than we thought before,” he said.

He ruled out supporting advertising or selling customer data, and said that Zoom was “laser-focused” on video and voice. “I truly believe video is the new voice,” he said. “Video is going to change everything about communication – the way for us to work, live and play is completely changing. From that perspective, there’s a huge opportunity.”

Vicki Turk is WIRED's features editor. She tweets from @VickiTurk

This article was originally published by WIRED UK

Zoom supports boom in channel business with Nintex

When businesses, schools, and organizations of all types moved their activities online in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, the demand for video communication services skyrocketed. At Zoom Video Communications, Inc., the total daily meeting participants soared 30x in four months, with a 354% increase of customers with more than 10 employees compared to the year before. Even Zoom’s more narrow channel market, which serves enterprise customers via distributors and other partners, saw new orders jump fivefold.

Processing and tracking those new channel orders to the point of provisioning had been a challenge for Zoom even before the surge of new business. The bottleneck was a set of manual processes based around email and spreadsheets. Zoom had moved to a combination of Zendesk for order tracking and Salesforce for order management, but the process still required Zoom personnel to handle each order six or more times, including follow-ups to the large sales team to create quotes and obtain approvals, and to the provisioning team to implement the new accounts.

Zoom worked with Pacific BPA, a Nintex Premier Partner, to design and deploy a solution built on Nintex Workflow Cloud in just three weeks. Now, when a new order is entered in Zendesk, it triggers the workflow, which automates all interaction between Zendesk and Salesforce.

Who they are

Zoom Video Communications, Inc. provides cloud-based video and web conferencing to bring teams together to get more done in a frictionless environment. With 2,800+ employees worldwide, Zoom helps enterprises create elevated experiences with leading business app integrations and developer tools.

What they need

Zoom already needed to scale up its processing of channel orders to meet rising demand when the company experienced a boom in business during the COVID-19 crisis. Then, the need became critical.

How they did it

Zoom replaced its largely manual order tracking and management process with a solution built on Nintex Workflow Cloud that integrates with Zendesk and Salesforce to automate the steps from order intake through purchase-order confirmation and provisioning.

Now positioned for massive growth

Zoom considered and rejected a robotic process automation solution as lacking the flexibility the company needed to deal with numerous channel partners, each with its own requirements for purchase orders, email confirmations, and other documentation. Instead, it needed a flexible, highly automated, and highly scalable workflow solution.

The Nintex solution is integrated with Salesforce and Zendesk. As the business processes move from new order to provisioned order, the Nintex Workflow updates all systems, automates reminders to the sales team to create partner-specific purchase orders, and sends notifications of status updates to the channel operations, sales, and provisioning teams. The workflow handles 90% of orders fully, 50% more than initially expected. As a result, Zoom is handling the significant increase in channel business and doing so more efficiently and cost-effectively than before.

The amount of manual touches we needed was very difficult for us even at the lower, pre-COVID-19 volume. We would never have been able to keep up without our use of Nintex. Now, we’re not only keeping up with much higher volume, but we’re sending out auto-confirmations to partners consistently and in real-time, as opposed to taking up to three days.

National Gallery Singapore responds to contingency requirements with Nintex

Naylor Love builds a safer workplace with the Nintex Platform

Request a live demo, please wait while form loads..., couldn't load the form..

Please disable your ad blocker or try a different browser. If you continue to experience issues, please contact [email protected]

• Privacy Policy
• Terms of Use

As Zoom moved upmarket, their existing billing system was not supporting their needs for more customization, more reporting, and more pricing and packaging flexibility. According to Sunil Madan, Head of Business Operations for Zoom, “It was going to get out of control” and was completely unscalable.

Zoom is a leading provider of video and web conferencing services.

To sustain growth as they expand their business to multiple product lines, multiple geographies, and through multiple channels.

The Zuora platform supports Zoom’s multiple growth initiatives and provides the operational backbone they need.

In 2016, Zoom announced 215% YoY growth in usage. By 2017 650,000 businesses were on Zoom.

“The biggest advantage Zuora gives Zoom? The speed to deliver.” —Sunil Madan, Head of Business Operations for Zoom

Cloud-based video conferencing company Zoom was founded in 2011 by former engineers from Cisco and WebEx. After Zoom launched their video conferencing software to the public in February 2013, they quickly attracted over 20,000 businesses and 1,400 educational institutions globally.

In the beginning, their growth was organic, with technology companies and higher education as early adopters, happily embracing Zoom technology.

According to Janelle Raney, Product Marketing for Zoom, “Freemium has always been a big engine,” driving conversions to paid accounts. Since Zoom is a collaborative platform, it naturally lends itself to viral growth—every time you invite someone new to a meeting, they get to know Zoom (and to know Zoom, is to love Zoom!).

But word-of-mouth growth can only take a company so far. As Zoom grew up, they needed to be more strategic about their growth. To do this, they needed the right foundation.

As they moved upmarket, their existing billing system was not supporting their customers’ needs. They had no quoting solution and were relying on inefficient MS Word docs and spreadsheets. According to Sunil Madan, Head of Business Operations for Zoom, “It was going to get out of control” and was completely unscalable.

To work with mid-market and enterprise customers, they needed more: more customization, more reporting, different plans, easy discounting. And big logos had unique requirements which Zoom’s former billing system couldn’t support. So they went looking for a platform solution to help them mature as a company.

Enter Zuora.

In 2015, Zoom implemented Zuora in just four months. Since that time, they’ve experienced exponential growth and received numerous industry kudos alongside an additional huge funding round from Sequoia that places Zoom at a $1B valuation.

In short, Zuora is supporting Zoom’s growth by providing:

• Pricing and packaging flexibility which allows Zoom to design customized product editions engineered to increase deals and ACV per deal.
• Deep insight into customer usage to help identify upsell opportunities and build strategic upsell paths.
• Support for online account management and a range of online payment methods for self-service customers—both of which are essential to drive customer satisfaction, conversions, and upgrades.
• An enterprise multi-entity version of Zuora which is key to their planned international expansion: a strategic priority for Zoom.

As a result of their awesome product and strategic growth, customers, journalists, and analysts alike all laud Zoom’s services. In November 2016, Zoom announced 215% year-over-year growth in usage and was named a leader in Gartner’s Magic Quadrant for Web Conferencing (according to Raney, the Zuora infrastructure was a “definite factor” in this award).  And in January 2017, they raised $100M in Series D funding and Okta announced Zoom as the fastest growing app on their platform.

Zoom is growing fast, with demands from sales and marketing, billing, operations, and finance that they need to stay ahead of—not to mention the over 650,000 companies who put their trust in Zoom. In response to this high demand, according to Madan, “The biggest advantage Zuora gives Zoom? The speed to deliver.”

Before Zuora, Zoom had no standardized quoting solution, relying instead on inefficient MS Word docs and spreadsheets.

In 2015, Zoom implemented Zuora in just four months. Since that time, they’ve experienced exponential growth, with a 215% YoY growth in usage in 2016.

• The Zuora Monetization Suite
• Freemium Business Model: A Guide for...
• Design flexible pricing and bill for every...

Thanks for signing up!

You'll receive a weekly digest of must-read articles and key resources.

• Contact Sales

ZoomInfo Case Studies

Check out the case studies below to see how companies like yours use ZoomInfo to achieve successful business outcomes.

Increase in win rates

Decrease in marketing spend

Increase in overall productivity

Trusted by 35,000+ businesses

Featured Success Stories

demandDrive

Phoenix Children’s Foundation

It's Our Business to Grow Yours

Get the B2B data and software you need to connect with and close your most valuable buyers — all in one operating system.

We help 35,000+ customers find, acquire, and grow customers.

Christine trodella.

Head of B2B Sales, Reality Labs, Meta

A data-driven playbook is the biggest difference between the average and the highest performing company.

Thor Sanderson

Senior Manager of Sales Technology Enablement, Smartsheet

Without ZoomInfo, it would be extremely difficult — if not impossible — to achieve our business objectives. Without it, we wouldn’t be able to understand the market, have the right contact data, and make meaningful connections.

Head of Sales Data Science, Snowflake

I give a lot of credit to the data services team at ZoomInfo. They’ve done really a great job working with us to get us what we need.

Ready to own your market?

• Design for Business
• Most Recent
• Presentations
• Infographics
• Data Visualizations
• Forms and Surveys
• Video & Animation
• Case Studies
• Digital Marketing
• Design Inspiration
• Visual Thinking
• Product Updates
• Visme Webinars
• Artificial Intelligence

15 Real-Life Case Study Examples & Best Practices

Written by: Oghale Olori

Case studies are more than just success stories.

They are powerful tools that demonstrate the practical value of your product or service. Case studies help attract attention to your products, build trust with potential customers and ultimately drive sales.

It’s no wonder that 73% of successful content marketers utilize case studies as part of their content strategy. Plus, buyers spend 54% of their time reviewing case studies before they make a buying decision.

To ensure you’re making the most of your case studies, we’ve put together 15 real-life case study examples to inspire you. These examples span a variety of industries and formats. We’ve also included best practices, design tips and templates to inspire you.

Let’s dive in!

Table of Contents

What is a case study, 15 real-life case study examples, sales case study examples, saas case study examples, product case study examples, marketing case study examples, business case study examples, case study faqs.

• A case study is a compelling narrative that showcases how your product or service has positively impacted a real business or individual. 
• Case studies delve into your customer's challenges, how your solution addressed them and the quantifiable results they achieved.
• Your case study should have an attention-grabbing headline, great visuals and a relevant call to action. Other key elements include an introduction, problems and result section.
• Visme provides easy-to-use tools, professionally designed templates and features for creating attractive and engaging case studies.

A case study is a real-life scenario where your company helped a person or business solve their unique challenges. It provides a detailed analysis of the positive outcomes achieved as a result of implementing your solution.

Case studies are an effective way to showcase the value of your product or service to potential customers without overt selling. By sharing how your company transformed a business, you can attract customers seeking similar solutions and results.

Case studies are not only about your company's capabilities; they are primarily about the benefits customers and clients have experienced from using your product.

Every great case study is made up of key elements. They are;

• Attention-grabbing headline: Write a compelling headline that grabs attention and tells your reader what the case study is about. For example, "How a CRM System Helped a B2B Company Increase Revenue by 225%.
• Introduction/Executive Summary: Include a brief overview of your case study, including your customer’s problem, the solution they implemented and the results they achieved.
• Problem/Challenge: Case studies with solutions offer a powerful way to connect with potential customers. In this section, explain how your product or service specifically addressed your customer's challenges.
• Solution: Explain how your product or service specifically addressed your customer's challenges.
• Results/Achievements : Give a detailed account of the positive impact of your product. Quantify the benefits achieved using metrics such as increased sales, improved efficiency, reduced costs or enhanced customer satisfaction.
• Graphics/Visuals: Include professional designs, high-quality photos and videos to make your case study more engaging and visually appealing.
• Quotes/Testimonials: Incorporate written or video quotes from your clients to boost your credibility.
• Relevant CTA: Insert a call to action (CTA) that encourages the reader to take action. For example, visiting your website or contacting you for more information. Your CTA can be a link to a landing page, a contact form or your social media handle and should be related to the product or service you highlighted in your case study.

Now that you understand what a case study is, let’s look at real-life case study examples. Among these, you'll find some simple case study examples that break down complex ideas into easily understandable solutions.

In this section, we’ll explore SaaS, marketing, sales, product and business case study examples with solutions. Take note of how these companies structured their case studies and included the key elements.

We’ve also included professionally designed case study templates to inspire you.

1. Georgia Tech Athletics Increase Season Ticket Sales by 80%

Georgia Tech Athletics, with its 8,000 football season ticket holders, sought for a way to increase efficiency and customer engagement.

Their initial sales process involved making multiple outbound phone calls per day with no real targeting or guidelines. Georgia Tech believed that targeting communications will enable them to reach more people in real time.

Salesloft improved Georgia Tech’s sales process with an inbound structure. This enabled sales reps to connect with their customers on a more targeted level. The use of dynamic fields and filters when importing lists ensured prospects received the right information, while communication with existing fans became faster with automation.

As a result, Georgia Tech Athletics recorded an 80% increase in season ticket sales as relationships with season ticket holders significantly improved. Employee engagement increased as employees became more energized to connect and communicate with fans.

Why Does This Case Study Work?

In this case study example , Salesloft utilized the key elements of a good case study. Their introduction gave an overview of their customers' challenges and the results they enjoyed after using them. After which they categorized the case study into three main sections: challenge, solution and result.

Salesloft utilized a case study video to increase engagement and invoke human connection.

Incorporating videos in your case study has a lot of benefits. Wyzol’s 2023 state of video marketing report showed a direct correlation between videos and an 87% increase in sales.

The beautiful thing is that creating videos for your case study doesn’t have to be daunting.

With an easy-to-use platform like Visme, you can create top-notch testimonial videos that will connect with your audience. Within the Visme editor, you can access over 1 million stock photos , video templates, animated graphics and more. These tools and resources will significantly improve the design and engagement of your case study.

Simplify content creation and brand management for your team

• Collaborate on designs , mockups and wireframes with your non-design colleagues
• Lock down your branding to maintain brand consistency throughout your designs
• Why start from scratch? Save time with 1000s of professional branded templates

Sign up. It’s free.

2. WeightWatchers Completely Revamped their Enterprise Sales Process with HubSpot

WeightWatchers, a 60-year-old wellness company, sought a CRM solution that increased the efficiency of their sales process. With their previous system, Weightwatchers had limited automation. They would copy-paste message templates from word documents or recreate one email for a batch of customers.

This required a huge effort from sales reps, account managers and leadership, as they were unable to track leads or pull customized reports for planning and growth.

WeightWatchers transformed their B2B sales strategy by leveraging HubSpot's robust marketing and sales workflows. They utilized HubSpot’s deal pipeline and automation features to streamline lead qualification. And the customized dashboard gave leadership valuable insights.

As a result, WeightWatchers generated seven figures in annual contract value and boosted recurring revenue. Hubspot’s impact resulted in 100% adoption across all sales, marketing, client success and operations teams.

Hubspot structured its case study into separate sections, demonstrating the specific benefits of their products to various aspects of the customer's business. Additionally, they integrated direct customer quotes in each section to boost credibility, resulting in a more compelling case study.

Getting insight from your customer about their challenges is one thing. But writing about their process and achievements in a concise and relatable way is another. If you find yourself constantly experiencing writer’s block, Visme’s AI writer is perfect for you.

Visme created this AI text generator tool to take your ideas and transform them into a great draft. So whether you need help writing your first draft or editing your final case study, Visme is ready for you.

3. Immi’s Ram Fam Helps to Drive Over $200k in Sales

Immi embarked on a mission to recreate healthier ramen recipes that were nutritious and delicious. After 2 years of tireless trials, Immi finally found the perfect ramen recipe. However, they envisioned a community of passionate ramen enthusiasts to fuel their business growth.

This vision propelled them to partner with Shopify Collabs. Shopify Collabs successfully cultivated and managed Immi’s Ramen community of ambassadors and creators.

As a result of their partnership, Immi’s community grew to more than 400 dedicated members, generating over $200,000 in total affiliate sales.

The power of data-driven headlines cannot be overemphasized. Chili Piper strategically incorporates quantifiable results in their headlines. This instantly sparks curiosity and interest in readers.

While not every customer success story may boast headline-grabbing figures, quantifying achievements in percentages is still effective. For example, you can highlight a 50% revenue increase with the implementation of your product.

Take a look at the beautiful case study template below. Just like in the example above, the figures in the headline instantly grab attention and entice your reader to click through.

Having a case study document is a key factor in boosting engagement. This makes it easy to promote your case study in multiple ways. With Visme, you can easily publish, download and share your case study with your customers in a variety of formats, including PDF, PPTX, JPG and more!

4. How WOW! is Saving Nearly 79% in Time and Cost With Visme

This case study discusses how Visme helped WOW! save time and money by providing user-friendly tools to create interactive and quality training materials for their employees. Find out what your team can do with Visme. Request a Demo

WOW!'s learning and development team creates high-quality training materials for new and existing employees. Previous tools and platforms they used had plain templates, little to no interactivity features, and limited flexibility—that is, until they discovered Visme.

Now, the learning and development team at WOW! use Visme to create engaging infographics, training videos, slide decks and other training materials.

This has directly reduced the company's turnover rate, saving them money spent on recruiting and training new employees. It has also saved them a significant amount of time, which they can now allocate to other important tasks.

Visme's customer testimonials spark an emotional connection with the reader, leaving a profound impact. Upon reading this case study, prospective customers will be blown away by the remarkable efficiency achieved by Visme's clients after switching from PowerPoint.

Visme’s interactivity feature was a game changer for WOW! and one of the primary reasons they chose Visme.

“Previously we were using PowerPoint, which is fine, but the interactivity you can get with Visme is so much more robust that we’ve all steered away from PowerPoint.” - Kendra, L&D team, Wow!

Visme’s interactive feature allowed them to animate their infographics, include clickable links on their PowerPoint designs and even embed polls and quizzes their employees could interact with.

By embedding the slide decks, infographics and other training materials WOW! created with Visme, potential customers get a taste of what they can create with the tool. This is much more effective than describing the features of Visme because it allows potential customers to see the tool in action.

To top it all off, this case study utilized relevant data and figures. For example, one part of the case study said, “In Visme, where Kendra’s team has access to hundreds of templates, a brand kit, and millions of design assets at their disposal, their team can create presentations in 80% less time.”

Who wouldn't want that?

Including relevant figures and graphics in your case study is a sure way to convince your potential customers why you’re a great fit for their brand. The case study template below is a great example of integrating relevant figures and data.

This colorful template begins with a captivating headline. But that is not the best part; this template extensively showcases the results their customer had using relevant figures.

The arrangement of the results makes it fun and attractive. Instead of just putting figures in a plain table, you can find interesting shapes in your Visme editor to take your case study to the next level.

5. Lyte Reduces Customer Churn To Just 3% With Hubspot CRM

While Lyte was redefining the ticketing industry, it had no definite CRM system . Lyte utilized 12–15 different SaaS solutions across various departments, which led to a lack of alignment between teams, duplication of work and overlapping tasks.

Customer data was spread across these platforms, making it difficult to effectively track their customer journey. As a result, their churn rate increased along with customer dissatisfaction.

Through Fuelius , Lyte founded and implemented Hubspot CRM. Lyte's productivity skyrocketed after incorporating Hubspot's all-in-one CRM tool. With improved efficiency, better teamwork and stronger client relationships, sales figures soared.

The case study title page and executive summary act as compelling entry points for both existing and potential customers. This overview provides a clear understanding of the case study and also strategically incorporates key details like the client's industry, location and relevant background information.

Having a good summary of your case study can prompt your readers to engage further. You can achieve this with a simple but effective case study one-pager that highlights your customer’s problems, process and achievements, just like this case study did in the beginning.

Moreover, you can easily distribute your case study one-pager and use it as a lead magnet to draw prospective customers to your company.

Take a look at this case study one-pager template below.

This template includes key aspects of your case study, such as the introduction, key findings, conclusion and more, without overcrowding the page. The use of multiple shades of blue gives it a clean and dynamic layout.

Our favorite part of this template is where the age group is visualized.

With Visme’s data visualization tool , you can present your data in tables, graphs, progress bars, maps and so much more. All you need to do is choose your preferred data visualization widget, input or import your data and click enter!

6. How Workato Converts 75% of Their Qualified Leads

Workato wanted to improve their inbound leads and increase their conversion rate, which ranged from 40-55%.

At first, Workato searched for a simple scheduling tool. They soon discovered that they needed a tool that provided advanced routing capabilities based on zip code and other criteria. Luckily, they found and implemented Chili Piper.

As a result of implementing Chili Piper, Workato achieved a remarkable 75–80% conversion rate and improved show rates. This led to a substantial revenue boost, with a 10-15% increase in revenue attributed to Chili Piper's impact on lead conversion.

This case study example utilizes the power of video testimonials to drive the impact of their product.

Chili Piper incorporates screenshots and clips of their tool in use. This is a great strategy because it helps your viewers become familiar with how your product works, making onboarding new customers much easier.

In this case study example, we see the importance of efficient Workflow Management Systems (WMS). Without a WMS, you manually assign tasks to your team members and engage in multiple emails for regular updates on progress.

However, when crafting and designing your case study, you should prioritize having a good WMS.

Visme has an outstanding Workflow Management System feature that keeps you on top of all your projects and designs. This feature makes it much easier to assign roles, ensure accuracy across documents, and track progress and deadlines.

Visme’s WMS feature allows you to limit access to your entire document by assigning specific slides or pages to individual members of your team. At the end of the day, your team members are not overwhelmed or distracted by the whole document but can focus on their tasks.

7. Rush Order Helps Vogmask Scale-Up During a Pandemic

Vomask's reliance on third-party fulfillment companies became a challenge as demand for their masks grew. Seeking a reliable fulfillment partner, they found Rush Order and entrusted them with their entire inventory.

Vomask's partnership with Rush Order proved to be a lifesaver during the COVID-19 pandemic. Rush Order's agility, efficiency and commitment to customer satisfaction helped Vogmask navigate the unprecedented demand and maintain its reputation for quality and service.

Rush Order’s comprehensive support enabled Vogmask to scale up its order processing by a staggering 900% while maintaining a remarkable customer satisfaction rate of 92%.

Rush Order chose one event where their impact mattered the most to their customer and shared that story.

While pandemics don't happen every day, you can look through your customer’s journey and highlight a specific time or scenario where your product or service saved their business.

The story of Vogmask and Rush Order is compelling, but it simply is not enough. The case study format and design attract readers' attention and make them want to know more. Rush Order uses consistent colors throughout the case study, starting with the logo, bold square blocks, pictures, and even headers.

Take a look at this product case study template below.

Just like our example, this case study template utilizes bold colors and large squares to attract and maintain the reader’s attention. It provides enough room for you to write about your customers' backgrounds/introductions, challenges, goals and results.

The right combination of shapes and colors adds a level of professionalism to this case study template.

8. AMR Hair & Beauty leverages B2B functionality to boost sales by 200%

With limits on website customization, slow page loading and multiple website crashes during peak events, it wasn't long before AMR Hair & Beauty began looking for a new e-commerce solution.

Their existing platform lacked effective search and filtering options, a seamless checkout process and the data analytics capabilities needed for informed decision-making. This led to a significant number of abandoned carts.

Upon switching to Shopify Plus, AMR immediately saw improvements in page loading speed and average session duration. They added better search and filtering options for their wholesale customers and customized their checkout process.

Due to this, AMR witnessed a 200% increase in sales and a 77% rise in B2B average order value. AMR Hair & Beauty is now poised for further expansion and growth.

This case study example showcases the power of a concise and impactful narrative.

To make their case analysis more effective, Shopify focused on the most relevant aspects of the customer's journey. While there may have been other challenges the customer faced, they only included those that directly related to their solutions.

Take a look at this case study template below. It is perfect if you want to create a concise but effective case study. Without including unnecessary details, you can outline the challenges, solutions and results your customers experienced from using your product.

Don’t forget to include a strong CTA within your case study. By incorporating a link, sidebar pop-up or an exit pop-up into your case study, you can prompt your readers and prospective clients to connect with you.

9. How a Marketing Agency Uses Visme to Create Engaging Content With Infographics

SmartBox Dental , a marketing agency specializing in dental practices, sought ways to make dental advice more interesting and easier to read. However, they lacked the design skills to do so effectively.

Visme's wide range of templates and features made it easy for the team to create high-quality content quickly and efficiently. SmartBox Dental enjoyed creating infographics in as little as 10-15 minutes, compared to one hour before Visme was implemented.

By leveraging Visme, SmartBox Dental successfully transformed dental content into a more enjoyable and informative experience for their clients' patients. Therefore enhancing its reputation as a marketing partner that goes the extra mile to deliver value to its clients.

Visme creatively incorporates testimonials In this case study example.

By showcasing infographics and designs created by their clients, they leverage the power of social proof in a visually compelling way. This way, potential customers gain immediate insight into the creative possibilities Visme offers as a design tool.

This example effectively showcases a product's versatility and impact, and we can learn a lot about writing a case study from it. Instead of focusing on one tool or feature per customer, Visme took a more comprehensive approach.

Within each section of their case study, Visme explained how a particular tool or feature played a key role in solving the customer's challenges.

For example, this case study highlighted Visme’s collaboration tool . With Visme’s tool, the SmartBox Dental content team fostered teamwork, accountability and effective supervision.

Visme also achieved a versatile case study by including relevant quotes to showcase each tool or feature. Take a look at some examples;

Visme’s collaboration tool: “We really like the collaboration tool. Being able to see what a co-worker is working on and borrow their ideas or collaborate on a project to make sure we get the best end result really helps us out.”

Visme’s library of stock photos and animated characters: “I really love the images and the look those give to an infographic. I also really like the animated little guys and the animated pictures. That’s added a lot of fun to our designs.”

Visme’s interactivity feature: “You can add URLs and phone number links directly into the infographic so they can just click and call or go to another page on the website and I really like adding those hyperlinks in.”

You can ask your customers to talk about the different products or features that helped them achieve their business success and draw quotes from each one.

10. Jasper Grows Blog Organic Sessions 810% and Blog-Attributed User Signups 400X

Jasper, an AI writing tool, lacked a scalable content strategy to drive organic traffic and user growth. They needed help creating content that converted visitors into users. Especially when a looming domain migration threatened organic traffic.

To address these challenges, Jasper partnered with Omniscient Digital. Their goal was to turn their content into a growth channel and drive organic growth. Omniscient Digital developed a full content strategy for Jasper AI, which included a content audit, competitive analysis, and keyword discovery.

Through their collaboration, Jasper’s organic blog sessions increased by 810%, despite the domain migration. They also witnessed a 400X increase in blog-attributed signups. And more importantly, the content program contributed to over $4 million in annual recurring revenue.

The combination of storytelling and video testimonials within the case study example makes this a real winner. But there’s a twist to it. Omniscient segmented the video testimonials and placed them in different sections of the case study.

Video marketing , especially in case studies, works wonders. Research shows us that 42% of people prefer video testimonials because they show real customers with real success stories. So if you haven't thought of it before, incorporate video testimonials into your case study.

Take a look at this stunning video testimonial template. With its simple design, you can input the picture, name and quote of your customer within your case study in a fun and engaging way.

Try it yourself! Customize this template with your customer’s testimonial and add it to your case study!

11. How Meliá Became One of the Most Influential Hotel Chains on Social Media

Meliá Hotels needed help managing their growing social media customer service needs. Despite having over 500 social accounts, they lacked a unified response protocol and detailed reporting. This largely hindered efficiency and brand consistency.

Meliá partnered with Hootsuite to build an in-house social customer care team. Implementing Hootsuite's tools enabled Meliá to decrease response times from 24 hours to 12.4 hours while also leveraging smart automation.

In addition to that, Meliá resolved over 133,000 conversations, booking 330 inquiries per week through Hootsuite Inbox. They significantly improved brand consistency, response time and customer satisfaction.

The need for a good case study design cannot be over-emphasized.

As soon as anyone lands on this case study example, they are mesmerized by a beautiful case study design. This alone raises the interest of readers and keeps them engaged till the end.

If you’re currently saying to yourself, “ I can write great case studies, but I don’t have the time or skill to turn it into a beautiful document.” Say no more.

Visme’s amazing AI document generator can take your text and transform it into a stunning and professional document in minutes! Not only do you save time, but you also get inspired by the design.

With Visme’s document generator, you can create PDFs, case study presentations , infographics and more!

Take a look at this case study template below. Just like our case study example, it captures readers' attention with its beautiful design. Its dynamic blend of colors and fonts helps to segment each element of the case study beautifully.

12. Tea’s Me Cafe: Tamika Catchings is Brewing Glory

Tamika's journey began when she purchased Tea's Me Cafe in 2017, saving it from closure. She recognized the potential of the cafe as a community hub and hosted regular events centered on social issues and youth empowerment.

One of Tamika’s business goals was to automate her business. She sought to streamline business processes across various aspects of her business. One of the ways she achieves this goal is through Constant Contact.

Constant Contact became an integral part of Tamika's marketing strategy. They provided an automated and centralized platform for managing email newsletters, event registrations, social media scheduling and more.

This allowed Tamika and her team to collaborate efficiently and focus on engaging with their audience. They effectively utilized features like WooCommerce integration, text-to-join and the survey builder to grow their email list, segment their audience and gather valuable feedback.

The case study example utilizes the power of storytelling to form a connection with readers. Constant Contact takes a humble approach in this case study. They spotlight their customers' efforts as the reason for their achievements and growth, establishing trust and credibility.

This case study is also visually appealing, filled with high-quality photos of their customer. While this is a great way to foster originality, it can prove challenging if your customer sends you blurry or low-quality photos.

If you find yourself in that dilemma, you can use Visme’s AI image edit tool to touch up your photos. With Visme’s AI tool, you can remove unwanted backgrounds, erase unwanted objects, unblur low-quality pictures and upscale any photo without losing the quality.

Constant Contact offers its readers various formats to engage with their case study. Including an audio podcast and PDF.

In its PDF version, Constant Contact utilized its brand colors to create a stunning case study design.  With this, they increase brand awareness and, in turn, brand recognition with anyone who comes across their case study.

With Visme’s brand wizard tool , you can seamlessly incorporate your brand assets into any design or document you create. By inputting your URL, Visme’s AI integration will take note of your brand colors, brand fonts and more and create branded templates for you automatically.

You don't need to worry about spending hours customizing templates to fit your brand anymore. You can focus on writing amazing case studies that promote your company.

13. How Breakwater Kitchens Achieved a 7% Growth in Sales With Thryv

Breakwater Kitchens struggled with managing their business operations efficiently. They spent a lot of time on manual tasks, such as scheduling appointments and managing client communication. This made it difficult for them to grow their business and provide the best possible service to their customers.

David, the owner, discovered Thryv. With Thryv, Breakwater Kitchens was able to automate many of their manual tasks. Additionally, Thryv integrated social media management. This enabled Breakwater Kitchens to deliver a consistent brand message, captivate its audience and foster online growth.

As a result, Breakwater Kitchens achieved increased efficiency, reduced missed appointments and a 7% growth in sales.

This case study example uses a concise format and strong verbs, which make it easy for readers to absorb the information.

At the top of the case study, Thryv immediately builds trust by presenting their customer's complete profile, including their name, company details and website. This allows potential customers to verify the case study's legitimacy, making them more likely to believe in Thryv's services.

However, manually copying and pasting customer information across multiple pages of your case study can be time-consuming.

To save time and effort, you can utilize Visme's dynamic field feature . Dynamic fields automatically insert reusable information into your designs.  So you don’t have to type it out multiple times.

14. Zoom’s Creative Team Saves Over 4,000 Hours With Brandfolder

Zoom experienced rapid growth with the advent of remote work and the rise of the COVID-19 pandemic. Such growth called for agility and resilience to scale through.

At the time, Zoom’s assets were disorganized which made retrieving brand information a burden. Zoom’s creative manager spent no less than 10 hours per week finding and retrieving brand assets for internal teams.

Zoom needed a more sustainable approach to organizing and retrieving brand information and came across Brandfolder. Brandfolder simplified and accelerated Zoom’s email localization and webpage development. It also enhanced the creation and storage of Zoom virtual backgrounds.

With Brandfolder, Zoom now saves 4,000+ hours every year. The company also centralized its assets in Brandfolder, which allowed 6,800+ employees and 20-30 vendors to quickly access them.

Brandfolder infused its case study with compelling data and backed it up with verifiable sources. This data-driven approach boosts credibility and increases the impact of their story.

Bradfolder's case study goes the extra mile by providing a downloadable PDF version, making it convenient for readers to access the information on their own time. Their dedication to crafting stunning visuals is evident in every aspect of the project.

From the vibrant colors to the seamless navigation, everything has been meticulously designed to leave a lasting impression on the viewer. And with clickable links that make exploring the content a breeze, the user experience is guaranteed to be nothing short of exceptional.

The thing is, your case study presentation won’t always sit on your website. There are instances where you may need to do a case study presentation for clients, partners or potential investors.

Visme has a rich library of templates you can tap into. But if you’re racing against the clock, Visme’s AI presentation maker is your best ally.

15. How Cents of Style Made $1.7M+ in Affiliate Sales with LeadDyno

Cents of Style had a successful affiliate and influencer marketing strategy. However, their existing affiliate marketing platform was not intuitive, customizable or transparent enough to meet the needs of their influencers.

Cents of Styles needed an easy-to-use affiliate marketing platform that gave them more freedom to customize their program and implement a multi-tier commission program.

After exploring their options, Cents of Style decided on LeadDyno.

LeadDyno provided more flexibility, allowing them to customize commission rates and implement their multi-tier commission structure, switching from monthly to weekly payouts.

Also, integrations with PayPal made payments smoother And features like newsletters and leaderboards added to the platform's success by keeping things transparent and engaging.

As a result, Cents of Style witnessed an impressive $1.7 million in revenue from affiliate sales with a substantial increase in web sales by 80%.

LeadDyno strategically placed a compelling CTA in the middle of their case study layout, maximizing its impact. At this point, readers are already invested in the customer's story and may be considering implementing similar strategies.

A well-placed CTA offers them a direct path to learn more and take action.

LeadDyno also utilized the power of quotes to strengthen their case study. They didn't just embed these quotes seamlessly into the text; instead, they emphasized each one with distinct blocks.

Are you looking for an easier and quicker solution to create a case study and other business documents? Try Visme's AI designer ! This powerful tool allows you to generate complete documents, such as case studies, reports, whitepapers and more, just by providing text prompts. Simply explain your requirements to the tool, and it will produce the document for you, complete with text, images, design assets and more.

Still have more questions about case studies? Let's look at some frequently asked questions.

How to Write a Case Study?

• Choose a compelling story: Not all case studies are created equal. Pick one that is relevant to your target audience and demonstrates the specific benefits of your product or service.
• Outline your case study: Create a case study outline and highlight how you will structure your case study to include the introduction, problem, solution and achievements of your customer.
• Choose a case study template: After you outline your case study, choose a case study template . Visme has stunning templates that can inspire your case study design.
• Craft a compelling headline: Include figures or percentages that draw attention to your case study.
• Work on the first draft: Your case study should be easy to read and understand. Use clear and concise language and avoid jargon.
• Include high-quality visual aids: Visuals can help to make your case study more engaging and easier to read. Consider adding high-quality photos, screenshots or videos.
• Include a relevant CTA: Tell prospective customers how to reach you for questions or sign-ups.

What Are the Stages of a Case Study?

The stages of a case study are;

• Planning & Preparation: Highlight your goals for writing the case study. Plan the case study format, length and audience you wish to target.
• Interview the Client: Reach out to the company you want to showcase and ask relevant questions about their journey and achievements.
• Revision & Editing: Review your case study and ask for feedback. Include relevant quotes and CTAs to your case study.
• Publication & Distribution: Publish and share your case study on your website, social media channels and email list!
• Marketing & Repurposing: Turn your case study into a podcast, PDF, case study presentation and more. Share these materials with your sales and marketing team.

What Are the Advantages and Disadvantages of a Case Study?

Advantages of a case study:

• Case studies showcase a specific solution and outcome for specific customer challenges.
• It attracts potential customers with similar challenges.
• It builds trust and credibility with potential customers.
• It provides an in-depth analysis of your company’s problem-solving process.

Disadvantages of a case study:

• Limited applicability. Case studies are tailored to specific cases and may not apply to other businesses.
• It relies heavily on customer cooperation and willingness to share information.
• It stands a risk of becoming outdated as industries and customer needs evolve.

What Are the Types of Case Studies?

There are 7 main types of case studies. They include;

• Illustrative case study.
• Instrumental case study.
• Intrinsic case study.
• Descriptive case study.
• Explanatory case study.
• Exploratory case study.
• Collective case study.

How Long Should a Case Study Be?

The ideal length of your case study is between 500 - 1500 words or 1-3 pages. Certain factors like your target audience, goal or the amount of detail you want to share may influence the length of your case study. This infographic has powerful tips for designing winning case studies

What Is the Difference Between a Case Study and an Example?

Case studies provide a detailed narrative of how your product or service was used to solve a problem. Examples are general illustrations and are not necessarily real-life scenarios.

Case studies are often used for marketing purposes, attracting potential customers and building trust. Examples, on the other hand, are primarily used to simplify or clarify complex concepts.

Where Can I Find Case Study Examples?

You can easily find many case study examples online and in industry publications. Many companies, including Visme, share case studies on their websites to showcase how their products or services have helped clients achieve success. You can also search online libraries and professional organizations for case studies related to your specific industry or field.

If you need professionally-designed, customizable case study templates to create your own, Visme's template library is one of the best places to look. These templates include all the essential sections of a case study and high-quality content to help you create case studies that position your business as an industry leader.

Get More Out Of Your Case Studies With Visme

Case studies are an essential tool for converting potential customers into paying customers. By following the tips in this article, you can create compelling case studies that will help you build trust, establish credibility and drive sales.

Visme can help you create stunning case studies and other relevant marketing materials. With our easy-to-use platform, interactive features and analytics tools , you can increase your content creation game in no time.

There is no limit to what you can achieve with Visme. Connect with Sales to discover how Visme can boost your business goals.

Easily create beautiful case studies and more with Visme

Trusted by leading brands

Recommended content for you:

Create Stunning Content!

Design visual brand experiences for your business whether you are a seasoned designer or a total novice.

About the Author

• Work & Careers
• Life & Arts
• Currently reading: Business school teaching case study: can biodiversity bonds save natural habitats?
• Business school teaching case study: can the fashion industry be more sustainable?
• Business school teaching case study: Unilever chief signals rethink on ESG
• Business school teaching case study: can green hydrogen’s potential be realised?
• Business school teaching case study: how electric vehicles pose tricky trade dilemmas
• Business school teaching case study: is private equity responsible for child labour violations?

Business school teaching case study: can biodiversity bonds save natural habitats?

• Business school teaching case study: can biodiversity bonds save natural habitats? on x (opens in a new window)
• Business school teaching case study: can biodiversity bonds save natural habitats? on facebook (opens in a new window)
• Business school teaching case study: can biodiversity bonds save natural habitats? on linkedin (opens in a new window)
• Business school teaching case study: can biodiversity bonds save natural habitats? on whatsapp (opens in a new window)

Andrew Karolyi and John Tobin-de la Puente

Simply sign up to the Sustainability myFT Digest -- delivered directly to your inbox.

In June, the Colombian subsidiary of Spanish banking group BBVA announced that it was issuing what it described as the financial sector’s “first biodiversity bond”, in order to finance habitat conservation and restoration projects in the South American country. 

The $50mn initiative — backed by the International Finance Corporation (IFC), the private sector-focused arm of the World Bank, as structurer and investor — marks a turnaround for a nation recovering from half a century of violence and guerrilla activity. It also places Colombia among a select group of pioneers, including the Seychelles and Belize, that are using the financial markets to support the conservation of nature.

While the green bonds market has seen explosive growth in the past decade, the capital it has raised has overwhelmingly been invested in climate mitigation, alternative energy, and green transportation projects. Minimal amounts go to biodiversity conservation and habitat restoration projects. 

In financing nature, explicitly and directly, this Colombian bond breaks new ground, with metrics linked to objectives to benefit the environment. Invest ors will be repaid through a mix of funding sources including a carbon tax, the government budget and donors .

Test yourself

This is the sixth in a series of monthly business school-style teaching case studies devoted to responsible-business dilemmas faced by organisations. Read the piece and FT articles suggested at the end (and linked to within the piece) before considering the questions raised. 

About the authors: Andrew Karolyi is professor and dean, John Tobin-de la Puente is professor of practice and co-director of the Initiative on Responsible Finance, both at the Cornell SC Johnson College of Business.

The series forms part of a wide-ranging collection of FT ‘instant teaching case studies ’ that explore business challenges.

The question for those concerned about the destruction of the world’s natural habitats is whether this pioneering structured bond will be effective, and whether it could help to inspire a broader range of similar instruments aimed at countering loss of biodiversity around the world. 

Meanwhile, the question for investors is whether the vehicle is sufficiently attractive and robust to attract a new and growing class of funders that may share an interest in environmental issues but also seek competitive returns.

Located at the northern end of the Andes, Colombia straddles the Equator, the Pacific Ocean, the Caribbean, and the Amazon basin. It has the second-highest number of species on the planet after Brazil, and the highest species diversity when measured per square kilometre, according to the World Wildlife Fund . Colombia is home to more than 1,900 species of birds — on a par with Brazil and Peru.

Colombia will be on the frontline of biodiversity losses

But global warming threatens to cause dramatic harm to this biodiversity . Colombia will be on the frontline of these losses because it will be disproportionately affected by climate change compared to countries with fewer species that are more widespread.

Now, though, it could also be in the vanguard of new financial models to reverse the trend.

In 2016, a historic peace agreement between the government and leftist guerrilla group the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (Farc) marked the end of five decades of armed conflict. Despite continuing violence, the peace process has greatly improved the lives of citizens. However, it has also increased pressure on natural ecosystems. The political violence had meant large areas were shielded from illegal deforestation and degradation of the habitat.

Five years after the peace deal, Colombia became the first Latin American country to issue a green bond in its domestic market : a 10-year $200mn offering aiming to finance a variety of projects intended to benefit the environment — including water management, sustainable transport, biodiversity protection, and renewable energy. High investor demand meant the final amount had been increased by half again.

Finance minister José Manuel Restrepo described the structured bond as an “important step” in finding new ways to finance investment in environmental projects: it would help develop a domestic green bond market and attract a wider range of investors. His ministry identified another $500mn in eligible projects that could be financed through green bonds, including a $50mn Colombian “blue bond” — financing focused on marine habitats and ocean-based projects that generate environmental co-benefits. This was successfully placed in 2023 with the help of BBVA and the IFC as structurer.

Now, the announcement of BBVA Colombia’s biodiversity bond marks another step forward. It focuses on reforestation, regeneration of natural forests on degraded land, mangrove conservation, and wildlife habitat protection.

In the case of green bonds, only a minuscule share of the money raised is spent on nature conservation, in part because few such projects generate cash flows from which to repay investors. Another reason is that it is harder to measure how effectively deployed resources dedicated to conservation — such as for monitoring species population growth — are, or to track activities that help to reach certain conservation target goals over time, such as for restoring degraded ecosystems.  

Using private, financial return-seeking capital to finance the sustainable management and conservation of natural resources is viewed by many experts as the most realistic solution to the twin crises of biodiversity loss and climate change — given the magnitude of investment needed. 

Yet there is growing political pushback against environmental and social initiatives, most notably in the US. 

Regulators and consumer groups have also launched legal actions to challenge green objectives. Large corporations, including Unilever, Bank of America and Shell, have in the past year dropped or missed goals to cut carbon emissions. And there has been disillusion with the ability of sustainability-linked bonds to meet their objectives. 

By association, that raises fresh questions about continued progress on biodiversity.

In biodiversity finance, doing deals is inherently more difficult

In tackling the climate crisis, the trajectory seems clear: the set of solutions needed is more or less agreed, and a good part of it makes economic sense. But, in biodiversity finance, doing deals is inherently more difficult.

It is more complex to structure transactions that generate proceeds to protect wildlife, restore ecosystems and fund other activities that may not generate cash flows, all while ensuring investors are repaid. Early successes — such as Belize’s blue bond are encouraging — but the potential for real scale is still unclear.

Questions for discussion

How companies are starting to back away from green targets (ft.com)

Green bond issuance surges as investors hunt for yield (ft.com)

Sustainability-linked bonds falter amid credibility concerns (ft.com)

Consider these questions:

1. How critical is the role of the IFC as structurer of the BBVA Colombia biodiversity bond deal in validating its legitimacy and providing investors with assurance? How important is it that IFC is also a co-investor in the biodiversity bond issuance?  

2. What are the pros and cons of the fact that the $50mn BBVA Colombia biodiversity bond deal has been launched following Colombia’s successful placement three years earlier of its sovereign green bond, and following its newly announced “green taxonomy”?  

3. What does the Colombian experience say about the likelihood of rapid change in how countries manage their biodiversity and climate impacts? Does Colombia demonstrate that such change is possible, or is its experience unique and unlikely to represent a model of rapid action for other countries?

4. Can biodiversity bonds meaningfully help to address biodiversity loss? And is this transaction the start of a trend? If not, why would BBVA Colombia have executed this transaction? Is it a gesture of goodwill and a recognition of its own corporate responsibility, or a means to greenwash some of its other less appealing investments?

5. Considering the economic and social context following the peace agreement between Colombia and the Farc forces, how might the shift from conflict to peace affect the country’s ability to balance economic development with environmental conservation?   

Promoted Content

Explore the series.

Follow the topics in this article

• Sustainability Add to myFT
• Impact investing Add to myFT
• Climate change Add to myFT
• Green bonds Add to myFT
• Business school case Add to myFT

Lilly says weight loss drug cuts heart failure risk by 38% in trial

• Medium Text

Sign up here.

Reporting By Deena Beasley; additional reporting by Christy Santhosh in Bengaluru; Editing by Chris Reese

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles. , opens new tab

Morning Bid: Goodbye soft landing, hello emergency landing

A look at the day ahead in Asian markets.