Customer experience (CX) has become the overwhelming top initiative for business leaders. CX is now the top brand differentiator; those that deliver an excellent CX thrive, while those that do not eventually fail. It outweighs the price, product quality, and every other factor when customers choose a brand. Loyalty can be fleeting though. In 2021, 67% of millennials dropped a brand because of a single bad experience, per my research.
Enterprise Connect is back! One of the highlights I always look forward to are the keynotes, particularly Cisco’s as the speakers generally —but not always — deliver a good mix of vision and product. This year, Collaboration and Contact Center General Manager, Javed Khan, took the stage with appearances by SVP and GM Snorre Kjesbu and VP and GM of Cisco Calling, Lorrissa Horton, to discuss the upcoming wave of hybrid work, the problems companies might face, and how Webex has been evolved to meet those challenges.
Communications is moving to the cloud. That should be obvious to everyone at this time. What’s less obvious is that the definition of cloud is changing.
In reality, cloud has been constantly evolving since the early 2000s. The first wave of cloud was akin to a hosted service where cloud providers did a “lift and shift” of a big PBX and moved it into a hosting center. There were only two cloud-like things about these UCaaS and CCaaS providers: their infrastructure on the company premises and customers could shift to a subscription model.
The pandemic has had a profound impact in almost all aspects of our lives. One of the biggest changes is how we communicate with one another. Prior to COVID-19, collaboration tools were used by primarily knowledge workers when we were in the office and had to communicate with people outside of our walls. But then the world changed, and we all had to rely on collaboration tools to work, learn, socialize, and even be entertained. These applications allowed us to maintain social proximity even though we were socially distant.
This week, Zoom announced results for its fiscal year 2022 fourth-quarter, which ended January 31, 2022. Total revenue for the quarter was $1.071 billion, which was above the Streets expectations of $1.054 billion, equating to 21.4% year-over-year growth. The gross margin was also better than expected coming in at 78.3%, compared to the expected 74.9%, and up from 71.3% from the fourth quarter of fiscal year 2021. The boost in gross margins came from platform optimization and lower usage during the holiday season. The current quarter numbers painted a rosy-looking picture.