Outside of US, India one of the most critical markets for Zoom: Sameer Raje

With India being one of the most critical markets for Zoom outside of the US, Raje tells Samreen Ahmad the company has a continued focus on expansion

For Sameer Raje, head of Zoom India, a five-hour night’s sleep these days is a luxury. But if he is sleep deprived, he doesn’t show it when we meet for coffee on, what else, a Zoom call. Dressed in a black t-shirt with a white Zoom logo, which he has paired with a beige jacket in a smart casual look, he looks bright, fresh and fit.

We are in our respective homes, he in Mumbai and I in Bengaluru. That we are still managing to have coffee together is credit to videotelephony services such as his.

An early riser, Raje’s day begins at 5. And while it may not include tea or coffee, cycling is definitely a part of it. He cycles 2-2.5 hours two to three times a week, with­out fail. “I am not hooked on any beverage and I am fine going without anything to drink the entire day,” he says. But given a choice, “coffee is my go-to poison,” he says, sipping his favourite freshly brewed black coffee with a dash of hazelnut from a grey marble patterned mug — a gift from his wife. I am having filter coffee bought from Chikmagalur in the hibiscus cup I picked from India Circus.

He says it is difficult to find the coffee of his choice in Mumbai, and the best he can get is maybe at a Starbucks. But he never misses the chance to grab a cuppa when in Mysuru.

Raje’s workday begins around 8.30 am from his office at home but if there is an early meeting because of time difference with the US and he misses out on his cycling, he makes sure to go for a 10-odd-km run in the evening.

Life has changed a lot for Raje after the pandemic, with user signups multiplying 67 times as compared to pre-Covid days. The new normal has stretched his workday to 18 hours. Weekends are a distant memory, but despite the pressures the pandemic has brought, he tries not to log in at least one day a week, which he spends with his family and his motorbikes.

An engineer by education, Raje’s love for two-wheelers took him to work at automobile companies during the beginning of his career in 1995. But he soon realised that while his passion lay in two-wheelers, his skills lay elsewhere. That’s how he landed in software sales, working with companies such as Cisco and IBM. This was followed by stints at Microsoft and West Corporation.

He joined Zoom in April 2019, when it didn’t really have a presence in India. He was a one-member team working on the background, setting up the foundation for Zoom to roll out in the country in September that year. With demand rising exponentially post the Covid-19 outbreak, with people working from home and schools and colleges going online, the company has brought several people on board. It is a 60-member team now that sits out of India with a continued focus on expanding as Zoom continues to hire.

Outside of the US, India is one of the most critical markets for Zoom. “No multinational company can ignore the strengths that India brings to the table,” says Raje. The company is in the process of setting up a tech centre in Bengaluru, one of its largest outside of the US. This centre would focus on business operations, engineering and IT functions for Zoom’s global operations.

Apart from the large business opportunity coming out of India, Zoom has other Indian links. The company’s head of engineering and product, Velchamy Sankarlingam, and COO Aparna Bawa are so focused on developing the India market to the next level that it makes his job easier, says Raje. “I don’t have to ask for things; I get things from them,” he says with a smile.

The company is now in a constant state of development, adding new features based on user feedback.

Having realised by the end of 2020 that a hybrid model would come into play as some users would return to work and some would stay at home, the company is building Zoom rooms with virtual receptionists. “We are not only a video calling app; we have a suite of services such as Zoom rooms, audio, chat functionality, digital signage etc,” says Raje. “These are our revenue model streams for which customers need to sign up,” he adds, taking a sip of water, his coffee by now over.

A feature called Neat Sense is also available in beta version via which users can monitor and manage the room’s humidity and air quality. Other features such as knowing how many employees are there in a Zoom Room and pairing a room with mobile to share a whiteboard on Zoom Chat have been announced.

That may all be very well “but there are several virtual meeting platforms in the market, so how did Zoom become a verb for collaboration and meetings online?” I ask.

There are two factors behind this, he says. Zoom was built with the idea of video-first collaboration. “When you build a video-first technology, you build it in such a way that it can adapt to lower bandwidth. So, every time you click on a Zoom link, people are confident that it will work. ‘It just works’ is what our users say,” he says, visibly pleased at this.

Second is the culture of caring at Zoom — caring for customers, caring for emp­loyees, and caring for partners. “We have grown exponentially during the past few months but the key thing at Zoom is not to be arrogant about it,” says Raje. “We have our feet firmly on the ground; that’s the humbleness this organisation is built on.”

Like other online communication platforms, Zoom also faced backlash on data privacy last year. Raje says while the company has been educating customers to not take data security lightly, it doesn’t keep any customer data.

“All the data is transient unless you choose to record it on our cloud,” he says. “Then too you can record on your own computers. As soon as the call ends, there is nothing with us.”

The only information the company has is the name and email address with which the login was created, and if you’re a paying customer, then it has the address and mode of payment for which it follows global security standards.

In a career spanning 25 years, Raje has seen several spectacular innovations. From organisations not knowing what audio-based collaboration was in the ’90s to video-based collaboration now beco­ming routine, it has been quite a journey.

“It is amazing to see where we have come in terms of collaboration,” says Raje as we logout. Or perhaps we should say, Zoom out.