**London**: Zoom is transforming from a video conferencing tool to a comprehensive collaboration platform, focusing on regional expansion and new innovations, including Zoom Docs. Helen Hawthorn emphasises the company’s commitment to enhancing customer engagement and compliance with data protection regulations amid evolving workplace dynamics.
Zoom has evolved significantly over the past five years, transitioning from a popular video conferencing tool during the pandemic to a comprehensive unified communications (UC) and collaboration platform. With ongoing discussions surrounding remote and hybrid working post-pandemic, Zoom has positioned itself as a leader in the enterprise market, adopting a more sophisticated approach as it expands its product offerings.
At ISE 2025, Helen Hawthorn, Head of Solution Engineering at Zoom, emphasised the company’s focus on broadening its customer base and enhancing collaboration. “When I say expanding, I mean into the customer base, like really, really getting our customers to understand more than video,” she stated. This initiative underscores Zoom’s commitment to helping its partners and clients maximise the return on investment (ROI) from their subscriptions beyond mere video conferencing.
Hawthorn highlighted Zoom’s efforts to become more regionalised, particularly focusing on markets beyond the UK, including France, Germany, and Saudi Arabia. Her experience, spanning nearly five years at Zoom and previous roles with companies such as BT, Cisco, and Polycom, positions her to lead key initiatives aimed at deepening customer relationships and enhancing partner enablement. This expansion into the channel signifies a shift in strategy, supporting specialists in areas like voice, contact centre, and APIs, thus ensuring seamless integration into business processes.
Integral to this regional focus are two data centres established in Germany—one a collaboration with Deutsche Telekom and the other fully managed by Zoom. “There’s not enough visibility of that, and there’s not enough understanding of what that means for our European customers,” Hawthorn noted. The company aims to clarify these innovations while addressing European-specific concerns, particularly around data protection in relation to artificial intelligence (AI). The rollout of Zoom AI Companion 2.0 is now live in Europe, with features designed to keep customer data securely within the region and compliant with the recent EU AI Act.
Looking toward 2025, Zoom is preparing to showcase a host of new products and innovations, hoping to familiarise customers with the expanded capabilities available to them. “I think going into 2025, we’re now coming into Europe with these awesome new products, awesome new innovations,” Hawthorn remarked, indicating an eagerness to demonstrate how these features can enhance productivity.
Among the innovations, Zoom Docs stands out as a transformative tool. “Honestly, I love video, love voice, love contact centre, but just internally, what’s changed our lives is Zoom Docs,” Hawthorn expressed. She explained how the document management tool facilitates collaboration by allowing users to quickly gather and analyse information needed for business planning without extensive time investment. Hawthorn detailed her own experiences, stating, “I can take summaries from calls, information from websites, the last five months of updates… help me create a business plan from everything you see in this, and generally, 60-70 percent of the time, it’s spot on.”
The emphasis on efficiency and collaboration is evident as Zoom continues to align its strategies with the needs of its customers and partners. As the communication landscape evolves, Zoom’s efforts to manage supply shortages and address shifts in power dynamics within the industry are crucial. The company’s regionalised approach, paired with a robust product portfolio that goes beyond video, positions it well to cater to a diverse array of customer needs in the current business environment.
In conclusion, Zoom’s ongoing developments and targeted customer engagement strategies are set to redefine the boundaries of what a collaborative platform can offer. The company’s dedication to empowering customers while maintaining strict data security and compliance reflects its commitment to becoming a preferred partner in the increasingly competitive landscape of unified communications.
Source: Noah Wire Services
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