Zoho’s Vijaykumar Rajendran on Workplace Collaboration Trends

hi I'm James Maguire and on today's video we're talking about technologies that enable improved collaboration between workers to boost efficiency and productivity to discuss that I'm joined by a major industry expert with me is VJ Kumar rajendren head of product at Zoho VJ very good to have you with us today uh thank you so much James for having me in your podcast it's an honor to be part of this thanks G great all right so so many professional staffers these days are working remotely and there's a great need for collaboration tools for Professionals in different locations and time zones what trends do you see driving the market for collaboration tools yeah that's that's a very good question so hybrid work is The New Normal okay so employees work from home work from office and even work from remote places today so they now call it flexible work arrangments okay so or have to organizations right they have to adapt to this new way of flexible work so organizations now are looking for some you know the right set of remote collaboration tools today so I see three broad Trends okay that they should be looking for ideally when they're going to choose a good effective remote collaboration tool or platform so uh first uh trend is that you know it's like how do you choose a tool that blends synchronous Communications with asynchronous communication so you need to make sure that you know these two important parts or you know how does a workplace collaboration tool blend synchronous and asynchronous tools I'll I'll expand on this part a bit later and similarly the second major Trend I'm looking at is uh should you choose a you know best of breed app uh versus an integrated speed of app so what what should you choose what I mean by Best of breed apps is apps that are Purpose Driven built for one specific purpose and it does it really well should you go ahead with use such best of breed apps or an integrated speed of apps that is the second broad Trend I'm looking at and organizations have to you know decide what kind of app they should you know use third broad Trend that I look at is control and security so uh does you have as an organization you have to see whether the remote collaboration tool provide encryption addressed encryption Transit during my content is you know when it is addressed is it encrypted similarly you have to look at whether the there is you know single sign on whether how what kind of control that I have for my business content the content that I put in into the collaboration tool what kind of business uh you know control that I have over my business content so let's elaborate on that a little bit later but these are the three broad trends that I look at um in general you have to as an organization you have to look at the fourth trend is actually AI uh which you know but but you have to get these three things right only then you know the AA part will will you can actually fix AI part uh automatically because the the tool that you choose right it'll definitely have ai layer buil in and it'll be good most likely but these three part is what I think you should first look at yeah I I can see that definitely so you know key trends and then I I I think that AI piece is really important I I also I know that companies sometimes face challenges when it comes to collaboration I mean how can companies address these these collaboration challenges and and how can Zoho solution help that yeah so um see like I said the three broad areas right I'll cover some of um you know how Zoho or Zoho work drive specifically you know fits in these three Trends and I'll also cover explain how uh you know Zoho helps here okay so so when you look at Zoho work drive is basically a Content collaboration platform built for you know uh three member small businesses to 30,000 member large organization Enterprises um you you can store your business content in bu drive and share it with your team members your departments and share it with your external clients external users your partners your contractors and securely keep your content in a central place so work drive is all about it's a it's basically a Content collaboration platform that allows you to store your business content securely in a um in in a central place and share it with others so um uh word drive if you look at it uh it comes with also it comes bundled with productivity tools so our we call it Zoho office suite uh we have a full-fledged office suite built on the cloud U Zoho writer which is a online you know word processor full-fledged document editor then go sheet is our full-fledged spread sheeet editor and those show is our full-fledged presentation editor and all of these three tools is know we have been building it for at least a decade and uh and it's all you can actually build really complex document or create complex spreadsheets or beautiful presentations with all of these tools so I look at these productivity tools as uh you know like asynchronous communication tool that gets bundled as part of the first TR Trend that I spoke about right these are all asynchronous you can use this for your asynchronous communication basically these productivity tools you you build long form content over it on top of writer you build really good presentation and share it with your team members so basically a lot of your thoughtful content is shared with your team members and uh the context before you get into a synchronal meeting right uh people are on the same page they understand what what it is about so work dri comes with these bundled uh uh productivity tools and word drive also has um you know uh a new tool recently released called word Drive snap that is your you can create short video recordings and share it with your team members so if you look at it the first broad Trend that I talked about word Drive bundles all of this as part of The Suite itself um in general though word Drive um you know we most of the features that we build in word Drive are put into four different buckets we call it four sees collaboration um continuity convenience and control and security for the sake of clarity I'll combine you know convenience and continuity into one uh one bucket okay so let's look at it as three buckets uh collaboration convenience and continuity and control and security now these three buckets it resonates well with the three broad PRS that I mentioned the you know the the synchronous collaboration part the first first Trend the second trend is how whether you're going to use a integrated app or a besttop breed apps right here is where the uh the buckets convenience and continuity comes in and control and security so it actually resonate any feature we build resonate with these three Trends not just in World D but the whole of Z okay so I'll just explain the I already said we have a collaboration set of tools that comes under the productivity tool that comes under the collaboration bucket so we all also have you know previews for 200 different file formats in web drive that allows you to you know um quickly comment on any file uh and share it with your team members so it becomes you you become really productive with all of these Tools Plus better preview features and all so our collaboration bucket is one of our strongest uh you know uh bucket um and when it comes to convenience or let's say continuity let's focus on venience first um most of the features we add in convenience are related to how easy is it for you to keep doing your work without word drive you know getting in getting in the way or keep doing whatever that you have been using before you will keep using the same thing and but still word Drive will will be in the you know will sit at the um at the at the layer and you keep pushing things sinking the data to the cloud for instance I'll give you an example we have a tool called Zoo uh you know through sync which integrates into your Windows Explorer and Mac finder uh basically you are so used to you know double clicking on a file opening it and let's say it's a word file you open it in word and work on it and then save it back right you you are so everybody is so used to this kind of a model where you use a Windows Explorer or finder our desktop I mean our through sync word drive through sync sits integrate with this tool so that it is so convenient for you to not worry about a new way of working so you keep using the same tool but word Drive will take care of automatically syncing the uh your business content to the cloud all right not just sync to the cloud it also look at the collaboration bucket so it automatically because word Drive provides a centralized place for you to keep all of your business content we call it team folders you can create as many team folders as you want and because you keep all of your team content in the team folders and you don't have to share it again the content gets organized in the team folder and people get notified of new content that gets in all right so all of this happens while you use your similar your your tool that you have been using before right you get the cloud syncing you get the collaboration part all you have to do is open the word document and edit it save it and it automatically gets notified to all of your team automatically they know what content to read or what not to read so if you look at the convenience part we add features that are that make it really convenient for you to uh you know push your content to the cloud and make collaboration easier so that is the convenient bucket if you look at continuity here is where the second broad Trend that I spoke about uh you know resonates with this uh with this bucket basically so continuity is about how do you continue to work on your uh you know business you know workflow without word Drive getting in the way that is for instance I'll give you again an example an example makes things clearer let's say you have you just attended an event and you have some set of prospects from one specific region okay that you want to send your um you know your um brouchers that you have in word Drive folders Brower your your pricing document your proposal all of that kept in a drive folder you want to send it to your clients you have these prospects in your CRM system let's say go CRM okay and you the the best way to you know explain the continuity part is you you you will have a view of these prospects from that specific location you select those prospects and send an email now this email if you look at it it is integrated into the CRM system and basically Z mail that covers it actually the email part and within the email part you will you will be able to pick any word Drive content and insert it as a link if you look at the the whole workflow here you don't have to move away from CRM to go ma and then to work drive it is all within the business workflow that you use within the CRM system you don't have to you know switch contact switch different apps which means the continuity is not affected at all so most of our feature set that we try to you know build over word drive or any because it is an integrated Suite of apps the we try to make sure that the continuity is not you know affected at all this is a good example of how an integrated Suite of app helps over a best of breed UPS okay so continuity features here is where we try our best to integrate with lot of our contextually integrate with lot of our business apps in goo so that is the second broad bucket that we have the third bucket is the control and security where you know um you single signon is super crucial because it we have an integrated system a single signon helps you to not worry about you know remembering your password it automatically logs you into all of the apps that you use similarly can you uh control the business content that you push inside uh you know work drive or any Go app do I have the ability to control what kind of content is shared outside my company what kind of content is actually shared by whom do I have the ability to you know even switch off external sharing if needed do I have the ability to completely you know um let's say somebody shared confidential content outside do I have the ability to quickly remove that confidential content um you know as soon as possible and stop sharing so all of this you know um you have to look at as an organization you have to look at whether your collaboration suit or or an integrated app Su of apps provides you with these kinds of features right that is where the control and security comes in so more broadly most of the Zoho apps that we have particularly word Drive sits at the middle of the ecosystem uh and your business content flows through these business apps and your other Zoho apps so beautifully that um you know um as an organization you can work better in a hybrid setup all right so I me clearly it sounds like Zoho can Zoho work drive can really support collaboration in a number of ways uh my question then is you there there are a variety of solutions out there on the market that also do this how is how is Zoho work drive different from these other Solutions what what what what makes it AP part yeah uh this this this an important question this a very good question so um let's take some examples okay Loom take example of a loom loom we we have used it as a a synchronous you know video collaboration tool right you you create short form videos of loom in Loom and then share it with your team members it has been super useful it is a really good tool it is that is what I call it as a best of breed up they Loom has done this so well okay right from recording a video to sharing it with your team members they have made it really seamless so that's Loom is a very good example of a v of breed app that was recently you know over the last two years it has become really famous similarly Zoom is a good tool for remote meetings Dropbox is uh is a very good tool for sying your data from your desktop system to the cloud even a decade ago it was called a really good tool right all of these are best of breed ABS that you use for a specific purpose but the trend is now moving towards an integrated suit ofs the reason is being when you start using these best of breed apps in a typical hybrid setup you know adding users making sure the licensing cost is Right making sure your business content how do you make sure the business content flows through these apps so well right how do you make sure that um the roles and permissions are properly set in all of these apps then you need to buy another app that does this something like active directory right that Microsoft has so you need to come up with you need to look at an app like OA maybe to to again you know do this syncing for you user syncing for you across these apps which means your licensing cost adds up right so the trend is now moving towards an integrated suit of apps where that is where you know Microsoft or Google or even Joo signs so we have an integrated suit of apps even if you look at slack right that is again again a very good example they are a very good communication tool communication platform for but they just couldn't survive against the onslaught of you know Ms teams right they had to you know uh Salesforce had to acquire them and Salesforce has a good 360° customer Cloud that they are forming by by acquiring a lot of companies right not just slack they're acquiring a lot of companies to form their 360 Dee Cloud customer Cloud so slack had to be you know pushed into this integrated ecosystem right so so the trend is now moving towards the integrated ecosystem and Zoo has an integrated speed of apps and like I said in the CRM example in the previous question that is a good example where an integrated suop app allows you to continue to do your work without you know Contex switching switching apps different apps and because the licensing cost and all is handled automatically by the integrated Suite of apps you don't have to worry about licensing you don't have to worry about contextual Integrations see we are not there yet okay some of the Integrations are still in place we still working but there is a huge potential for us to you know find out where all can we make it better how can we make sure that our customers can you know continue to get their job done without worrying about the product getting in the way not just any product getting in the way so that is only possible with an integrated sweet ofs so that is where I think goo shines all right I definitely see that I I I guess that then the bigger question becomes the future of content collaboration I think companies are really thinking about that because they want to get prepared now so what do you see in terms of the the future of content collaboration so yeah uh the future of content collaboration in particular and what we are doing in word Drive okay see word Drive is just a four year old product we not a decade old product so there are certain areas that we still have to you know become better at and in general the the future of content collaboration is how do you automate your business workflows there are a lot of business content that you put into content collaboration platforms into your communication platforms how do you automate the this process there are a lot of one structure data that we are putting in how do you create structure to it right so word drive has a feature called Data templates that basically it provides structure to your unstructured content let's say you're putting in a an insurance document car insurance premium document into your collaboration content collaboration platform can your collaboration platform automatically detect that it is a you know what you're putting is a car insurance premium all right so how do you automate these kinds of uh content structured unstructured data to create some structure to it and even automate it and put it into the correct folder automatically put it in the right team folder so that the right set of thing uh you know team members get access to it right set of permissions are given to that content you know that is the automation layer have to be robust if your automation layer have to be robust your application API layer have to be robust for that do you have a really good API platform that allows you to you know build uh such automation on top of your API platform can I hoop my third party let's say a uh a legacy sap system and move my legacy data from my you know local uh you know interet to your Cloud how easy it is as I move my content is does the unstructured data automatically gets some structure and gets indexed and it becomes easier to search so your content collaboration platform have to do all this and that is the future we are I mean most of the platforms are doing all of this well but there is a lot of scope there to do it better well all right I I I definitely see the the power of automation clearly what about what about artificial intelligence obviously that's a big driver these days yeah so um when it comes to AI I'll explain as a as an you know as Doo we have been in this uh uh you know in this business um serving our business customers for a long period of time over more than 15 years more than a decade so over the last one or two years based on the you know the transformative phase that we are in in the AI area we have been adding some really good AI pictures to our you know Zoho Suite of apps I'll explain really quickly what all we are doing at the moment and where the AI uh you know itself is the future of content collaboration AI in content collaboration is headed and where AI itself is headed where is the future let say five years okay so uh some of most some of our features that you know we have been we have built in Zoho is for one for I mean one such uh uh example I'll give you is Zoho writers our you know productivity tool a grammar check tool okay so it is a we have a really good grammar check tool in Zoho writer where you know when you have your content uploaded I mean written in Zoho writer so Zoho writer takes care of you know automatically finding out the spelling errors it it will suggest you the correct grammar suggestions it will give you good grammar suggestions it'll automatically tell you how easy it is to read your content how easy or how tough it is what kind of sentences have you used what kind of polyic words have you used and what kind of you know do you have to use you know is is there a plagarism check that you know that the content has uh writing quality how how good is your writing quality all of that is done by our AI tool that is embedded right within our you know our Jo writer tool this is already existing so there is a lot of uh AI work that we are doing another beautiful example that I will give you is as a as an integrated speed of app we have something called Zia search it's a it's a unified search that we have you know that we are that we have now that is integrated into every app every loo app that we have what it does is um you know work drive indexes all of your business content into Zia search similarly our CRM system indexes all of your content into search similarly you know other apps so when you search for something in Zia search it can tell you you know let's say you're searching for a prospect in V search it will tell you uh you know whether the the customer is a prospect whether hot or cold Prospect what kind of content you have related to the Prospect and work drive what kind of discussions you have had related to to the uh Prospect in Zoho click which is a communication tool so Zia search is our central place to search so look at the we have we have been adding a lot of good AI features on top of you know uh our our integrated system so far right and AI itself okay so AI itself there is a huge uh transformation that is happening right now uh the automation engine that I was saying right we may have to add an AI layer on top of that automation engine so the AI layer should automatically you know classify documents like you have sensitive content in it there is you know you you have some content a spreadsheet your spreadsheet has a you know credit card in it there are some regex pattern to find it out but what if the AI engine the AI layer automatically finds it for you right what if the AI layer contextually understands your business content and surfaces a beautiful you know the right set of documents for you to look at right set of business content for you to look at right so the AI layer will sit on top of these automation engine and make the automation engine much more powerful so here is where you know um you know companies like goo or Microsoft where we we are playing a huge role in storing lot of our business customers the content of our business customers it is a responsibility to add a you know responsible sec pure AI layer on top of it and this is the face you know the pH that we are in right now this is the right time for us to you know innovate in the area uh similarly you know in general though AI the the the you know the where are we heading um the whole because the a layer is going going to sit on top of your automation engine on top of the a layer how is our UI is going to be our user interface is going to be um my prediction is that there's going to be you know uh we going to see voice input people are going to ask you questions and and you will have the llm engine built the large language model built into your uh AI engine so it it understand your business content and surfaces that content for you based on the audio input that you that you that you give to the a engine and it will actually uh you know um give you the a good context output for you to look at and look at the not just the AI layer look at the other every layer in the stack right uh the network or the hardware layer where the gpus Nidia is actually innovating in gpus right so in the network layer you have 5G right so the network layer is actually helping you to build a engines like this similarly the software layer we are going to build Microsoft is actually far far ahead of of any other company we have to agree that and because they the the kind of you know partnership that they have with open AA whatever opena releases today they integrated into their Aur ecosystem quickly and and also integrates it into their business enterprise software so they are definitely far ahead but Zoho and other integrated speed of apps the are you know we are actually positioned really really well uh U because the the amount of effort that we have put for the last 15 years to build 50 plus apps right so we are in a really good uh phase where it is possible for Zoho to build or other integrated speed of apps to build a good a engine on top of this Innovation that is happening in the network layer the hardware layer in the software layer even at the edge servers okay the because of PG there will be Edge servers that your local your your Rich client your mobile client and your desktop that you have in your inter local interet right it will connect to a edge server that will be powered by 5G so that you know lot of your business content can reside there and more relevant business content can even reside at your mobile layer at your mobile app so all of this is going to help you to quickly fetch your contextual business content and arvr look at arvr even even Apple is you know innovating in Vision Pro so the voice input that you give and the output that you get you can actually you know the augmented reality or virtual reality can completely change the way you look at the user interface right in every layer there is a lot of Innovations happening so there is a you know there is a saying right there are decades where nothing happens and there are you know weeks where decades happened this is I think Vladimir Lenin Russia leader came up with this SP this so beautifully resonates with the tech transformation that we are looking at today in the AI layer not just in the layer layer in every layer that I said right and we are really in a transformative pH and I'm so excited to be you know being part of it is I'm really excited to be part of this kind of a transformative pH let's see where it goes that it's it's it's true it's really going to have a lot of change in the Years ah had a very rapid change it's a good point on that and the AI piece I think really going to be driving that but Jay I think you said it uh it's a lot of good stuff uh thank you so much for sharing your expertise today and please come back and talk with us again sometime thank you so much for giving me this opportunity game I'm actually really very honored to you know be on this podcast thank you really very much

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