The News: Zoom’s acquisition of Workvivo, an employee experience provider, is intended to extend the Zoom platform by offering new ways to keep workers informed, engaged, and connected wherever they are working. The transaction is expected to close in the first quarter of the 2024 financial year. Read more from Zoom.
Zoom Acquires Workvivo in a Move to Bolster Employee Experience
Analyst Take: Zoom’s acquisition of Workvivo does not surprise. The video conferencing giant has been engaged in a massive effort to shift from a video conferencing solution to an all-encompassing collaboration platform solution over the course of the last year or so, and adding employee experience functionality to that platform makes sense.
As we know, the workplace has changed dramatically in the last couple of years, and today there are many employees working remotely and/or hybrid. I read a McKinsey report recently nothing that a whopping 70% of U.S. employees are frontline workers who want to feel connected to their colleagues and leaders no matter where they work. Connection plays an outsized role when it comes to corporate culture, and that’s part of what likely drives Zoom’s move here — engaged employees are happy, productive employees and the Zoom brand ethos is all about finding and facilitating the happy.
Zoom’s Workvivo acquisition will extend Zoom’s platform and offer customers new ways to keep employees informed, engaged, and connected. Workvivo, founded in 2017, provides an employee experience platform that combines advanced communication and engagement tools, a social intranet, and an employee app combined into one central hub, forming the heart of a company’s digital ecosystem. Workvivo’s customers include Ryanair, Liberty Mutual, Lululemon, Madison Square Garden and Wynn Resorts.
As was the norm industry wide, Zoom and Workvivo experienced a significant boost in demand for their offerings during the covid pandemic, which saw huge numbers of employees worldwide working from home. Products that provided employee communication services such as meetings were in high demand, and as the workforce has transitioned to a remote or hybrid model, these services are still needed. What I like about the Workvivo solution is that it moves beyond simply the focus on connecting knowledge workers throughout an organization and facilitates a deeper connection with and for frontline workers, who have historically felt somewhat disconnected from the company — and understandably so.
Making teamwork more meaningful and extending collaboration beyond “office” workers and throughout the organization as a whole will be a valuable addition to the Zoom platform, and one that fits perfectly into Zoom’s overarching vision. Now the challenge for Zoom remains beating the drum and educating the market and customers about the fact that the company wants to be a collaboration platform solution solving many needs within an organization rather than simply being viewed as a video collaboration solution.
Disclosure: The Futurum Group is a research and advisory firm that engages or has engaged in research, analysis, and advisory services with many technology companies, including those mentioned in this article. The author does not hold any equity positions with any company mentioned in this article.
Analysis and opinions expressed herein are specific to the analyst individually and data and other information that might have been provided for validation, not those of The Futurum Group as a whole.
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Author Information
Shelly Kramer is a serial entrepreneur with a technology-centric focus. She has worked alongside some of the world’s largest brands to embrace disruption and spur innovation, understand and address the realities of the connected customer, and help navigate the process of digital transformation.
