ZM anecdote

Investment Analysis Clubs Saul’s Investing Discussions
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The wife of a friend of ours works for Boston Consulting Group, a huge management consulting group with the reputation of being probably one of the best, if not THE best management consulting group in the world. It was founded in 1963, has offices in 93 cities in more than 50 countries, and over 18,500 employees, most of whom are MBA’s as far as I know.

Anyway, my friend, who happens to be a Financial Advisor, wrote that:

“My wife’s company, Boston Consulting Group, makes every global call on WebEx right now. As of next week they are switching to Zoom for every single global call… I wonder how many other corporations of their size are doing the same thing?”

I’m wondering how many of their clients will be moved to do the same thing (“If our management consulting group is switching to Zoom, maybe it makes sense to do the same thing for our company!”)

Best,

Saul

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Any idea why??

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one more corporation:
USPS switching to zoom
https://link.usps.com/2020/03/20/zoom-in/

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Any idea why??

He didn’t say, but I imagine that it’s the same reason everyone else is switching to Zoom, because it is easier, and works better, and its users are happy with it (it has an NPO over 70, which is huge). Even I, a techno-peasant, could figure it out, and set it up, on my own.

Best,

Saul

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Saul,

I don’t think BCG will be an exception.

In my experience as a Mac user, Apple will not list an app if there are major privacy problems with that particular app. They’ll drop it completely and it will be unavailable for download from Apple.

Apple, in the App Store Preview of their business section “Connect With Your Coworkers,” lists the companies below. All apps are free. Zoom is still listed and is #1 in Business downloads.

ZOOM Cloud Meetings - #1 in Business
Meet Happy, Zoom
4.6*, 200.7K Ratings

Microsoft Teams - #3 in Business
Hub for teamwork, Microsoft Corporation
4.8* - 384.1K Ratings

Cisco Webex Meetings - #4 in Business
Video Conferencing, Cisco
4.3*, 102.5K Ratings

RingCentral - #39 in Business (moved up 2 points since 3/30)
Message. Video. Phone, RingCentral, Inc
3.6*, 1.1K Ratings

Two other companies mentioned or followed on this board:

GoToMeeting - #7 in Business
LogMeIn, Inc.
4.6*, 2.4K Ratings

Slack - #18 in Business
Business Communication, Slack Technologies, Inc.
4.2*, 9.5K Ratings

For entire list, see https://apps.apple.com/us/story/id1403648007

This sudden concern with Zoom Communications’ privacy setting may be partially fanned by the competition as ZM has overtaken them all in the number of downloads and users. I believe that ZM will do everything to patch up any security problems that might arise as they explained in a posting on their blog I believe somebody mentioned a day or so ago, https://blog.zoom.us/wordpress/2020/03/29/zoom-privacy-polic….

I. M.
Long ZM

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I’m imagining that panic is setting in at WebEx and some other video conferencing software vendors many of whom, despite overall increased usage, must be hemorrhaging customers to Zoom. Teams is probably doing splendidly but not really for their video component.

I wouldn’t be surprised if some of that panic is pushing these “Zoom isn’t safe” narratives. Anytime a product or company or person shoots into the stratosphere so quickly there are those that will do anything to shoot arrows to pop the balloon. It’s in our nature. We can’t stand true winners as a people for some reason. But none of the claims have much bite and will not change anything for Zoom.

Darth

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This evening I attended a meditation class via Zoom…it was Zoombombed by folks who filled the chat section with sexually explicit comments and even made some, uh, noises! Looked like one of the trolls even took over the teacher’s account and posted an obnoxious comment with his name. Eventually the host (someone other than the teacher) closed the meeting to new participants and shut down the chat. While there are ways to tighten security settings on Zoom (e.g. changing the meeting URL for each distinct gathering and requiring passwords), these tweaks are very time consuming for small operations and cumbersome for participants. I am long ZM, and I generally like Zoom, and I hope that these issues can be resolved.

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Passwords aren’t cumbersome. When you schedule a meeting, on the form they give a password automatically, and you can send it to participants in a group email if you want to. If you post on Twitter or Facebook that “we will have a meditation session…” and open it to the world, you are likely to get what you would expect.

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I’m wondering how many of their clients will be moved to do the same thing (“If our management consulting group is switching to Zoom, maybe it makes sense to do the same thing for our company!”)

So sure some customers or industry players may see BCG switch and take note but more to the point, consulting is a high traffic TC/VC industry…

Ok by your numbers of 18.5k of staff and I am going to be conservative…
Let’s say 2/3 are customer facing consultants = 12k employees
Let’s say utilisation rates are 75%% = 9k deployed at any time
Lt’s say on average ~4 people per project team = 2,250 customer engagements running in parallel
Let’s assume a 10% overlap of projects with the same customers = 2,000
Let’s assume 1 client TC/VC project call per week on average then that’s 2000 customer organisations Let’s assume 1/2 of these calls are on the BCG TC platform (and half on the client’s platform) = 1000

That’s 1000 client organisations getting weekly exposure to Zoom at any one point in time and able to form their own opinion on how Zoom compares with their existing TC/VC platform. Maybe Zoom has a 10-20% share of these clients already…

So that’s 800-900 very large customer organisations on competitor solutions that are being exposed at any point in time to weekly calls. On average, client engagements last 2 months so annually that’s ~5000 (800-900 x 6) potential new client organisations who might be exposed, compare and consider as a result.

Then there’s also the fact that BCG staff might end up moving client side at some point in their career and become advocates of platforms, processes and systems from BCG.

That’s a lot of exposure and advocacy as a result of BCG’s adoption of Zoom. Obviously it might count for more if it were an IT/systems implementation consulting house like Accenture, IBM, PWC and Deloitte etc but still this is a marquee client to win for Zoom.

Ant

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My wife is a teacher for the fifth largest school district in the United States. They just put out a directive today that no one is to use Zoom. I am sure Zoom is working hard to fix their problems.

Andy

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Hackers gonna hack.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.uctoday.com/collaboration/a…

The world went from very little video communication to it being ubiquitous. Bad actors follow the people and look for easy targets.

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That’s 1000 client organisations getting weekly exposure to Zoom at any one point in time and able to form their own opinion on how Zoom compares with their existing TC/VC platform. Maybe Zoom has a 10-20% share of these clients already…

So that’s 800-900 very large customer organisations on competitor solutions that are being exposed at any point in time to weekly calls. On average, client engagements last 2 months so annually that’s ~5000 (800-900 x 6) potential new client organisations who might be exposed, compare and consider as a result…
That’s a lot of exposure and advocacy as a result of BCG’s adoption of Zoom. Obviously it might count for more if it were an IT/systems implementation consulting house like Accenture, IBM, PWC and Deloitte etc but still this is a marquee client win for Zoom.

Hi Ant,
You sound very knowledgeable about business consulting. Are you in the same field? By the way, about it being a marquee win, I saw it the same way. Boston Consulting Group is apparently a very BIG name, and very well known, so this is significant. And getting the US Postal Service on the same day struck me.
Best,
Saul

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https://blog.zoom.us/wordpress/2020/04/01/a-message-to-our-u…

“To put this growth in context, as of the end of December last year, the maximum number of daily meeting participants, both free and paid, conducted on Zoom was approximately 10 million. In March this year, we reached more than 200 million daily meeting participants, both free and paid.”

It wouldn’t surprise me if it got to 1 billion users.

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Yep Saul - I’ve been in healthcare and lifescience management consulting for 18 years.

In terms of strategy consulting effectively there is a top tier of 3: McKinsey, BCG and Bain (or “MBB” and probably in that order of size & prestige).

Then you have a tier 2 (Booz Allen & Hamilton, AT Kearney, LEK, Accenture, Arthur D Little) and the Big 4 (PWC, Deloitte, EY and KPMG) who focus on process, systems and implementation consulting.

Plus some sector specific consultancies (e.g. IQVIA in Lifescience or Wood Mackenzie in Oil and Gas etc), some technology consultancies (e.g. Tata, Capgemini & Cognizant) and some human resource and legal consultancies.

“MBB” are certainly the most prestigious. Accenture is maybe the largest - certainly has the most leverage.

Ant

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Yep Saul - I’ve been in healthcare and lifescience management consulting for 18 years.

In terms of strategy consulting effectively there is a top tier of 3: McKinsey, Boston Consulting Group, and Bain, and probably in that order of size & prestige…

Ant

Wow, Ant, so, as an insider who ought to know, you are saying that Boston Consulting is probably number two in the world in business strategy consulting. So signing them REALLY IS a marquee acquisition for Zoom.

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Hi Saul,

I was browsing through Facebook this morning and one of the items I clicked on brought me into this page… Information on securing a Zoom connection:
https://blog.zoom.us/wordpress/2020/03/20/keep-uninvited-gue…

I frequently have CNBC running in the background and I’ve been wondering why they haven’t been all over zoom security issues… Today I finally heard one of their sharks talk about Zoom so I grabbed my cell phone and filmed it. Sorry, this video is a little shaky because my hand isn’t a tripod:-))
https://robear.smugmug.com/From-the-daily-news/n-fdp3TR/i-nm…

To keep my video site secure I added a password: FYI2020

Robert’s words on Zoom caused me to take a look at the stock price… DOH!!! I wish I had done that earlier when it was near $114

Take care,

VR_Robear

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And getting the US Postal Service on the same day struck me.

Not that it really matters in the long run, but we have been using Zoom at USPS for several months now. Thank goodness we had it in place for Enterprise use before all this blew up.

As a Cybersecurity professional, I would prefer that meeting passwords were required, but sometimes all I can do is give advice, and shrug when it is ignored. The 9 digit numbers are (relatively) predictable, so if anyone had an old invitation for one of our meetings and the (public) URL, they could guess at numbers for upcoming meetings. The risk of anything bad happening is relatively low, as we are not allowed to join a meeting anonymously, so any interloper would likely get bounced pretty quickly.

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I’m shocked how Zoom Happy Hour has cropped up as a thing, seems like almost every night my friends and colleagues want to have a happy hour. If Zoom were smart they would try to monetize this.

Make a separate feature, link up with Uber Eats or another company to deliver food and alcohol in advance to all participants, order a drink for your friends and have it delivered etc…

So many opportunities for growth…

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“I wish I had done that earlier when it was near $114”

Hit 114 today, my man.

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My wife is a teacher for the fifth largest school district in the United States. They just put out a directive today that no one is to use Zoom. I am sure Zoom is working hard to fix their problems.

Since all schools are shut down for the year in Oregon, distance learning is in place. My 3rd graders had their first meeting with teacher and classmates on Tuesday using Zoom. Out of 33 kids from one classroom, 28 were present. Then this horrible security thing comes out and they switched to Google Meets. Well, only 17 kids showed up and were able to join. Why? Well, Zoom worked and was easy to use and worked on any device. My kids were able to join on my laptop vs. their tablets. They have Fire tablets from Amazon. I am software developer, my husband is also one with much more experience than me. He hacked their tablets, installed Google Play, installed Chrome, installed Meet and Amazon is still blocking from being able to join the classroom. He will either hack those tablets more or we will go and buy a cheap laptop or Chromebook since classes will be daily starting next week. But my point is when it was through Zoom, almost twice as many kids joined . So yeah, those kids have super secrets that Zoom’s security issue/non-issue made schools ban using Zoom. Makes sense…

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