It’s a small (work from anywhere) world | #customersupport #supporticket

It’s a world of laughter

A world of tears

It’s a world of hopes

And a world of fears.

There’s so much that we share

That it’s time we’re aware

It’s a small world (after all).

My four-year-old loves that song. As a childhood favorite of my own, I marvel at its longevity and lasting message. Written at a time of great uncertainty, the Sherman Brothers offer words that still ring true today. Perhaps even more so, in a similarly precarious world. I take them as a precious reminder of the many things we all have in common and how through them we can find purpose, peace and understanding.

We have witnessed on one hand, the planet seemingly come to a halt, and on the other hand, a major part of  workforces finding themselves working from home. Social gatherings ceased. Masks became a critical accessory for almost every interaction. The outcome? The biggest, most comprehensive experiment in shared virtual and social experiences we have ever seen.

With the great news about COVID-19 vaccines, our thoughts turn to a return to normality.  However, the world of work has changed forever.  We may be in the office, we may also work from home, or perhaps the coffee shop or somewhere else. Organizations will need to support their people working from anywhere, with the capabilities they need to get work done. Our solutions have always been a reflection of our belief that “Work from Anywhere” would be the eventual normal. Our customers are already starting to plan for this new normality as well.

This week we announced financial results for our third quarter in 2020. These results reflect the passion and hard work of our people, the impact of our innovation, the expertise of our amazing partners, but above all it starts and finishes with our customers. Together we make great results happen. Together we’ll help people work from anywhere.

It starts with our customers

We are obsessed with our customers.  Our success begins and ends with their success. In Q3, there was great momentum adding new customers of every size and growing our existing customers, but it’s not just about revenue or market share. It is about creating customer value. It is about enabling their workplace and workstyle digital transformation. It is also about how our customers teach us and help us to continue to innovate and improve.

That includes inspiration for completely new features – such as the creation of our high-volume SMS service – to better understand what customers need by seeing how they are using RingCentral at the center of their organization every day.

Here are just a few examples of how our customers are using our communications, collaboration, and contact center solutions to thrive:

Heartland Dental, one of the nation’s largest dental support organizations, has expanded its adoption of RingCentral to 10,000 total employees. Now, their workforce can take advantage of RingCentral’s robust features for voice calls, video meetings, screen sharing, team messaging, and mobile communication. In addition, they’ve added RingCentral Contact Center to be able to run end-to-end analytics of patient calls from the contact center to their local offices.

University of Tennessee, Knoxville is deploying RingCentral’s Message Video Phone™ (MVP™) solution to 6,000 faculty and staff members to optimize engagement for a newly mobile workforce. In addition, they plan to leverage our integrations with the Canvas learning management system – something they found to be a unique differentiator with RingCentral.

CNAM, a French government organization that manages national healthcare branches, selected RingCentral for its digital customer engagement capabilities with Engage Digital. Our multi-channel solution integrates with RingCentral Video, which was the preferred method of communication by the CNAM team for engagement with policyholders and healthcare professionals.

The Future of Global is Local

We know our customers want a cloud communications solution that is easy-to-use, scalable, and secure. But it also has to support their people wherever they are located. That’s why, during our last quarter, RingCentral focused our expansion “locally” – but at a global scale. For our customers, while they may do business all around the world, staying local is key to maintaining and forging new business relationships.

Expansion in Germany

Complementing our datacenter presence in over 30 countries, RingCentral now has a datacenter in Frankfurt and a new office in Hamburg, Germany. We can now offer customers local data storage and the ability to keep voice and video call media local. The new datacenter will also give users access to local phone numbers and emergency services in compliance with local laws and regulations.

Strategic Partners in Europe

Taking a local approach is inherent to our partner strategy. Together with Atos, a leader in  helping organizations to digitally transform, we launched Unify Office by RingCentral to multiple countries, including Austria, Belgium, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Spain and The Netherlands. With Avaya, we announced the general availability of our Avaya Cloud Office product to France, Ireland, and The Netherlands, ensuring that organizations have access to a powerful Unified Communications as a Service (UCaaS)  solution on multiple platforms and with their trusted provider.

We believe the market opportunity for UCaaS is significant. To further help businesses transition their communications to the cloud, we added another strategic partner to our inner circle – Alcatel-Lucent Enterprise. Together, we will be offering a co-branded cloud solution, Rainbow Office powered by RingCentral, to organizations looking to accelerate their digital transformation.

Innovation velocity is key

Over the past eight months, while we’ve expanded internationally, we’ve been presented with the most amazing opportunity to see how cloud-based communications – from team messaging to video meetings to cloud telephony – can evolve to help people communicate, collaborate and get things done working from anywhere.

You won’t be surprised that Q3 was a record quarter for innovation at RingCentral with over 66 releases. This includes updates for our RingCentral Office platform including messaging, video and phone, our Contact Center products and our global communications network.

RingCentral Video alone had over 70 new features from security enhancements like Waiting Rooms to new video layouts, dark mode, and smarter meeting capabilities. We also expanded its availability to Europe and extended the RingCentral Video experience into conference rooms with RingCentral Rooms™ and with RingCentral Rooms for Poly.

Innovation is also about how others are using our platform.  Today we have ~50,000 developers and ~5,000 app and services integrations using our platform and that continues to grow.

As we hopefully move from a work-from-home world to a work-from-anywhere world, we will continue to invest in R&D and our focus on innovation will intensify, delivering everything from security to analytics and end-user features and capabilities.

Focusing on Our People

World events have conspired to leave so many around the world stressed and anxious. The little things we all once took for granted seem but distant memories. Leaving isolation and uncertainty in their place. Disheartening to say the least. Yet throughout, our RingCentral family has remained positive and focused. For this I am grateful. In fact, it inspires me immensely. In inspiration lies commitment. In commitment, dialogue and action.

Last quarter,  we added a Chief People Officer to our Leadership team – Gunjan Aggarwal. At RingCentral we believe in inclusion. Our employees believe RingCentral is a great place to work. One where each of us feels comfortable bringing his, her, and their best and authentic self forward. Gunjan is committed to strengthening this core value. Her focus spans talent acquisition and development, organisational effectiveness, rewards and recognition, and global inclusion and diversity.

Internally, our Q3 conversations have centered greatly around mental wellness and work/life harmony. Our Corporate and Social Responsibility (RCause) initiatives and Wellness Programs have become critical in grounding us all in what truly matters – purpose, productivity, and work-life balance that leaves us happy and fulfilled. Our CaRING Day paid holiday has become a quarterly tradition – in fact, a necessity at a moment when employees simply just need some time away from work.

Finally, I am learning every single day.  During Q3, we had over 150 small group meetings – called GatheRINGs – between executives and our people, which provide valuable opportunities for the exchange of ideas and feedback.

So grateful…

I’m grateful to be working with and for such a dedicated team at RingCentral. Thank you for incredible results in Q3! I am proud of your efforts. In tears you find laughter – in fear, you find hope. In isolation you create connections for so many businesses and workers around the globe – proving “it’s a small world after all.” We at RingCentral, we are proud to play a significant part in that.