Ep. 2: Enterprise Data & AI Strategies with Awinash Sinha, CIO at Zoom and Bask Iyer, Former CIO at VMware, Dell, Juniper Networks, and Honeywell & Advisor at Zoom
Ep. 2: Enterprise Data & AI Strategies with Awinash Sinha, CIO at Zoom and Bask Iyer, Former CIO at VMware, Dell, Juniper Networks, and Honeywell & Advisor at Zoom
In this exclusive episode, Awinash and Bask dive deep into the impact of AI at Zoom, and provide advice for data leaders on generative AI, how to enhance the customer experience in product-led companies, and the importance of hiring “outcome enablers”.
Episode Notes
This episode features an interview with Awinash Sinha, CIO at Zoom, and Bask Iyer, former CIO at VMware, Dell, Juniper Networks, and Honeywell & Advisor at Zoom, an all-in-one intelligent collaboration platform that makes connecting easier, more immersive, and more dynamic for businesses and individuals.
Responsible for the company’s information technology, data science and analytics, and business application organizations, Awinash brings to Zoom over 20 years of experience in enabling business outcomes and scaling fast-growing companies. He has completed an executive program in Business Administration and Management from Stanford University Graduate School of Business.
Having served as an advisor and mentor to Zoom since 2016, Bask is a renowned technology executive, leading enterprise-wide transformations in digital systems at numerous companies in Silicon Valley. He is the CEO of BaskMind.com, an experienced team offering hands-on digital transformation and operations excellence services to traditional companies and advisory services to high growth technology companies. Iyer holds a Master’s degree in Computer Science from Florida Institute of Technology.
In this exclusive episode, Awinash and Bask dive deep into the impact of AI at Zoom, and provide advice for data leaders on generative AI, how to enhance the customer experience in product-led companies, and the importance of hiring “outcome enablers”.
Key Quotes
"In subscription business you have to really closely follow the life cycle of customers. And it's a infinity loop, right? Even existing customers, you may be looking at feature adoptions, you may be looking at churn, you may be looking at how we can create more value, make them aware about new products and offerings coming together. And internally, for the sales department, marketing department, or customer support department, providing the insight, both coming from product. Basically with this cloud architecture we have an ability to look at product telemetry data. As well as business transaction data and intersecting them. The magic is, the real insights are when we intersect these two data, join these two data and do a cohort analysis. Cohort analysis at product level, at segment level, particularly for large enterprise companies our size and bigger, will have a customer segmentation, will also will have some flavor, some in geodes dimensions or other dimensions. Once we connect the data around product and then customer lifecycle from business transactions, it could be slice and dice from many different perspective, and that's where the insights come." - Awinash Sinha
Episode Timestamps
(01:39) Approaches for CIO’s and Data leaders to consider regarding AR and VR
(03:31) Zoom’s strategy for AR and VR collaboration
(06:29) AI-powered innovations improving user experience on Zoom
(07:49) Zoom IQ explained
(11:25) AI's role in addressing COVID-driven challenges for engagement in online education and business interaction
(16:59) Advice to C-level executives on generative AI strategy
(22:05) Approach of starting initiatives despite data quality concerns
(27:29) Future of the "data scientist" title amid AI techniques and evolving roles
(30:54) Warehouse-centric data approach and its impact on data leaders
(31:57) Advantages of data warehousing being on cloud
(37:03) Strategies for product-led analytics leaders to boost customer experience
(39:52) Value of information and time on data
(42:38) Consumer-centric approach and its impact on business
(45:05) Call to action for data leaders
(51:58) Takeaways
