A strong foundation

Resilience is a deep-rooted attribute that flows from the culture of an organisation, through the senior management, and down to the employees.

- PALLAVI JHA

When Eric Yuan moved to USA in 1997 after being rejected for a visa eight times, he arrived in the country armed with nothing more than conviction and a dream. He was sure that the internet was going to bring many disruptions in the market and that he wanted to be in the right place when that happened. He soon moved on to make his own collaboration platform called Zoom in 2011.

How did a relatively new entrant in a marketplace dominated by giants like Cisco, Google, and Skype become the platform of choice for millions of people across the globe to collaborate in a remote work environment?

The answer lies in the commitment of a frugal and prudent founder to make a lightweight, easy-to-use service that would make physical presence in any meeting simply a matter of discretion. Yuan kept his ears close to the ground, learnt from others’ mistakes, used his pursuit of simplicity as an agile weapon, and mastered the art of resilience amidst stiff competition and many hurdles.

Change comes in many shapes and forms and history has taught us that disaster and crises occur far more frequently now than ever.

Few of us are able to change the environment in which we operate; we can only control how we prepare for and respond to it. Resilience has moved from being highly desirable to extremely crucial for organizations. In fact, resilience and agility are the only two factors that will make it easier for businesses to survive the inevitable downturn that is staring us in our faces.