I cannot remember the last time I had a face-to-face meeting with a client or even candidate. Right now, the default is to organise a virtual call rather than a physical meeting, so there really has been a global change in behaviour. That goes double for managing a business that is growing rapidly and managing a team across a diverse as possible market such as APAC.

Our latest expert/tech giant to share their productivity tech tools is Ricky Kapur, Head of APAC from Zoom. Ricky has over 25 years of experience as the former Vice President of Sales and Marketing Operations at Microsoft APAC and the Managing Director of Google where he was responsible for overseeing growth of Google Cloud Platform across APJ.

He has also worked at Oracle, Siebel Systems, Unica Corporation, and Chordiant Software. He is currently in charge of Zoom’s APAC business growth and expanding the business in the region.

As you most likely know, Zoom is a one-stop video communications platform for businesses and individuals to collaborate, engage and connect through video, central to our mission of delivering happiness to all our users.

Here’s what the regional MD of Barco said were his productivity tools

During the pandemic, our adoption of video conferencing tools skyrocketed and Zoom was the first choice for many businesses, individuals and more to communicate virtually. As Ricky helms their aggressive growth in the region, he requires tools to smoothen the work process, so here are the top 5 tools he uses to make his work life easier.

Zoom Phone for effortless communication while working remotely (Paid)

It goes without saying that the COVID-19 pandemic has changed the way we live, work and play. Almost overnight, remote working became the new norm and organisations had to provide the right tools for their employees to communicate effectively with each other and customers. Yet, traditional telephony can be a complicated and costly endeavor involving expensive hardware and multiple carriers, especially for global organisations with distributed teams around the world.

Zoom Phone offers a nifty alternative for flexible and seamless communication perfect for today’s hybrid workforce. Personally, I use Zoom Phone for all my communications at work, from connecting with my sales team to building relationships with existing and potential customers across the Asia Pacific region.

Not only can my team integrate our personal mobile devices into the Zoom Phone platform, we’ve found that the the ability to elevate a Zoom Phone call directly into a Zoom meeting is great for engaging prospects – without having to hang up or reschedule another meeting, we can seamlessly transform a prospective sales call into a live demo. Nothing quite like seeing it for themselves to believe it!

Ensuring that meetings are on track and on task with Asana (Paid and free options)

Virtual meetings are by now, part-and-parcel of the hybrid working experience. It is important that organisations and leaders ensure that these meetings are productive and effective. For my own team at Zoom, I champion the “3As” framework – agenda, attendees and action items. Each meeting will start with an agenda and end with documented action items, ensuring that meeting attendees are focused and efficient through it all.

I use Asana to facilitate this, especially since it is integrated into the Zoom Meeting experience via Zoom Apps. Not only can action items be created in Asana directly from the Zoom call, the post-call recording and transcript are automatically pulled by Asana as well, making meeting conversations easily searchable for anyone who needs a refresher.

As we transition into a hybrid future, I believe that it is essential to give my employees the flexibility to decide where and how to work, be it from the office, virtually or a combination of both. Regardless of which option my team picks, Asana has proven to be a great help in keeping us all aligned and ensuring that key decisions and tasks are not lost in all the action.

Contracts made easy with DocuSign (Paid)

Gone were the days that we needed to courier contracts over to customers or vendors for their physical signatures – it could take weeks to complete the process from start to finish. Digital signatures are changing the game as we know it, shortening the timeframe from weeks to hours.

It’s easy to imagine how this can benefit those in the banking and finance or insurance industries, where contracts and agreements are the bread and butter of business. I’ve used it myself when liaising with customers, vendors or even internal stakeholders, and the time savings from automation are truly considerable.

But beyond working with customers and vendors, I find that e-signatures are equally useful in streamlining workflows and daily processes too. As the DocuSign app is integrated directly into Zoom, it’s particularly convenient that I’m able to get updates and notifications on the status of my documents without having to access another application for it. Most of my team’s workflows are already taking place on Zoom, and having everything I need on one consolidated platform is great for efficiency.

Working securely with Okta (Paid)

With workplaces becoming increasingly distributed across homes, offices and co-working spaces, a key concern for organisations today is ensuring that communications and data remain secure and private. Furthermore, remote hiring has become par for course and onboarding new employees safely – and quickly – can become a challenge.

Okta is pre-integrated with the Zoom platform, which means that new team members can access the Zoom platform and all its features easily and instantly. We’ve had team members start collaborating right on day one, and our IT teams no longer need to spend copious amounts of time to ensure that each new user is given the appropriate level of access.

What I like most about Okta is its automated lifecycle management to prevent lingering access, which kicks off when team members change roles or leave. In our line of work where we come across and work with loads of customer data, this is definitely an expedient functionality to have.

Hosting large-scale conferences via Zoom Events (Paid and free options)

Virtual events have proven to be a lifeline for many businesses and individuals as physical events and meetings were simply not possible due to pandemic lockdowns and restrictions. While life slowly returns to some sort of semblancy across the world, it’s safe to say that events are just not going back to the way it was.

Personally, I’ve attended many virtual events over the course of the year and they have been just as productive as it would have been in-person. As an attendee, I value greatly the flexibility and convenience of attending events in my own time. For organisations, the upsides are even better. Think lowered costs and the ability to reach global audiences across geographical borders.

Solutions like Zoom Events can be incredibly handy for enterprises and small businesses alike, with all the virtual event tools and technology you need wrapped up in an all-in-one package. In fact, we hosted Zoomtopia, our annual customer conference this year on the Zoom Events platform, which saw over 33,000 participants join in on the fun.