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8x8: Rising Higher than the Clouds

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Sweden would call them the Generation Curling, in Norway they are Generation Serious, the Chinese label them ‘ken lao zu’ (the generation that eats the old) and the Japanese have a term for them called ‘nagara-zoku’ or ‘people who are always doing two things at once.' Contrarily, UK and Australia have coined the term Generation Y and being even more prosaical, the US entitles them as the millennials. But, who are the millennials and what does it mean to be one? Breaking the illusive glass of perceptions the world has engendered about this much-maligned demographic, millennials are a group of people amongst workforces who are striving to make a difference in the world, motivated to push boundaries and think differently. Beyond being ‘tech-savvy,' narcissistic and open-minded, millennials bring to the workplace the ‘energy of a thousand suns.’ Functioning on the notion put forth by one of the earth’s greatest innovators, Steve Jobs, this particular mass believes in never settling down. Such are the notions of Vikram Verma—CEO, mastermind, architect and prime mover of 8x8, the world’s pioneer of Communications Cloud. Verma says, “Not just millennials; we all want to build something special, create a difference, shine and be great.” And these philosophies happen to reflect in the way Verma leads 8x8 from the forefront. An excellent team of innovators at 8x8 shares the same passion for building a company that translates complex technology into easy-to-use products and services that create value for customers across the globe. Presently with 8x8’s ground-breaking unified communications and contact center technology, Verma focuses on revolutionizing the enterprise communications space.

The impulse of creating values for the human race has guided Verma in skyrocketing 8x8 into a $253.4 million firm in 2017


The yearning to be great has been Verma’s principle driving force since his education days. He not only earned engineering degrees from multiple elite colleges, he also completed the trifecta of top-notch management schools, bagging graduate executive credentials from Stanford, Harvard and The University of California at Berkeley.
Vikram Verma,CEOAnd since then the man has never turned back. During his early work at Savi on RFID and IoT— which transformed worldwide container tracking and security— the World Economic Forum named him one of 2003’s Top 40 Technology Pioneers in the world. On September 2013 Verma was appointed as the Chief Executive Officer of 8x8 succeeding former CEO, Bryan Martin. While entrusting Verma with the new role and corresponding responsibilities, Martin said, “Our next frontier is to bring our cloud communications services into new markets worldwide. And, the expertise Verma brings in guiding growth technology companies on a global basis is what 8x8 needs to accelerate this plan.” Since then Verma’s unique set of qualifications, which includes proficiency in business transformation, collaboration, and cloud, has consistently steered in double-digit quarterly growth for 8x8. The company announced third-quarter fiscal 2016 results with record revenue of $53.2 million, up 29 percent over the preceding year. Verma has also overseen the acquisition of several companies (Voicenet, Quality Software, and DXI), and he has significantly expanded 8x8 from a regional into a global service provider.

Presently, 8x8 is now well-positioned to be the world pioneer in Communications Cloud that seamlessly connects employees, customers, and applications to improve performance for businesses large and small, global and local. The 8x8 Communications Cloud replaces costly and complex legacy products with a simple, integrated solution that eliminates information silos to expose vital and real-time intelligence. It combines unified communications, team collaboration interoperability, contact center, and analytics in a single, open and real-time platform to help companies improve productivity and overall customer experience.
Moreover, under Verma’s unique management tactics 8x8 has successfully made it up to Gartner Magic Quadrant Leader for Unified Communications as a Service Worldwide. Unlike the most, Verma deeply believes in transparency, he practices management by regularly initiating conversation with staff of all levels, soliciting input on what the company needs to do better.

"The 8x8 Communications Cloud replaces costly and complex legacy products with a simple, integrated solution"

The urge to perform better, the impulse of creating values for the human race has guided Verma in skyrocketing 8x8 into a $253.4 million firm in 2017. Now, 8x8 is the trusted provider of secure and reliable cloud-based unified communications and contact center solutions to more than 50,000 businesses operating in over 150 countries across six continents. As global companies including Regus, NetSuite, Auto Europe and Movement Mortgage entrusts 8x8 with their global communications needs, Verma barely seems to settle down with these achievements. While forecasting FY 2018 for 8x8 Verma asserted, “We will continue to build on this momentum and are excited and energized to expand the market trends and industry dynamics of the cloud communications industry.”

In alignment to his motto— use technologies to cost effectively solve real-world problems— Verma believes in constant innovation; innovations that would push the envelope of humanity forward. He takes great pride in his entire team of changemakers, whom he considers to be 8x8’s strongest asset, and never fails to acknowledge their hard labor. On being asked about that one element that gives him the most confidence regarding 8x8’s long-term viability, Verma sternly states, “We have a world-class engineering team. We have built up our fundamentals. We believe that our technology can take on anyone's.” Moreover, leveraging this magnificent team Vikram Verma-led 8x8 is looking innovation and hard-core technology that can be incorporated into their existing platform and thus continue to add rich functionality to accommodate unique enterprise communication needs.