RingCentral stands out as one of the better-known companies in the communication industry. An innovator in cloud communications, and a UCaaS Gartner Magic Quadrant Leader for 6 consecutive years, the value of RingCentral is hard to overlook.
Though many factors have contributed to RingCentral’s success over the years, perhaps the most important is its leader, Vlad Shmunis. One of the most respected names in the communication industry, Vlad Shmunis founded RingCentral with a quest. He wanted to leverage cloud technology to transform the way that people communicate.
Today, RingCentral supports the modern workforce in collaborating, communicating, and connecting on any device, from anywhere. RingCentral is a globally respected solution for flexible, cost-effective communication technology, capable of overtaking the on-premises phone system environment.
Let’s have a look at Vlad’s journey to creating an award-winning company like RingCentral.
Who Is Vlad Shmunis? An Introduction
Vlad Shmunis is an innovator with a passion for creating incredible solutions to problems. He was originally born in the Ukraine when it was still a part of the Soviet Union, and his parents moved to the United States in the seventies. Shmunis ended up in San Francisco, where he and his younger sister attended public high schools. Later, Shmunis successfully graduated from San Francisco State University with a degree in computer science, which he further evolved into a master’s degree.
Straight out of school, Vlad started his career in the tech landscape, as an engineer for a small start-up company in Silicon Valley. He discovered quickly that he couldn’t see a future for himself in a corporate setting. Shmunis believed that he would be better off working on his own and decided to pursue entrepreneurship.
Vlad, like many budding entrepreneurs, used his vast knowledge of the software environment and his understanding of the marketplace to look for a problem he believed he could solve. It was a desire to create more flexible and accessible communication solutions, free from the restrictions of traditional boxed services, that prompted the creation of RingCentral.
The Catalyst for RingCentral’s Creation
RingCentral today is recognised as one of the fastest-growing pure-cloud communication providers. As the top-ranked company for the Omdia North American UCaaS report, and a leader in innovation for the Frost and Sullivan UCaaS report, RingCentral gets plenty of positive attention.
So, where did this incredible company come from?
Shmunis is a well-known veteran of the software industry. Before RingCentral, Vlad founded a company named Ring Zero Systems. This business was intended, like RingCentral, to support companies in creating the communication systems best suited to their needs. According to Vlad, he never understood why communication products a few decades ago had to be so restrictive and complex. He wanted to build a software system running conventional computing devices that would empower the modern workforce.
Ring Zero Systems was surprisingly successful. At the time, Shmunis had truly little business experience. He had a highly technical background in software engineering and didn’t fully have a grasp on how to run a business. Match that lack of experience with a lack of funds, and it’s amazing that the company did as well as it did. Ring Zero Systems became the number one supplier of desktop communication software in the PC OEM landscape. Though Ring Zero Systems offered a fantastic source of experience for Vlad, he wasn’t done with his innovation just yet.
