Last week, Tarek Robbiati departed RingCentral by mutual agreement after less than four months at the helm.
The enterprise communications stalwart alerted customers and partners in a statement, stressing the move was unrelated to internal disagreements.
Co-founder Vlad Shumnis – who stepped down from the CEO hot seat in August to lead the company's innovation plans – now reclaims the position.
Yet, some have suggested that Shumnis may have been tentative to relinquish the title from the get-go. Zeus Kerravala, Principal Analyst at ZK Research, is one such industry observer.
During a recent conversation with CX Today, Kerravala stated:
RingCentral is Vlad's company, and my guess is that there was an internal power struggle, leading to the decision to go in the direction Vlad wanted.
"They seem close to being cash flow positive, and Vlad likely wants to lead them into the contact center space – so he can feel like his job is done."
The Alternative Argument
RingCentral’s move deeper into the contact center space started last month, with the vendor’s new CCaaS platform – RingCX – becoming generally available.
Yet, piercing the skin of the space after acquiring Hopin Events, expanding RingSense, and launching RingCentral for Teams 2.0 may have been too much for the new financially-orientated CEO to handle.
After all, RingCentral called upon Robbiati for his financial nous. His charge was to captain the ship and keep it steady as Shumnis searched for gold.
"Cultural fit and style might be factors, but it's also possible that Terek didn't like what he saw when digging into the business's realities," suggested Jon Arnold, Principal of J Arnold & Associates,
Ring faces challenges in the UCaaS market, where it's hard to make a buck right now, and everyone is competing against Teams, which might make profitability challenging.
"Tarek may have taken a longer look and thought: 'I don't know if I can make this work here,' and he received a nice payday for a short run."
That theory gathers momentum, as RingCentral indicated the move was unrelated to internal disputes.
Moreover, Robbiati may have recognized that it’s ultimately better to acknowledge the challenge and move forward than to drag on and try to make it work.