Tag: Zoho

Zoho, a global technology company, on Thursday, September 19, said that it grew by 31% in 2023 in Nigeria, one of its key markets in the Africa region.

The company which has been providing its 55+ apps in Naira to help local businesses amid the fluctuating dollar rate also announced its collaboration with Bridge International Academies to support the education of underprivileged children.

These announcements were made on the sidelines of Zoholics Nigeria, the company’s annual user conference.

Kehinde Ogundare, Country Head, Zoho Nigeria said: “As we continue to grow our presence in Africa, our focus is on ensuring that our expansion positively impacts the local economy, communities, and the broader business ecosystem.

“This approach aligns with our transnational localism strategy, which emphasises being rooted in local markets while staying globally connected. To support this, we are committed to hiring local talent, strengthening our partner network, and creating products tailored to the local market.

“Additionally, to serve the community, we are supporting the education of children and also undertaking sustainability initiatives.”

Speaking on community and environment initiatives, he Ogundare said Zoho is partnering with Bridge International Academies to establish a meaningful Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) initiative in Nigeria, Kenya, and Uganda.

He said the primary objective of the partnership is to support the education of 200 children from underserved communities by sponsoring school uniforms, fees for four terms, and other essential items for students attending Bridge International Academies.

He said the initiative aims to address the issue of financial constraints that hinder many pupils’ access to essential school supplies.

According to him, Zoho recognises the crucial role of education in societal development and is committed to breaking down these barriers by supporting Bridge International Academies pupils with necessary supplies.

In said he addition to all these, Zoho aims to assist Bridge International Academies in its digitalisation efforts, offering Zoho Wallet Credits to help them utilise the company’s technology.

“Every child has the right to education, yet many children from underprivileged backgrounds face significant barriers to accessing quality learning opportunities.

“That’s why we are committed to transforming the lives of millions of children in underserved communities by delivering life-changing education. Through strategic partnerships, we aim to bridge this gap by providing vital resources and high-quality education to the students we serve.”

Foyinsola Akinjayeju, Managing Director, Bridge International Academies, Nigeria said: “We are thrilled and deeply grateful for our partnership with Zoho, as our shared commitment to delivering meaningful value is at the heart of what unites us.

“Zoho is also recycling the billboards of its out-of-home ads and turning them into bags. Over 500 flexes from Nigeria and 1300+ in Kenya have been recycled so far.”

Ogundare continued: “At Zoho, we believe that our growth should go hand in hand with the success of our customers, partners, employees, and the communities we are part of. In Nigeria, we embrace this same philosophy by hiring locally, expanding our partner network, and offering affordable technology tailored to meet local needs.

“For the community, we have been investing in youth upskilling initiatives and are now extending support to children’s education. We are also committed to strengthening our sustainability efforts, including expanding our recycling programmes, such as flex recycling,” said Ogundare.

Speaking on the company’s growth in Nigeria, Ogundare said: “Zoho has experienced impressive growth in the Nigerian market since commencing operations in 2020. Over the past three years, Zoho has achieved a 43% compound annual growth rate (CAGR) in Nigeria.

“In 2023 alone, Zoho saw a 21% increase in its partner network. Additionally, the company expanded its local workforce in Nigeria by 40% in the previous year.

“Zoho’s success in Nigeria stems from the widespread adaptation of its flagship products, including Zoho Workplace, ZohoBooks, Zoho Desk, Zoho CRM, and ZohoOne. These products have played a crucial role in optimising business operations, improving customer experience, and enhancing efficiency.

“Zoho’s success in the Nigerian region is driven by key sectors such as financial services, energy, real estate and construction, IT hardware & IT related services, professional services (non-IT), utilities and resources, and retail.

On other upskilling initiatives in Africa, Ogundare said: “Earlier this year, Zoho revealed several upskilling partnerships across Africa. As part of the Young Creators Program, Zohopartnered with She Code Africa, a non-profit organisation dedicated to empowering and upskilling African women in tech. Zoho conducted “train the trainer” sessions for SCA Academy trainers, equipping them with skills to use ZohoCreator, Zoho’s low-code app development platform. The SCA Academy trainers will then train more students associated with SCA to develop impactful applications using low-code technology, addressing real-world business challenges. 

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“In Kenya, the company joined forces with MOMO Pencils, a leading manufacturer of eco-friendly stationery in Nairobi, for the “Hope for Literacy” program. The program seeks to combat intergenerational poverty by improving access to quality education for children in underserved communities while promoting environmental sustainability and eco-friendly practices in schools.

“Zoho also partnered with J-Hub Africa, the digital innovation hub at Jomo Kenyatta University of Agriculture and Technology, to provide training for JKUAT technology students. This partnership will focus on teaching students how to leverage Zoho’s cloud-based business applications, enhancing their technology skills, and preparing them for diverse career opportunities in various industries.

“Recently, in South Africa, Zohocollaborated with BabesGotBytes to empower over 40 girls and women with digital skills through a comprehensive one-year boot camp, aimed at bridging the skills gap and increasing female representation in tech. Additionally, Zoho partnered with CodeTelligence to support a 6-month boot camp for 36 economically disadvantaged youth, providing IT training and mentorship to enhance their employability and readiness for the workforce,” he said.

Zoho Corporation, a leading global technology company, on Thursday, June 6, announced early access to Zoho CRM for Everyone, a new set of industry-first capabilities aimed at democratising CRM to all teams involved in customer operations activities.

The company also unveiled significant enhancements to its offerings for professional developers and app development teams. These include early access to new services within Catalyst, the company’s pro-code full-stack development platform, and the general availability of Zoho Apptics, an application analytics solution that enables developers to track in-app usage and performance of apps.

Kehinde Ogundare, Country Head, Zoho Nigeria during the announcement said: “Businesses are looking for unified solutions that help them optimise for value, maximise their competitive advantages, and tap into new market opportunities amid tough economic conditions.

“At Zoho, we’re focused on continuously deepening our current offerings and expanding others to serve business needs. Zoho CRM for Everyone, for instance, is the first true democratisation of the CRM paradigm and helps unify all customer operations teams onto the CRM to deliver better customer experiences.

“Likewise, the upgraded Catalyst and the privacy-focused Apptics solution work hand-in-hand to deliver an unmatched developer experience from concept to code, and deployment to analytics,” he said.

Highlighting what customers need to know about “Zoho CRM for Everyone,” Ogundare said, “Zoho CRM is one of the top-selling products in Nigeria. The product recorded a 60% YoY growth in 2023 in the country.

“Zoho CRM for Everyone allows sales teams, the primary custodian of customer relationships, to communicate and coordinate with other customer-facing teams from a single place—the CRM application—instead of holding fragmented discussions. It enables account managers, for example, to pull in a solutions engineer to coordinate a product demonstration for a customer.

“A marketer can perform win-loss analysis for specific deals. A community specialist can manage advocacy engagements like case studies. They may all use different core applications for deep work but can now converge on the CRM for managing shared responsibilities towards the customer.

“Besides opening up CRM access cross-functionally, Zoho CRM for Everyone also empowers every team to manage their own workflows autonomously within the corporate IT framework. The new capabilities stand to improve visibility for every stakeholder in the customer journey, mitigate gaps in coordination, reduce turnaround time, and improve the quality of the customer experience,” he said.

He stated that for CRM for Everyone to be possible, the following capabilities have come together in Zoho CRM: “Team Modules and Requesters: Under team modules, business teams can create their own team-level data modules (in addition to organisation-level modules) by themselves while being governed by IT teams. Requesters is a new user profile in Zoho CRM that allows a team member to raise a request for colleagues in different teams and track the request status.

“Refreshed User Experience: To enable this fundamental shift in usage, the interface of Zoho CRM has been redesigned for better usability across roles and functions. With this release, Zoho CRM is also making a major stride in accessibility with capabilities covering areas like vision, motor activity, and interactions.”

Speaking on the New Custom App Development Capabilities in Catalyst, he said, “Building custom solutions out of a disparate mix of tools has consistently been a source of frustration for developers. Catalyst unifies pro-code development efforts and streamlines the entire lifecycle by abstracting away complexities, providing pre-built components, and offering a comprehensive suite of developer tools.

“Catalyst’s newest offerings, available under early access, expand on developer logic, design, and delivery.

“Catalyst seamlessly integrates with the Zoho ecosystem and third-party applications, enabling developers to leverage existing infrastructure and data sources. The platform stands out with its transparent and cost-effective pricing model, empowering organisations of all sizes by eliminating hidden fees and offering predictable, scalable pricing.”

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He also highlighted some features of catalyst, “Signals: Routes events from sources like Zoho services, third-party sources, or custom applications to handlers (like Catalyst Functions, Circuits, etc.) using topics and subscriptions.

“NoSQL Database: Allows users to store structured, semi-structured, and unstructured data while supporting diverse data types and scaling dynamically with high performance.

“Slate: A fully managed frontend platform that lets developers easily build highly customised interfaces that leverage frameworks such as React.js, Next.js, Sveltekit, etc.

“CI/CD Pipeline: Automates tests and builds for continuous delivery pipelines, streamlining development workflows for faster time-to-market.”

Speaking on Zoho Apptics, Ogundare said that Zoho Apptics is an application analytics solution that enables developers to track the in-app usage and performance of applications built on iOS, macOS, Android, and other platforms.

“Zoho Apptics delivers an extensive digital analytics platform designed for every stakeholder involved in application development and management. The solution consolidates analytics across app usage, performance, user engagement, and growth metrics into a centralised console, then synthesises these multifaceted data streams into actionable insights presented visually in dashboards and reports.

“This unified view empowers organisations to make informed decisions, optimise app experiences, drive user engagement, and fuel sustainable growth throughout the application lifecycle. Apptics provides multi-platform analytics support, covering Android, iOS, macOS, tvOS, watchOS, iPadOS, Windows, React Native, Flutter, and Unity, with web analytics capabilities coming soon.

“Apptics stands out by offering a unique capability to prompt Android and iOS users for app ratings and updates directly from the Apptics console. Integrated app store review management helps in streamlining the process of analysing user sentiment. Additionally, Zoho Apptics prioritises data privacy and security, exceeding industry best practices and regulatory compliance standards. User information is safeguarded behind encryption and access controls, ensuring analytics insights are leveraged responsibly without compromising individual privacy, he said.

Ogundare concluded that starting from Thursday, June 6, early access to Zoho CRM for Everyone is available upon request for Zoho customers worldwide. Zoho will be releasing additional capabilities to CRM for everyone over several weeks during the early access phase.

He noted that Catalyst offers a generous Free Tier that renews monthly, alongside options for a pay-as-you-go model and subscription-based pricing. The new features are now available for early access, and interested users can sign up by visiting Zoho’s Catalyst page. Apptics is globally available now and offers a free plan and a pro plan starting at NGN18600 per month when billed annually.

By Kehinde Ogundare

Small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) are the lifeblood of the Nigerian economy. According to figures released last year by the International Labour Organisation (ILO), SMBs account for around 48% of Nigeria’s GDP. Additionally, they account for 96% of all businesses and 84% of employment.

To reach their full potential, SMBs must leverage effective business-enabling technology, including solutions for CX, finance, HR and employee productivity. However, it’s important to remember that not every business app is equal. It is essential for businesses to carefully select the apps they utilise, whether opting for a mix of best-of-breed solutions from various vendors or choosing to deploy a unified suite from a single vendor who offers end-to-end business solutions for all needs.

While there are no universal rules for what kind of app will suit a company best, there are a few guidelines that businesses can consider to ensure that they choose apps that are best suited to their business needs.

1. The app should have a single source of truth (to avoid data silos)

Even small businesses have data accruing from a variety of sources. This data can be incredibly valuable, helping the business make decisions about where it’s performing best and which areas it needs to work on. However, that can only happen if the app (or suite of apps) provides a single source of truth (SSOT). An SSOT aggregates data from across the organisation to a single location. This allows the business to make decisions based on a consolidated view of what’s happening across departments rather than trying to pick through individual data silos.

2. Check how well the solution scales

The goal of any business is to grow, and ideally, the chosen apps should evolve alongside it. However, many of the solutions marketed to SMBs lack scalability. Scalability isn’t just about adaptable pricing tiers; it also means that they should have a demonstrable track record of working with businesses of various sizes and providing them with the offerings they need to facilitate their growth.

3. Security

If you’re a small business, you might think that security doesn’t need to be a major concern. After all, how much value is a cyber-criminal going to get out of your business? But it’s high time SMBs prioritise cybersecurity. To understand why, you only need to look at the fact that Nigerian SMEs are among the biggest targets of cybercrime. The breaches that result from this criminal activity don’t just have a financial cost attached to them but can also do massive reputational damage, something which no small business can afford to bear. This is why it’s paramount to ensure that the app chosen complies with local data protection guidelines or regulations and will protect the data of the customers who trust you with their information.

4. Ease of use

If you’re running an SMB, it’s likely your team is small but wears many hats. Hence, it’s vital to ensure that any business app or suite of apps you select is user-friendly, especially for non-technical staff. Opting for easy-to-use apps has long-term benefits. As your business expands, seamless onboarding becomes crucial. The right app(s) significantly reduce training needs, enabling new employees to be productive team members from day one.

5. Customer support

Regardless of how easy an app is to use, there will be occasions when additional support is needed. The app provider should ensure support for customer businesses across a diverse range of channels for their convenience. From onboarding new customers to attending to queries, businesses should also evaluate how effective the vendor is with post-sales support.

Always aim for integration

Beyond the level of strategic impact that an app or a platform can bring to your business, another aspect to consider is how well the chosen app can integrate into your existing tech ecosystem. Ideally, the app should be built to accommodate integration, capability extension, and customisation needs in order to truly serve a business’ needs. When the app ticks the checklist discussed above, the ROI it can provide your business can be multifold.

Kehinde Ogundare is the Country Head, Nigeria, Zoho Corp.

• By Kehinde Ogundare

Given the significant challenges both the Nigerian and global economies face, businesses have had to work harder than ever to survive, ensure business continuity, and stay competitive over the past few years. One of the key aspects that businesses had to focus on in this regard was improving employee collaboration and productivity to manage staff experiences in the workplace amid all the challenges across the tech landscape.

While some of the pressures may ease in 2024 with more awareness of technology, it’s unlikely that it will all be plain sailing for businesses. Naira to Dollar fluctuation remains an issue, and many of the geopolitical issues that characterised 2023 may also spill over into 2024. Apart from this, the world of work is rapidly evolving, as remote and hybrid models are as common as on-site models today. Keeping employees connected and engaged amid this sea of changes needs to be an employer priority. One way businesses can sustain collaboration, productivity, and engagement levels among employees is through the use of effective workplace technology.

Below are a few work trends and collaboration technologies that businesses should pay attention to if they want to make the most of 2024.

Automation is everywhere (including in employee expenses)

Over the years, we’ve seen the automation of many business processes. Those advances will continue at an even faster pace in 2024 and beyond. One area that’s particularly ripe for innovation around automation is employee expense reporting. For employees, remembering to log expenses and keep all of their receipts can be a painful experience. For the people charged with reconciling those expenses at the end of every month, doing so can likewise be incredibly time-consuming.

Automating expense reporting can help organisations manage employee travel, make payments faster, and provide comprehensive analytics for expense reports related to travel, spending, and reimbursements.

The rise of productivity tools and collaboration platforms

Tied to automation is the rise of productivity tools, which one can think of broadly as pieces of software that simplify tasks, streamline workflows, make team collaboration smoother, ease communication, and improve access to work info. In other words, they help employees do more in less time.

Most businesses today use productivity tools of some kind. Organisations looking to add to their arsenals of business tools should look for software which—aside from providing a unified platform that supports both synchronous and asynchronous communication—also integrates contextually with business applications like CRMs so that workers can initiate ad-hoc conversations easily right in the business apps’ interfaces.

Ticketing applications enhance customer satisfaction

Today’s customers expect to be able to contact an organisation on the channel of their choosing, and to get an immediate response when they do so. That’s not always easy for organisations to accomplish when they have to respond manually to inquiries through each of those channels. In fact, doing things that way makes it difficult to ensure that every ticket is answered accurately with the right context and on time.

Ticketing applications can save a lot of time on that front by automating the process of assigning customer inquiries to the right agent. They can also make replying to tickets intuitive, provide accurate sentiment analysis, and ensure that issues can be seamlessly resolved across departments, among other things.

Paring back the technologies that don’t make sense

As exciting as these technological advancements are, it’s possible to get overwhelmed by the sheer number of collaboration and productivity tools available. As a result, some tools that seemed essential at one stage can end up not being useful.

Organisations should therefore spend at least some time in 2024 auditing the tools they use. They should axe any that aren’t in use, and thereby save the company money and further streamline productivity and collaboration. Additionally, they should see if they can replace any of the tools they’re using with something in a productivity suite that they’ve adopted.

Even as businesses are well into the year, it’s never too late to capitalise on productivity tools and collaboration platforms. While organisations can’t fully control external forces shaping their operations, by embracing the right digital toolset and technology, they can enhance their competitive edge and navigate through changes effectively.

Kehinde Ogundare is the Country Manager, Zoho Nigeria.

Zoho, a global technology company, on Friday, November 17, announced that it grew by 50 percent in Nigeria in 2022.

The company, as part of its Zoho for Startups programme, has also partnered with #StartupSouth, an organisation that works towards the development of startups from South-South and South-East Nigeria.

Zoho, while announcing this at Zoholics Nigeria, the company’s annual user conference, held in Lagos also said it will be providing its contract management solution, Zoho Contracts, free for three months to help businesses improve compliance with the Nigeria Data Protection Law.

Ali Shabdar, Regional Director, MEA, Zoho speaking at the programme said, “Our growth is a direct result of Nigerian businesses embracing cloud technology, especially unified platforms, to digitally transform and build resilience to adapt to challenging market conditions. Zoho’s unified technology stack, built from the ground up, allows us to meet such transformation needs of businesses with robust solutions that deliver consistently seamless user experiences at unbeatable value.”

Zoho’s growth in Nigeria is primarily driven by the adoption of Zoho One, the operating system for business, and Zoho Workplace, a unified enterprise collaboration platform.

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Also, Zoho CRM Plus (unified customer experience platform), Zoho Books (accounting software), and Zoho Desk (helpdesk software) are the other top-selling products in the country. Zoho also grew its partner network by 22% and doubled its employee count in 2022 in Nigeria to reinforce its local presence and better serve its customers.

“Our transnational localism strategy of being locally rooted while staying globally connected is also key to our growth in Nigeria as we are able to serve our customers directly with our locally hired teams in Lagos. Zoho is also one of the few vendors in Nigeria today that continues to provide their offerings in Naira, thereby protecting businesses from the fluctuating dollar rates, and ensuring that enterprise technology remains accessible to businesses of all sizes. Our partnership with #StartupSouth, and the special offer on Zoho Contracts, are further steps that underscore our commitment to serve the business community in the region,” said Kehinde Ogundare, Country Head, Zoho Nigeria.

On the partnership with Startup South, it said it has partnered with #StartupSouth through its Zoho for Startups programme. As part of this partnership, startups associated with #StartupSouth, new customers for Zoho, can avail of Zoho Wallet credits worth ₦ 470,000. This credit can be used to purchase or upgrade any of Zoho’s 55+ products, including Zoho One, the operating system for business, over a period of 360 days. Zoho One offers a unified platform that brings together over 50 Zoho products from CRM to HR management. The startups will also receive training to help them leverage Zoho’s products for their growth and in a way that they can easily scale.

“One of #StartupSouth’s goals is to provide startups associated with us easy access to comprehensive tech solutions that offer great value, are easy to use, and have the capability to grow with the businesses as they scale. We are happy to partner with Zoho, as they offer a wide range of business apps that can empower startups to quickly digitalise most of their business areas in one go, and streamline and unify their operations for better management and holistic visibility. With this partnership with Zoho, we are looking forward to helping budding businesses by removing access barriers to enterprise technology,” said Uche Aniche, Convener, #StartupSouth.

“Through the Zoho for Startups programme, we intend to onboard as many startups as we can, and be a part of their entrepreneurial journey right from the start. Keeping in mind Zoho’s vision and mission of ‘serving the underserved’, we carefully choose whom we collaborate with. I am glad to be partnering with #StartupSouth whose passion and focus on supporting the startups is very much in sync with the ethos of our programme. Nigeria is one of the hotbeds in Africa for entrepreneurs to thrive and innovate,” said Kuppulakshmi Krishnamoorthy, Global Head, Zoho for Startups.

Speaking on how Zoho Contracts will help businesses improve compliance with NDPL it said, “The Nigerian Data Protection Law came into force earlier this year. NDPL mandates all businesses to ensure that their contracts include provisions for data security and breach notifications, third-party vendors adhere to NDPA standards, and international contracts fulfill the criteria for cross-border transfer of personal data. In case of non-compliance, businesses risk the loss of consumer trust and potential legal action, apart from a potential fine of up to ₦10 million or 2% of annual gross revenue.

“With Zoho Contracts, businesses can create contract templates with new/revised clauses for NDPA compliance, use analytics to quickly identify existing contracts with a specific clause, anonymise counterparty data on request, and track and monitor their contractual obligations with reminder alerts.”