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Zoho CEO: Revere Farmers, Reconnect with Nature

Vembu said that people must respect farmers, as well as take care of soil and all its microorganisms….reports Asian Lite News

Zoho CEO Sridhar Vembu, on Saturday, said that it is important to revere farmers and connect back with nature.

In a post on X.com, Vembu said that people must respect farmers, as well as take care of soil and all its microorganisms.

The CEO of the global software-as-a-service (SaaS) company said this amid reports that Singapore’s food regulator has recalled Indian manufacturer Everest’s fish curry masala as it showed high levels of the pesticide ethylene oxide — a Group-1 carcinogen.

“Arsenic in our rice, pesticides in our spices … the damage of industrialised agriculture accumulates,” Vembu said.

“If we don’t respect the farmer, if we don’t take care of the soil and all its microorganisms, if we don’t take care of ponds or lakes and instead keep drilling deeper and deeper for (arsenic-laden) water, we will destroy ourselves as a species.”

“We have to revere the people who grow our food so they in turn treat soil and water with reverence. We have to connect back with nature,” he added.

Meanwhile, Hong Kong’s food regulator also found the cancer-causing ingredient in products of MDH, the famous spice brand in India.

It found that the MDH’s Madras Curry Powder, Sambhar Masala Mixed Masala Powder, and Curry Powder Mixed Masala Powder contained pesticide ethylene oxide.

According to a statement from the Singapore Food Agency (SFA), ethylene oxide is not fit for consumption, but is “used to fumigate agricultural products to prevent microbial contamination.”

“Members of the public should not consume the affected products. The trade should also stop using or selling the affected products immediately if they possess any of them,” said the Centre for Food Safety, Hong Kong’s food regulatory authority.

Meanwhile, Sridhar Vembu said on Wednesday that they have created first-of-its-kind power tools that are ready for commercial production.

Called ‘Karuvi’ (the Tamil word for instrument or tool), the hand-held tools will help create more rural jobs in the country.

“A few years ago, during the pandemic, a Zoho customer and fan, Abdul Gafoor, who owns ‘Mr Light Global’, a major own-brand distributor of electrical and electronics products in the Middle-East (and now in India), came to see me in Tenkasi with a box full of hand held tools from his company,” Vembu posted on X social media platform.

Gafoor told the Zoho founder to make these products and then, he would distribute them.

“I said, we know nothing about it. He said this could create rural jobs. That is how he hooked me,” said Vembu.

The software company took up the challenge and set up a small engineering team almost two years ago.

A lot of designs and redesigns later, Zoho now has built a suite of tools ready for commercial production.

“We are trying some innovative ideas in the factory being built in Tenkasi. A new adventure begins. Thank you Mr Gafoor for pushing me on this! Thank you Cibi Anand for suggesting the name,” Vembu added.

An X follower commented that he was looking to populate the “rural maker-space with power tools from Stanley”.

“But now, it’s going to be ‘Karuvi’ all the way, looking forward to getting every product you have in production,” he posted.

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Business Economy India News

Now’s Prime Time to Invest in India!

According to Sridhar Vembu, this is the time to invest in the country, which is set to become a global hub for supply chains across industries…reports Asian Lite News

Sridhar Vembu, Founder and CEO of leading cloud software provider Zoho, said on Monday that this is the best time to invest in India for young entrepreneurs from all across the world.

The sense of optimism is real and India is the most dynamic large economy in the world, “poised for decades of solid growth”, Vembu posted on X (formerly Twitter).

“I have been speaking at industry bodies, large company meets, colleges and various other forums in many parts of India,” he wrote.

“I also hear from a lot of Indians living abroad who want to return to India. Just yesterday I met a FAANG (Facebook, Apple, Amazon, Netflix, and Google) engineer who plans to return to rural India”.

According to him, this is the time to invest in the country, which is set to become a global hub for supply chains across industries.

“We are investing heavily both within Zoho as well by backing deep R&D driven companies similar to Zoho in outlook.

“Our rule of thumb is simple: if some technology is not yet being developed in India, we are interested in people that are committed to solving that problem, by creating and nurturing the talent that will achieve mastery in that domain,” Vembu explained.

A follower said: “I left my job in Germany and I am happy to report that I am returning to India this month, to be with my people, not sure what I want to do next, hopefully I will be able to contribute in my own way”.

Vembu replied: “Best wishes. Welcome back!”

He added that India is now recognised as a legitimate rising power under the visionary leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, and the country is no more treated as a “charity case to be pushed around”.

In a post on X, Vembu mentioned why it is important to vote carefully in the upcoming election.

“For so long, our country simply got used to politicians in power amassing wealth. For the last 10 years, we have a Prime Minister who not even opponents can accuse of personal corruption. Likewise with all his cabinet colleagues,” said Zoho founder.

He further said that the country has seen progress on several fronts, like railways, roads, airports, factories, Swachh Bharat Mission and so on.

“Going around India, I feel the sense of optimism that arises from seeing things work. For a 55 year old Indian like me, that is refreshing, and the private sector is also very energised.

“I am personally energised to work harder in R&D after seeing this dynamism”.

Vembu said that India is now recognised as a legitimate rising power treated with respect and not as a “charity case to be pushed around”.

“And we don’t get ‘hyphenated’ with our neighbours. I support our Prime Minister for this reason. Let’s vote carefully,” he added.

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Zoho launches smart conference room solution

For a distributed workforce, Cliq offers a customisable interface that can be changed to different languages, such as Hindi, Tamil, and Kannada (with more languages coming soon), improving accessibility…reports Asian Lite News

Global software-as-a-service (SaaS) company Zoho on Monday announced that it has witnessed a growth of 37 per cent in India last year.

The company also launched Cliq Rooms, a smart conference room solution, and announced new updates to Zoho Cliq, its communication and collaboration platform, that will enable it to further boost its upmarket momentum.

With the Cliq Rooms app for Android TV, users can enrich their meeting experience by scheduling meetings for physical conference rooms, connecting to the TV audio and video, projecting screens, and conducting hybrid meetings.

“With this launch, Zoho Cliq provides a robust platform that can enable employees to perform most of their tasks right from within the app, whether it is resolving a customer issue or approving expenses,” Sridhar Vembu, CEO and Co-founder of Zoho Corp, said in a statement.

Zoho Cliq is available for use, with an unlimited plan starting at Rs 36 per user per month. The newly launched features will be available from November 2023 in its enterprise edition offered at Rs 200 per user per month, according to the company.

Moreover, the company said that Cliq has experienced a 30 per cent rise in user migration from Slack and MS Teams in 2022 as the platform matures.

For a distributed workforce, Cliq offers a customisable interface that can be changed to different languages, such as Hindi, Tamil, and Kannada (with more languages coming soon), improving accessibility.

Live translation is provided for various Indian as well as international languages that help users interact with internal and external users from other regions.

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Business Economy

Zoho CEO Warns of Gloomy Global Economy

Vembu said that Zoho has seen a slow down in growth across geographies in September…reports Asian Lite News

Sridhar Vembu, Co-founder and CEO of software-as-a-service (SaaS) company Zoho, warned on Monday that the global economy is likely taking a turn for the worse, urging companies to exercise caution.

In a post on X (formerly Twitter), Vembu said that Zoho has seen a slow down in growth across geographies in September.

“We saw a fairly pronounced slow down in growth in September across countries and across products,” he posted.

Vembu said that given the geographically and product-wise diversified nature of our revenue streams, “I suspect the global economy is taking a turn for the worse”.

“Caution ahead,” he added.

As IT companies gear up for the July-September period earnings, brokerage firm Nomura has predicted continued weakness in demand, saying sustained macro uncertainty will adversely impact their financials.

“We believe the void created by the lower number of small-sized and discretionary projects along with delays in client decision-making and ramp-up of won projects in certain cases will lead to both revenue and margin disappointments in the near term, given the ‘sticky’ nature of costs,” the firm said in its latest report.

Last month, Zoho surpassed 100 million users across its more than 55 business applications.

The growth came on the heels of the company reaching $1 billion in annual revenue last year.

Zoho said it has increased its traction from 1 million users in 2008 to 100 million 15 years later — with the last 50 million users added within the past five years.

“This is an impressive milestone for any organisation, but it’s particularly sweet for us as a bootstrapped company that has never raised external capital. And we are not done yet,” according to Vembu.

Zoho has more than 700,000 businesses across more than 150 countries. Headquartered in Chennai, Zoho is privately held and profitable with more than 15,000 employees.

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Business Economy Tech Lite

Zoho logs over 65% upmarket growth

Zoho Corporation.(twitter)

Notably, the mid-market and enterprise segment now accounts for more than 50 per cent of Zoho’s ARR in India….reports Asian Lite News

Global SaaS technology company Zoho on Wednesday said it has achieved over 65 per cent compound annual growth rate (CAGR) in annual recurring revenue (ARR) in India within the mid-market and enterprise segment.

The Chennai-headquartered firm announced investments across its entire portfolio to accelerate upmarket momentum, following an impressive three-year period.

Notably, the mid-market and enterprise segment now accounts for more than 50 per cent of Zoho’s ARR in India.

Overall Zoho now serves over 90 million users across more than 600,000 businesses.

“Our humble roots in SMB have helped us systematically build powerful software with strong everyday usability,” said Sridhar Vembu, Co-founder and CEO, Zoho Corporation.

“With our strong DNA as a technology platform company, we have been able to steadily improve our maturity and readiness for large organisations by making the necessary investments,” he added.

Zoho’s upmarket growth in India is led by banking, financial services and insurance (BFSI), manufacturing, retail, fast-moving consumer goods (FMCG), pharmaceuticals, and IT sectors.

Some of its customers include MakeMyTrip, PUMA, Axis Finance, Paper Boat, Samsonite, BigBasket, Tata Play Fiber, BYJU’S, Star Health & Allied Insurance, Mercedes-Benz India, SpiceJet, IIFL Finance, Meril Life Sciences, Blue Star, Bosch, Zomato, Saint-Gobain, Deloitte and McDonald’s, among others.

“By addressing the unique needs of Indian enterprises and government entities, our customisable solutions actively contribute to the digital transformation of the country,” said Vembu.

Zoho has hired customer-facing teams and opened offices in Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata, Bengaluru and Hyderabad to enhance account management capabilities and cater to the specific needs of large organisations.

Zoho is privately held and profitable with more than 12,000 employees.

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Business India News

Zoho expands rural outreach

Zoho’s investments in rural areas will focus on nurturing local talent, building deep-tech capabilities, promoting organic farming and powering overall community development….reports Asian Lite News

Global technology company and SaaS leader Zoho on Monday said it plans to open new hub offices in Tirunelveli and Madurai districts in Tamil Nadu and one in Uttar Pradesh.

The company has opened two ‘hub’ offices in Trichy and Tiruppur in the past six months, and reiterated its commitment to investing in R&D and people.

“As much as we are technologists and have a robust SaaS portfolio, it remains that business growth is not ceiling-less especially given the current economic backdrop and the speed at which technologies like Al evolve,” Sridhar Vembu, Co-founder and CEO, Zoho Corp, said in a press conference here.

Zoho’s investments in rural areas will focus on nurturing local talent, building deep-tech capabilities, promoting organic farming and powering overall community development.

According to the company, hub offices can accommodate 1,000 employees or more, while spoke offices can accommodate about 100 people.

The company currently has five hub offices, including ones in Chennai, Tenkasi, and Renigunta and around 30 spoke offices presently in India.

Nearly 2,000 employees are working out of Zoho’s hub and spoke offices in villages and tier 2 and 3 towns, out of which about 1,000 employees were hired locally.

“The distributed workforce model reflects the idea of distributing growth and income across Tier 2/3 communities instead of urban concentration. Many of our product development teams today sit out of these hub and spoke offices, including some teams that are involved in deep-tech R&D. The long-term vision of these efforts is to create self-sufficient and prosperous rural communities,” said Vembu.

Zoho also said it is expanding its current facility of Kalaivani Kalvi Maiyam, a learning centre opened during the pandemic for educating young children from villages in and around Tenkasi.

Kalaivani Kalvi Maiyam (KKM) currently has 130 students-across primary, middle, and high school-from surrounding villages, 19 full-time and five part-time teachers.

A 75,000 square feet facility is under construction at the KKM centre in Tenkasi, including a building that can accommodate 750 students.

Another branch of KKM will open in Cumbam, Theni, for which work has already started, the company said.

“The future generation in the rural areas needs to be enabled with the necessary skills, capabilities, and tools to nurture grassroots innovation, solve local problems, locally manufacture high-value goods, and drive community progress,” Vembu stated.

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Business Economy UAE News

Zoho bets big on UAE

Zoho has partnered with various organisations such as Department of Economy and Tourism (DET) and Dubai Culture in order to make enterprise technology available to businesses of all sizes…reports Asian Lite News

Zoho, a global technology company,has announced that it registered 10 times growth in five years since start of its operations in the UAE, which serves as its Middle East and Africa headquarters.

On the sidelines of Zoholics Dubai, the annual user conference of the company, Zoho’s CEO and Co-founder, Sridhar Vembu, also announced investment of AED 100 million for expansion in the country.

Talking to IANS, Sridhar Vembu said that Zoho believes in customer happiness. He advised startups to go back to basics of business, reality check. He focused on the ethics and personalisation of technology for a organic sustainable growth.

The top products leading Zoho’s growth in the UAE are Zoho One (a unified platform of over 50 products), Zoho Books (FTA-approved VAT-compliant accounting software), Zoho CRM (customer experience platform), Zoho Workplace (enterprise collaboration platform), and Zoho Creator (low-code development platform). The industries from where the most demand is coming are IT services, wellness/fitness, real estate, manufacturing and retail sectors.

In 2022, Zoho grew by 45 per cent in the UAE. It has also doubled its employee base in the UAE as well as across the MEA region in the past year, by hiring locally as per its ‘transnational localism’ policy of being locally rooted while staying globally connected. The partner network in the country grew by 50 per cent in 2022, helping Zoho serve its customers better.

“As part of our transnational localism strategy, when we expand into a region, we want to give back to the local community and be rooted in the local culture as we grow,” said Vembu.

“Over the past five years, we have invested in local hiring, growing our partner network, adding Arabic support in our products, and integrating with local payment gateways to adapt our solutions for the local market. We will continue to invest in growing our footprints in the country through hirings, upskilling programmes, localisation of products, integrating our solutions with local vendors, and partnering with organisations to help local businesses in their digitalisation efforts,” said Vembu.

Zoho has partnered with various organisations such as Department of Economy and Tourism (DET) and Dubai Culture in order to make enterprise technology available to businesses of all sizes.

It has also partnered with educational institutes like Manipal Academy of Higher Education (MAHE) and Emirates Academy of Hospitality Management (EAHM) to offer upskilling courses. Since 2020, Zoho has helped over 3500 SMEs gain access to its cloud technology through various partnerships, investing AED 20 million in wallet credits. It also invested AED 4.5 million in upskilling initiatives for imparting digital literacy to over 200+ students and 300+ companies.

“Because of the global economic conditions, more and more companies are moving towards digitalisation and choosing unified platforms that help them break data silos, and bring forth contextual real-time insights that enable them to make quick decisions and be nimble to adapt to changing market conditions. Zoho has its own technology stack that has been built from ground up through relentless R&D over 26 years. We offer a unified platform for all business needs from customer experience and marketing to finance and enterprise collaboration, with our apps being customisable, integrable and extendible. This makes Zoho an ideal choice for businesses of all sizes,” added Vembu.

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Business

‘Firms must create own models to avoid massive layoffs’

According to Vembu, Silicon Valley has always faced big booms and huge busts in the past and this is the first time it has hit employees in India to such a large extent…writes NISHANT ARORA

As Meta, Twitter and the rest of the Big Tech companies sack thousands of employees which has hit India too, Sridhar Vembu who is CEO and Co-founder of Zoho Corporation said on Monday that we need to create our own value system which is not imported or borrowed from the Silicon Valley in the US.

According to Vembu, who has built a billion-dollar product company in India, said that Silicon Valley has always faced big booms and huge busts in the past and this is the first time it has hit employees in India to such a large extent.

“We are bruised badly this time because we imported a value system from the Silicon Valley model where this boom and bust cycle has always been there. It is the first time it arrived in India at a massive scale, so that’s why it feels hard for us but this was the norm there. And again, we accepted without question whether all of those Big Tech models work here,” Vembu told IANS.

A prudent CEO or CFO would have anticipated this current economic slowdown and tightened the belt long back, because historical record is very clear this happened earlier, in the dot-com bust of 2000 or the great global financial crisis in 2008.

“The historical awareness would have led us to foresee with reasonable accuracy that a downturn will come, even a year ago. I have always said that we should learn from Silicon Valley but cannot apply all of those lessons here. We have to build companies differently,” said the Zoho CEO.

For example, companies like Meta (earlier Facebook) hire the best talent from anywhere in the world and grow as fast as they can. If there is a problem, it’s okay to fire them as the next company will hire those people.

“That is a Silicon Valley model; go as fast as you can before you get crushed and sack employees. They can find the next big company. But that model only works where it works. It works there in the US. In India, we do not have all the deep capabilities to build that next company which can hire back,” explained Vembu.

He thinks the current layoff season is a necessary correction, a painful one, that will yield wisdom among the founders and the CEOs, especially the startups which have sacked nearly 15,000 employees in India to date.

“I always say that we have to build companies that are suited to our conditions. For example, most of our rural youth have to be skilled and brought into the mainstream, brought into the technology spectrum,” Vembu told IANS.

Zoho built one product, a modest product and got some modest profit.

“We invested in building more capabilities steadily. Even our own people would not have believed years ago that we could build all this. That is the journey of building steadily,” according to Vembu.

According to him, we are at a very critical juncture in technology.

“Headlines are pretty grim but I would call it a new era of humility for technology. Technology is vital. Everything around us is technology but at the same time, we have to acknowledge the limits,” Vembu stressed.

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Business

Zoho joins ONDC

India’s e-commerce market is expected to reach $120 billion by 2026, up from $38 billion in 2021…reports Asian Lite News

Zoho Corporation on Wednesday announced that its unified platform for e-commerce will integrate with the Open Network for Digital Commerce (ONDC) as a technology service provider.

Zoho Commerce platform will allow sellers to set up their online stores quickly and on-board the government-backed, open e-commerce network.

Anand Nergunam, Vice President, Revenue Growth, Zoho, said that ONDC will create a level-playing field for small businesses and other sellers who have been vastly under-represented in the sector’s growth in recent years.

“With a robust platform like Zoho Commerce, retailers can quickly create online stores and establish their presence on ONDC,” he mentioned.

India’s e-commerce market is expected to reach $120 billion by 2026, up from $38 billion in 2021.

ONDC, a Ministry of Commerce initiative, will enable sellers to tap this massive market by offering an equitable and secure platform that integrates multiple sellers, buyers and logistics players.

“We are glad to be working in tandem with technology service providers like Zoho to accelerate and improve the end-to-end ecosystem experience and make digital commerce accessible to a wider audience of buyers and sellers,” said T Koshy, Chief Executive Officer, ONDC.

With Zoho Commerce, business owners can create their online store as quickly as an hour by using the drag-and-drop website builder or customising available templates without writing a single piece of code.

Zoho Commerce comes pre-integrated with Zoho Books and Zoho Inventory for a business and end-to-end accounting and multi-channel inventory management needs, respectively.

Zoho Commerce users in India will be able to get onto ONDC with a single click and showcase their products on multiple platforms with equitable visibility.

Zoho Commerce also integrates with third-party apps like Google Analytics, Google Shopping, and MailChimp.

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Business

Zoho sees 64% growth in India

Zoho One platform sees 64% growth in India in 2 years

The key sectors contributing to the growth are IT and professional services, BFSI, retail and wholesale, education, and real estate and construction, according to the company….reports Asian Lite News

Zoho Corporation on Wednesday said that its integrated platform Zoho One now supports 50,000 organisations across more than 160 countries and in India, Zoho One has seen 64 per cent growth in the last two years.

In India, over 45 per cent of the demand was driven by tier 2 and tier 3 cities, indicating the increase in digitisation of businesses in non-metros.

The key sectors contributing to the growth are IT and professional services, BFSI, retail and wholesale, education, and real estate and construction, according to the company.

“Siloed systems cause business silos. An integrated organisation, therefore, is typically a reflection of integrated systems underneath. This is what we see with our own customers,” said Hariharan Muralimanohar, Head of Marketing, Zoho One.

Nearly half of Zoho One customers use 20 or more apps across functions, integrating their organisation and reporting higher returns.

Over the past two years, the platform has grown 150 per cent, with 37.5 per cent of new Zoho One customers coming from mid-market and enterprise businesses.

According to the company, license upgrades by customers who adopted Zoho One five years ago have increased 92 per cent.

Launched in 2017 as a first-of-its-kind suite including 35 integrated applications, Zoho One is the operating system for business – a comprehensive, scalable platform comprised of 45 unified applications along with end-to-end services from sales and marketing to finance, HR, and analytics.

Zoho One pricing starts at Rs 1,800 per employee per month, billed annually, said the company.

Customers like IIFL, Meril Life Sciences, Tata Play Fiber, FynDNA TechCorp, and Fyers have added more licenses and increased the usage of apps and services.

Headquartered in Chennai, Zoho is profitable with over 11,000 employees.

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