A Global technology company, Zoho Corporation on Tuesday, announced that all its over 45 business software applications were available at a fixed Nigerian Naira price.
Andrew Bourne, Country Manager, Africa, Zoho Corp., said that the move was part of the brand’s global survive-and-serve strategy which sought to ease the impact of currency fluctuations, especially on small businesses.
Bourne said in a statement that it also aimed to significantly reduce barriers to entry of Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) who were considering multiple solutions from different global vendors.
The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that Zoho Corporation is a global technology company offering over 45 business software applications ranging from sales and marketing to customer support and accounting, all tailored to solve business challenges.
Bourne said that Zoho, through the Small Business Emergency Subscription Assistance Programme, was also offering its existing, qualifying small business customers a three-month waiver on their subscription fee.
According to him, a number of additional initiatives and resources have been launched for businesses to help them weather the COVID-19 crisis.
The country manager said that this includes `Remotely’, a remote working toolkit, freely available to all businesses until July 1, 2020.
“Serving our local communities and businesses is a key focus for Zoho and we recognise that the impact of the global COVID-19 pandemic is forcing businesses to adopt digitisation much faster than they might otherwise have.
“Zoho seeks to make this adoption both simple and affordable by providing its world-class software solutions at a fair price, protected from exchange rate fluctuation.
‘’Customers are also guaranteed privacy and security of their data,” he said.
Bourne said among Zoho’s top-selling products in the country were Zoho One and Zoho Workplace:
He said that Zoho One is an all-in-one integrated suite of over 45 applications that could run an entire business in the cloud.
Bourne said with Zoho One, a company could manage all its functionalities from marketing, sales, and support to Human Resources Accounting and back-office operations, making it a true operating system for business.
It is available from N7,800 per employee, per month (billed annually).
The country manager said that Zoho Workplace offers a suite of productivity apps catering for the needs of today’s modern, distributed workforce.
According to him, it comprises email, file storage, word processor, spreadsheets, presentations, employee intranet, team chat and online video conferencing tools and is available from N780 per user, per month billed annually.
He said that Zoho conducted free seminars and training sessions aimed specifically at the African market and educated users about how to adopt cloud technology to grow their businesses.
Bourne said that after the success of its first-ever African Zoholics Zoho’s User Conference event in Johannesburg in September 2019, the company hosted another Zoholics in Cairo, Egypt, in February this year.
According to him, Zoho has plans for long-term growth and expansion in Africa, having seen 35 per cent growth in the region in 2019-2020 which included integration with top payment gateways in the continent.
He said it was with a view to support local e-businesses and online retailers.
According to him, it is also expanding its partner footprint in order to support more local businesses.
“Partners have helped increase Zoho’s reach, contributing to over 55 per cent of Zoho’s overall revenue for the region.
“In addition to Nigeria, localised pricing has also been announced for Kenya, South Africa and Egypt, ‘’ Bourne said.
He noted that there were further opportunities in the pipeline as Zoho planned to scale up its workforce on the continent over the next two years.
