In a convulsive economic context like the current one, companies must go digital if they want to remain competitive. According to the report “The Digital Society in Spain 2022” by Fundación Telefónica, only a third of companies with more than 10 employees use some cloud computing service27.7% apply the IoT in their processes and only 1/4 use online sales channels.
Among the companies that offer this type of software services in the cloud is Zoho, which held its annual event in Barcelona on September 20. To learn more about the announcements of this day, we have spoken with Sridhar Iyengar, Managing Director of Zoho in Europe.
MuyPymes: What was discussed in your Zoholics Spain event?
Sridhar Iyengar: Zoholics is our annual customer conference attended by both Zoho customers and partners. This event allows us to communicate our vision, mission and strategy, as well as new and upcoming innovations in our range of over 55 business solutions on the cloud.
Among these stand out tridenta desktop version of our office suite, Zoho Workplace; Apptics, an app analytics tool to help users check the performance of their mobile apps; Y Guided Conversationsa no-code chatbot builder for customer support teams.
The sold-out event was our first Zoholics in Spain – a key target market for Zoho – since the pandemic, so it was a great opportunity to meet new customers in person, and put ourselves, once again , up to date with those who have been with us for years.
We talked about our new Transnational Localism strategy, which is our program to create self-sufficient local communities and economies. To do this, we team up with a Zoho employee who has strong leadership experience and local country knowledge to drive growth and support local economies.
MuyPymes: What are the areas of your business with the greatest acceptance?
Sridhar Iyengar: The breadth and depth of our project portfolio offers solutions for nearly every business need, including sales, marketing, customer service, finance, human resources, and an office suite. A very popular product is Zoho One, which gives access to more than 45 of our applications, offering an exceptional value in the market. Companies can add more applications at the same price as new business needs arise. Zoho CRM is also very popular in the Spanish market. It is one of our most mature and functionally sophisticated products and it is what we are best known for in the region.
Though no two companies are the same and the needs of each one are different, we believe that having a wide range of solutions can help cover all your needs, from business analytics to internal messaging tools.
MuyPymes: What differentiates you from the competition?
Sridhar Iyengar: In addition to applications to manage businesses of any size, we have unique qualities that help us differentiate ourselves in the market.
Zoho is a private company, without external investors, which means that we maintain full control over our operation and it helps us to remain stable, without being particularly affected by market fluctuations. We have been profitable every year since our inception 26 years ago.
We own all of our solutions, including the data centers, so we have more control over the increased costs that other providers may experience from having third-party cloud hosting, and we can continue to deliver on our commitment to consistently offer one of the the best values in the industry. This also means that we are not planning an exit from the market, so we can commit to partnering with our clients to help them grow their businesses for the long term.
Zoho also uses zohoSoftware, which is why our more than 12,000 employees around the world use our products to run our operations. We keep our marketing budgets relatively low and operate very efficiently to control our operating costs. These aspects contribute to cost savings that we can pass on to our customers.
We have the advantage of being able to control the entire workflow, from the development of our applications to the data centers where our clients’ information is stored. In addition, our internal policy leads us to associate with our clients, to whom we offer constant value, with the utmost respect for their privacy. Your data is your property, not ours. We do not have an advertising-based model, not even for our free products.
We have a strong culture of values that we hope will be passed on to our customer base and employees. We work to support communities, helping to spread economic wealth by opening offices in less congested areas, while trying to help drive digital literacy and bridge the gap between education and employment in this field.
Our products are designed to be easy to use by people without a high level of technical knowledge and can be easily expanded as companies grow.
We design all our products for easy integration with the main actors of the different sectors, since we understand that, especially in the case of large companies, it is necessary to work in harmony with different applications and platforms.
MuyPymes: How important is unified business analytics to the success of a company, especially an SME?
Sridhar Iyengar: Today, unified business analytics is a critical success factor for businesses. Getting a complete picture of business performance in real time ensures that information can be used accurately to make proactive business decisions, rather than having to react once events have affected the business. Businesses today operate very fast, so without this level of knowledge, companies can fall behind their competitors.
Zoho tools enable this unified business analytics be done easily and efficiently, offering a unique and real-time view within the control panel. Regardless of the level of specialization of the person in charge of managing these tools, having all the relevant data of the company concentrated in a single panel helps to accelerate the digitalization process of SMEs, and facilitate data-based decision making.
MuyPymes: What are the current work spaces like?
Sridhar Iyengar: The consolidation of remote work around the world has revealed something that has been anticipated for a long time: digitization may be the key to the survival and development of thousands of companies. Decentralized work requires a high degree of coordination between all employees, regardless of their role in the company.
In this rapidly changing and extremely demanding environment, where decision-making depends on data that can come from many different sources (such as spreadsheets, ERP or CRM applications), it can be difficult to paint an accurate picture if it is not displayed on a perfectly integrated platform. Having all the necessary information on a single platform multiplies efficiency exponentially by reducing the time needed for decision making. Thanks to these tools, including those offered by Zoho, it is possible to access information such as the company’s trade balances, messaging services or CRM Services, from anywhere at any time, keeping relevant access intact and controlled based on user responsibilities, relevance and access level.
Hybrid work is now the norm for many, but this is only possible if there are no problems in the use of digital tools based on the cloud, and that, in turn, allow easy collaboration, communication and productivity by users. within the same secure environment, from wherever it is accessed.
It is true that the business world is constantly evolving, but at Zoho we evolve our solutions at the same pace, so that any company can always find the right answer to their needs.
MuyPymes: How to boost the competitiveness of the sales team using the software?
Sridhar Iyengar: Sales and marketing teams are among the biggest beneficiaries of using Zoho software. All the information necessary for the development of their work is easily accessible and users can take action from a single panel. This includes your contacts, the status of deals your team is working on, or the next steps you need to take to reach your goals.
Sales teams also have the necessary tools to maintain fluid contact with each other, whether through specific email campaigns, through social networks or directly. In a world so competitive and demanding like that of the sales teamsbeing able to offer an almost immediate response to the needs of your customers based on their habits or behaviors can be the key to business success.
Sales teams can also tailor the CRM specifically to their industry vertical or departmental requirements through Canvas, which Zoho recently launched. This allows for visual customization and the ability to drag and drop the most relevant and commonly used fields into a unified view. This improves usability, adoption, productivity, and most importantly, the employee experience, which has a significant impact on the overall customer experience.
