Global technology company Zoho today announced that all its 45 plus business software applications are available at a fixed South African rand price.
The move, part of the brand’s global survive-and-serve strategy, seeks to ease the impact of currency fluctuations, especially on small businesses.
It also aims to significantly reduce barriers to entry for SMEs who are considering multiple solutions from different global vendors.
Zoho, through the Small Business Emergency Subscription Assistance Program, is also offering its existing, qualifying small business customers a three-month waiver on their subscription fees. A number of additional initiatives and resources have been launched for businesses to help them weather the Covid-19 crisis. This includes Remotely, a remote working toolkit, which is 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,” says Andrew Bourne, Country Manager, Africa, Zoho Corp.
“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 fluctuations. Customers are also guaranteed privacy and security of their data,” he adds.
Among Zoho’s top-selling products in the country are Zoho One and Zoho Workplace:
- Zoho One is an all-in-one integrated suite of 45+ applications that can run an entire business in the cloud. With Zoho One, a company can manage all its functionalities from marketing, sales, and support, to HR, accounting, and back-office operations—making it a true operating system for business. It is available from R450 per employee, per month (billed annually).
- Zoho Workplace offers a suite of productivity apps catering to the needs of today’s modern, distributed workforce. It comprises email, file storage, word processor, spreadsheets, presentations, employee intranet, team chat and online video conferencing tools, and is available from R45 per user, per month (billed annually).
Zoho conducts free seminars and training sessions aimed specifically at the African market, educating users about how to adopt cloud technology to grow their businesses. 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.
Zoho has plans for long-term growth and expansion in Africa, having seen 35% growth in the region in 2019-2020. These include integration with top payment gateways in the continent, with a view to support local e-businesses and online retailers. It is also expanding its partner footprint in order to support more local businesses. Zoho’s partners have helped increase Zoho’s reach, contributing to over 55% of Zoho’s overall revenue for the region, Bourne says.
In addition to South Africa, localised pricing has also been announced for Nigeria, Kenya and Egypt, with further opportunities in the pipeline as Zoho plans to scale up its workforce on the continent over the next two years. Zoho currently has employees in South Africa and Nigeria.
Central to Zoho’s offer and ethos is a commitment to data privacy and protection at the highest level. The company is compliant with both GDPR and EU-US Privacy Shield Framework, and seeks to constantly exceed industry-specific compliance standards. Zoho currently hosts data in 10 data centres across the globe, with plans to open more to meet data protection regulations in different countries. No part of the business, including free products, uses an ad-revenue model.
