Zoho may be the biggest software behemoth you've never heard of.
With over 55 products covering just about every business software need, and over 80 million users in over 160 countries, it is nonetheless not yet very well-known in the U.S. market, with the exception perhaps of its CRM product.
Based in India, Zoho has remained a private company since its inception, and eschews outside funding to maintain its independence and culture, as well as its commitment to customer privacy. It aims to grow from customer sales, versus angel investors or shareholders. That has allowed the company to devote over 70% of its revenue to research and development.
Zoho's accounting leader, Val Steed, discussed the company's latest plans, including planned new offerings for the accounting profession in Zoho Books.
What is in your product line, and what is your flagship product?
Steed: Our flagship product is Zoho CRM, and our flagship unified business software suite is Zoho One, but for our accounting practice, the marquee platform is the Zoho Finance Suite. Since 2022, Zoho's Finance Suite has seen a 50% year-over-year growth in revenue, supporting over half a million businesses across more than 160 countries.
What was the last big initiative or project your company completed?
Steed: One of the many initiatives our company recently completed is launching the new version of Zoho Workplace globally. Zoho Workplace is considered a "central work hub" or "virtual headquarters" for users, like an interactive dashboard, from which they can access all of a company's office apps, working in concert to simplify and clarify workflow. For example, Zoho Workplace's unified ecosystem enables chat messages to become calendar invites or upcoming tasks, ensuring that each member of a team maintains visibility into how projects are progressing, as well as the necessary data to run the right calculations.
What is the most exciting new thing you're working on?
Steed: We are working on an Accountants version of Zoho Books that will allow firms to control client access more easily and accurately. Due to the unified nature of our Zoho Finance suite, client access will be managed from within any connected app while providing visibility across the organization.
What differentiates your company from others similar to it? What makes you different? Unique, even?
Steed: Zoho prioritizes small businesses and structures its software solutions to grow alongside its customers. Our apps are available individually or as a unified suite, with packages and pricing customizable to a business's distinct needs. As those needs change, our customers can seamlessly grow or modify their digital toolkit. We dedicate more than 70% of our revenue to research and development, so our capacity to help small businesses is always expanding. Our reach extends to global customers, as well. For example, Zoho Books now supports 180 currencies, in 17 languages, and is backed by a comprehensive global tax engine that solves country-specific tax compliance challenges.
At Zoho, we take great pride in building our own software solutions in-house. Zoho applications run on hardware owned and managed by Zoho in our worldwide network of data centers, which we wholly control and operate. As we like to say, "Zoho runs on Zoho," literally meaning that, at Zoho, we do everything from the ground up.
Community involvement remains of paramount importance to Zoho. The company continues to invest in Zoho Schools, a free program run from its global headquarters in India. Each year, Zoho Schools admits a select number of students who have completed their 10th grade studies. They learn everything about the tech industry, be it coding, design or other business aspects; upon completion of the program, students are offered the chance to work at Zoho itself. Students even receive a stipend to help with personal expenses while enrolled.
Another Zoho community initiative is the "Marupadi" program, which translates to "again" in Tamil, one of the official languages spoken in India. The series of classes focuses on women who may have left a career in tech and are looking to re-enter the workforce. Of the women who have completed the program, held at Zoho's international headquarters, the vast majority have been placed in roles across Zoho departments.
If you could telepathically transmit one (non-marketing or sales) sentence into the head of every accountant in the world, what would that sentence be?
Steed: Please be more concerned about data privacy and security on behalf of your clients' data and your firm's data — implementing a unified software suite is a great first line of defense.
Zoho at a glance
- Headquarters: Chennai, India (U.S. HQ: Del Valle, Texas)
- Staff: 12,000-plus
- Products: 55-plus apps
- Users: 80-plus million worldwide
- Website:
Zoho.com .
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