Zoho, a global technology company, has launched Zoho Africa Digital Enabler (ZADE) package in Kenya to help small businesses take steps towards digital transformation. The company, which grew by 47% this year in Kenya, also announced that it will be hiring more employees locally for customer-facing roles. The announcements were made during the company’s first user conference in the country – Zoholics Kenya – that was held at Trademark Hotel in Nairobi.
“As part of ‘transnational localism’ strategy where our growth is underpinned with that of the region, we bring our global expertise to support the creation of self-sufficient economic clusters,” said Veerakumar Natarajan, Country Head for Kenya, Zoho. “In 2020, we started out in the country by offering our products in Kenyan Shilling at a price lower than our global rates to make it easier for Kenyan customers to avail the products without worrying about fluctuating exchange rates. We have been hiring locally to serve our customers, even as we continue to grow our partner network. Now, as a continuation to our commitment to the country, we are launching the Zoho Africa Digital Enabler package, which is designed to provide small businesses a segue to digital transformation.”
(TOP: Hyther Nizam, President for Middle East and Africa, Zoho, and Ali Shabdar, Regional Director, Middle East and Africa, Zoho).
The Zoho Africa Digital Enabler (ZADE) package is aimed to help small businesses with up to five employees to jumpstart their digital journey. The package will provide new users of Zoho with a collection of 10 leading apps at a 50% discount starting from July 1, 2022 for a period of three months:
- Zoho Workplace: Zoho Workplace is a unified platform that brings together collaboration, productivity, and communications tools and integrates them into other business processes. Centered around its secure business email (Zoho Mail), team chat (Zoho Cliq), and online office suite (Zoho Writer, Zoho Sheet, Zoho Show, and Zoho WorkDrive), Zoho Workplace features eight tightly integrated apps that hybrid teams can use to get work done and collaborate with each other easily. The platform also includes video conferencing (Zoho Meeting), an enterprise townhall (Zoho Connect), AI-based search (Zia Search) and other security and administrative tools, enabling businesses to communicate and collaborate effectively in a hybrid environment. Zoho Workplace is the most popular offering of Zoho in Kenya.
- Bigin: Bigin, a pipeline-centric CRM, was designed specifically to help MSMEs keep track of their customers and improve customer relationships without having to worry about high costs or complicated features. It can be set up in 30 minutes, with options to create multiple pipelines with customisable stages based on a company’s operation style. Users can make or receive calls from within the system and have contextual information ready at hand. Repetitive tasks can be automated, and prospects can be engaged through email, web forms, online meetings and Twitter. It also provides contextual dashboards to help businesses have an overview of their sales. Bigin integrates with popular third-party business apps, such as Google Workspace, Microsoft 365, Zoom, Mailchimp, etc.
- Zoho Invoice: With Zoho Invoice, businesses can create and send customised invoices, manage multiple projects, track time, and bill customers accurately. They can also improve their cash flow by automatically sending payment reminders to customers, and get paid online faster through debit/credit cards and PayPal. Moreover, businesses can record and track expenses by simply scanning their expense receipts. They will also be able to track tax levied on every transaction, allow customers to view their invoices, projects, and make payments through the self-service portal. Businesses will have complete visibility of their finances with access to over 30 real-time reports on metrics such as best-selling products, pending payments, and more. Zoho Invoice is available for free, globally.
Businesses can integrate Zoho Invoice and Bigin to sync customer information and items, thereby eliminating the need to enter redundant information. They can also contextually integrate with Zoho Workplace applications for increased collaboration and productivity. Mobile apps for iOS and Android devices are available for all the products.
Businesses availing ZADE package will have access to standard support available to them. That allows access to knowledge base, community forums, a self-service portal, email support and remote assistance. It also includes live chat support and telephonic support during working hours five days a week.
“For small businesses, enterprise technology is prohibitively priced and inaccessible,” said Natarajan. “We want to remove the technology adoption barrier and help them kickstart their digital transformation journey, that will in turn help them stay nimble and quickly adapt to changing market conditions. The products are available at a fixed local price, which is beneficial for businesses in the current turbulent economy. We hope that Kenyan businesses will avail this package and fast-track their growth by leveraging cloud technology.”
With over 50 apps in nearly every major business category, including sales, marketing, customer support, accounting and back office operations, and an array of productivity and collaboration tools, Zoho Corporation is one of the world’s most prolific software companies. Zoho is privately held and profitable with more than 10,000 staff. Zoho is headquartered in Chennai, India. Additional offices are in South Africa, US, India, Japan, China, Singapore, Mexico, Australia, Netherlands, and UAE. Zoho respects user privacy and does not have an ad-revenue model in any part of its business, including its free products. More than 75 million users around the world, across hundreds of thousands of companies, rely on Zoho every day to run their businesses, including Zoho itself.
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