More small businesses go online, Zoho doubles customers on integrated workplace App platform

Buoyed by a large number of small and medium businesses (SMBs) migrating to hybrid and remote workplace models, Zoho Corp’s “all-in-one suite” of workplace apps, Zoho One, has registered a year-on-year customer growth of 104 percent in India and 60 percent globally.

Zoho’s cloud-based operating system that the company markets as a one-stop shop for all its individual apps for SMBs has been adding a large number of customers since the pandemic, last year. The period also saw Zoho hit the half-million customer mark, totalling 70 million users globally. Zoho One alone crossed a customer count of 40,000.

While announcing the landmark, Zoho announced the addition of six new apps to its Zoho one suite, including Zoho Learn, Zoho Lens, Zoho Payroll and Team Inbox, which the company said aims to solve the problem of “data silos” during remote working.

“The problem of disjointed data spread across multiple systems in an organization is that data silos become a huge challenge when roles are cross-functional,” said Praval Singh, Vice President at Zoho Corp, “Trying to solve this problem has led us to bring about an interface the unifies.”

It was this quest for unification that led Zoho to launch Zoho One in 2017, with a grand total of 35 apps on a single operating system — an interface that saw increased patronage during multiple COVID-19 lockdowns starting last year.

“In the last year and a half, most companies have adapted to hybrid or remote working, with its own set of challenges,” Praval added, “Physical stores had to go digital during the lockdown, and this caused problems, which caused us to ask questions like how do we help more businesses go digital? How do we secure employees’ devices? How do we onboard new employees during a pandemic when everyone is working remotely?”

In addition to the six new apps launched by Zoho One, the OS has also launched three new services, including an interactive work graph, an organizational dictionary and mobile application management (MAM) interface, used mainly in the running of remote or hybrid workplaces. The average number of apps enabled on Zoho One in the last year, Zoho said, stood at 21.