In the 71st episode of Burning Platform, we host Hyther Nizam, President, Middle East and Africa for Zoho.
Let me start off by saying I became a fan of Zoho way back in 2006 after this session with the CEO, Sridhar Vembu. Over the years I have written plenty about their business model, his leadership style, his humble philosophy about life and rural revival and what he calls “transnational localism”
I had a chance to talk to Hyther about an exciting new product release (he also wears a product development hat) announcement planned for early March. I asked him if we could also talk about “transnational localism” as applied to his region which spans 10 countries across the Middle East and Africa. He does in the conversation below and you have to marvel at the product enhancements (like RTL – right to left UX needed for Arabic and other scripts), the sweat equity, the pricing subsidies and other investments Zoho makes in developing each market.
Contrast that to most other enterprise software vendors who try to replicate their expensive direct sales, partner heavy model when they look at global expansion. Additionally, most of them prioritize English speaking countries in their global plans. No wonder most SaaS applications, even after two decades, have very little customization for most of the world’s local languages, currencies and regs.
Zoho’s investments in MEA are clearly paying off as Hyther shares. His is one of the fastest growing regions at Zoho. Not sure other vendors can match their pricing model, but there are several philosophical and behavioral attributes they should consider emulating.
Personally, I am in awe of how Hyther managed to accomplish so much with global travel constrained in the pandemic affected last couple of years. And how he seems to fairly easily juggle his product responsibilities as well.
More on the product announcements next week.
