In the 78th episode of Burning Platform, we host Raju Vegesna, Chief Evangelist at Zoho, a repeat guest in this series
Zoho One – also branded as “the Operating System for Business” - is a suite of 50 and growing applications across sales, marketing, finance, hr, legal, collaboration and other functional areas – see the full list here (btw it does not list the 50+ mobile apps which are also included)
We discuss a major milestone in the evolution of Zoho One – its fifth anniversary.
In those 5 years, it has been adopted by over 50.000 customers. Notably, it has also penetrated markets like UAE, Nigeria, Kenya, Mexico and others that few enterprise vendors ever cover.
The glib statement in the enterprise applications market is “the suite always wins”. Yes, it is compelling to have an integrated solution with a common UX, single version of truth across the enterprise. The reality is first-gen ERP, CRM and other suites were inconsistent in their functionality by module, often cobbled together via acquisitions, attracted lots of Sis who were comfortable in HQ functions but not in operational areas the suite promised to cover, resulted in massive overruns. My view is that experience has made enterprise buyers much more cautious and back to buying at a much more modular level. With that backdrop, Zoho One has done very well.
Raju discusses many things Zoho has done right – “a dollar a day” pricing; organic, self-discovery of applications so users expand their use of the suite at their own pace, rather than being oversold what ends up becoming shelfware; and a focus on customers without much of a legacy application portfolio to migrate.
He also discusses what’s next in the evolution of this success story.
Crisply (and modestly) done in 16 minutes.
