It is good news for several Nigerian businesses as Zoho Corporation, a top global technology company, announced today that all its 45+ business software applications are available at a fixed Nigerian Naira (NGN) price.

As a part of the brand’s global survive-and-serve strategy, the company seeks to ease the impact of currency fluctuations, especially on small businesses. The aim is to significantly reduce barriers to entry for SMEs searching for multiple solutions from different global vendors. 

Through the Small Business Emergency Subscription Assistance Program, Zoho offers its existing, qualifying small business customers a three-month waiver on their subscription fees. Also, there are a number of additional initiatives and resources designed for businesses to help them survive the Covid-19 crisis. One of such is Remotely, which is a remote working toolkit that is freely available to all businesses until July 1, 2020. 

According to Andrew Bourne, Country Manager, Africa, Zoho Corp, “serving our local communities and businesses is a key focus for Zoho, and we recognise that the impact of the global Covid-19 pandemic is forcing businesses to adopt digitisation much faster than they might otherwise have.”

He adds that “Zoho seeks to make this adoption both simple and affordable by providing its world-class software solutions at a fair price, protected from exchange rate fluctuations. Customers are also guaranteed privacy and security of their data.”

Among Zoho’s top-selling products are Zoho One and Zoho Workplace: 

· Zoho One is an all-in-one integrated suite of 45+ applications that can run an entire business in the cloud. With Zoho One, a company can manage all its functionalities from marketing, sales, and support to HR, accounting, and back-office operations—making it a valid operating system for business. It is available from NGN7800 per employee, per month (billed annually).

· Zoho Workplace offers a suite of productivity apps catering to the needs of today’s modern, distributed workforce. It comprises email, file storage, word processor, spreadsheets, presentations, employee intranet, team chat, and online video conferencing tools, and is available from NGN780 per user, per month (billed annually).

Zoho conducts free seminars and training sessions aimed specifically at the African market, educating users about how to adopt cloud technology to grow their businesses. After the success of its first-ever African Zoholics (Zoho’s user conference) event in Johannesburg in September 2019, the company hosted another Zoholics in Cairo, Egypt, in February this year. 

Zoho has plans for long-term growth and expansion in Africa, having seen 35% growth in the region in 2019-2020. These include integration with top payment gateways in the continent to support local e-businesses and online retailers. It is also expanding its partner footprint to encourage more local businesses. Zoho’s partners have helped increase Zoho’s reach, contributing to over 55% of Zoho’s overall revenue for the region. 

Aside from Nigeria, localised pricing has also been announced for Kenya, South Africa, and Egypt, with further opportunities in the pipeline as Zoho plans to scale up its workforce on the continent over the next two years. Zoho currently has employees in South Africa and Nigeria.

Central to Zoho’s offer and ethos is a commitment to data privacy and protection at the highest level. The company is compliant with both GDPR and EU-US Privacy Shield Framework, and seeks to constantly exceed industry-specific compliance standards. Currently, Zoho hosts data in 10 data centres across the globe, with plans to open more to meet data protection regulations in different countries. No part of the business, including free products, uses an ad-revenue model. 

About Zoho

With 45+ 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 technology companies. Zoho is privately held and profitable, with more than 8 000 employees. Zoho is headquartered in Austin, Texas, with international headquarters in Chennai, India. Additional offices are in the United States, India, Japan, China, Singapore, Mexico, Australia, the Netherlands, and the United Arab Emirates. More than 50 million users around the world, across hundreds of thousands of companies, rely on Zoho every day to run their businesses, including Zoho itself. For more information, please visit www.zoho.com.