Zoho, the global technology company with the most extensive product portfolio in the industry, announced that it will be doubling its headcount in Egypt where it opened its office last year. The company has seen 101% growth in the country in 2021 and 25% increase in its channel partner network. The announcement was made during Zoholics Cairo, the company’s annual user conference being held at The Westin Cairo.
“Zoho’s growth in the region is largely underpinned by local businesses realising the power of SaaS applications, as they reap benefits of digitising their operations and the internet penetration that has helped more people get online,” said Ali Shabdar, Regional Director for MEA, Zoho Corp. “Our vision for transnational localism has also helped us expand organically in the region, a strategy where our company growth is rooted in local business ecosystem development and community progress. We are hiring more local talent in the country, especially for customer-facing roles. Our focus is to serve regional customer needs like local payment gateway integration, and enabling tech accessibility through partnerships with local business networks.”
Recently, Zoho has partnered with Etisalat Egypt to help tens of thousands of Etisalat business customers based in the country digitally transform their businesses using Zoho’s diverse platform. This partnership comprises access to Zoho apps, training programmes, workshops, and other activities to ensure Egyptian businesses maximize the benefits of digitalization with the support of Etialat Egypt and Zoho.
“During the pandemic and its multiple waves, we have seen a surge in demand for customer experience platform, low-code platform and business intelligence offerings, as they became instrumental for any business to stay operational and react to the quickly changing market demands,” said Shabdar. “Zoho One—the Operating System for business, which unifies 45+ apps built on the same technology stack that contextually integrate with one another and are supported by a common data model—allows business owners to transcend departmental silos, unify processes, and further leverage cross-functional smart reporting and analytics by combining data across different departments. This is an attractive offering for any business. Moreover, we have specialised pricing for Egypt which is not only lower than the global pricing, but also in local currency so as to protect our customers from fluctuating exchange rates.”
The growth in Egypt has been driven by Zoho One, Zoho Workplace (enterprise collaboration platform), Zoho CRM (customer relationship management software), Zoho Desk (help-desk software) and Zoho People (human resource management system).
In its efforts to make technology more accessible, Zoho has been adding RTL Arabic language support in its major apps such as CRM, Books and Creator. It recently introduced RTL in the website builder of its e-commerce platform, Zoho Commerce. With this, businesses can create websites in Arabic in just an hour by customising available templates and using drag-and-drop website builder. These can be integrated with other applications in the Zoho ecosystem or to third-party applications, enabling these businesses to easily scale.
Growth in MEA
In 2021, Zoho grew by 52% in the Middle East and Africa region, which is the second highest growing region for the company. It grew its partner network by 55% and tripled its workforce in the region. The company also established its presence in seven countries, and set up new offices in Saudi Arabia, Egypt and South Africa.
This year, Zoho has already opened an office in Nigeria and plans to open another in Kenya, and three other countries in the coming year, with Dubai serving as the regional headquarters. It also plans to continue hiring locally in other countries to serve its customers, as it expands its footprints across the region.
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