Nigeria is in the middle of an FX crisis. The crux of the current forex impasse in the country is the paucity of the dollar for imports, repatriations and other international transactions. According to analysts, the three key problems that afflict Nigeria’s foreign exchange market are the lack of transparency, foreign exchange shortages and volatility.
Consequently, many local business owners and, most especially, tech founders are seeking local alternatives to foreign products and services to save cost, achieve efficiency and limit FX risk exposure.
One such option is the Zoho One suite, a comprehensive solution for accounting, internal communications, digital signature, remote support, and CRM for startups. This is quite different from the Zoho Workplace, which compares to Google Workspace or Microsoft 365.
In a bid to further this conversation, I recently had a chat with Kehinde Ogundare, country manager, Nigeria for Zoho about the products, the potential for the market and how Zoho plans to harness the potential of the present FX challenges in Nigeria:
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Q: Many people know of Zoho standalone products like the Zoho Workspace and the Zoho Meeting. Can you provide a brief picture of the entire offerings by Zoho?
Kehinde: What we provide at Zoho is a platform for organizations to run their entire operations.
There are some key business units within every company. The first is sales. Then, you have marketing, finance, human resources and project management. I think these are the five key departments in any company.
Nowadays, everybody wants to be online, but very few have the right tools to manage the process. So, Zoho Social will help manage your online presence across different platforms (Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn etc.) and be informed about what people are saying about your brand.
Imagine gathering data from multiple platforms and having them on one dashboard. You want to be able to know what are the market segments you are looking at.
Then, I believe that you need to be in front of your customers all the time. At least you should send a newsletter once a week if not every day because what people see is what they believe. So we have Zoho Newsletter for email marketing. Our email marketing solution also has marketing automation features.
For sales, we have the Zoho CRM. We also have Zoho forms. It is amazing what you can do with these tools to streamline your entire sales process. With them, you can automate redundant activities like sending automated emails, assigning tasks and following up with leads.
Now that your sales team has brought a client on board, how do you collect and track payment? So, we have a finance application called Zoho Books for you. This comprehensive cloud-based financial software will enable you to make bank reconciliation, profit and loss, invoices, sales orders, purchases, and every other finance-related task.
We also have Zoho Inventory, a comprehensive inventory management and warehouse management software for companies that have multiple warehouses. It is useful for stock-keeping, order fulfilment and a lot of other processes.
Then, Zoho Commerce is our online e-commerce platform for users who want to have an online presence. With it, you can create and manage a website where people can buy and can check out.
Zoho invoice allows you to send professional invoices. It will have your company name and logo and you will be able to send the invoice using your official domain. Zoho Invoice is free for any user.
Our human resource management system, Zoho People will enable you to manage your workforce. With it, you can take attendance, manage leave applications, manage benefits, manage reporting lines, team performance and so on.
It also has an expense management system that helps users take charge of employee expenses and reimbursement. With it, you can send employees for training, manage trips and manage other expenses. It comes with an approval flow and can be integrated with the human resource application.
For your project management, you can use the traditional watered-down project management methods or go Agile. Zoho Projects allows you to track milestones, monitor tasks and track completion dates. And if you have to be more flexible about your projects, you can create a story around it.
Now, most alternatives can easily get expensive with the current exchange rates. But, Zoho is offering premium standard products at local rates.
Q: For some providers, one subscription gives you access to other apps. For others, you have to pay for apps separately. Aside from Zoho Invoice which is free, what are the cost options?
Kehinde: Yes, Zoho Invoice is free and you do not need to have any existing subscription before you can access it. You can easily sign up. Just go to zoho.com/invoice to create an account and you are good to start.
For now, Zoho Mail is free for up to five users. So, if you have a team of five or less, you can use it for free, for life. And, you do not need to have an existing subscription with Zoho to sign up. And, you can create an official email with your domain address, branding and so on.
Often, people ask me” “How does Zoho make money with these freebies?”. But, we hope that your business will grow and you will get to the point where you might need to start paying subscriptions. At the point when you need subscriptions, you won’t need to worry about cost.
To your question about subscriptions, I say that we are very flexible. You can select products according to your needs and we can bundle them into products for you. The idea is for our software to be seamlessly integrated into your existing process.
Our Zoho Workplace is a bundle of about six to seven applications. It has premium applications that are similar to your Excel, Word, PowerPoint etc. Also, when you get your email, you will get a cloud drive so you can store your documents and make them accessible to anybody that you permit. This bundle favourably competes with the Google suite, Google or Microsoft 365.
Access to other applications can be purchased individually by business owners.
Q: Some people are concerned that products like Zoho meetings do not have similar widespread adoption as other platforms. Hence, it will take a learning curve to get team members and clients to adjust. How would you address this?
Kehinde: We pride ourselves on user-friendliness.
I admit that change can be difficult at first. But I brag that if you try any Zoho product for one week, a day or even for a few hours, trust me, you get a hang of it and it will grow on you.
Simply said, adoption is very easy for all Zoho products. For example, if you send a Zoho meeting link to a person, they just need to click on the link to join. And, they don’t even need to have a Zoho account to do that.
For a platform like Zoho Commerce, people visiting your site won’t know you’re using our platform. With it, you can publish your products and do marketing properly. People can see and interact. But, Zoho works at the backend. And, it is very easy. It is more like a drag-and-drop.
For all our products, what we focus on is a nice interface and easy adoption. I can tell you that implementation is 50 per cent faster than any of our competition. I can tell you that even my mom can sign up on Zoho mail.
At the same time, we have placed instructions options on every page that will take you to the next point. Also, we have a standby support system in the chatbox on the website in case you are stuck. There will always be someone to assist you in getting through.
Q: One of the compelling propositions for many Nigerians is that Zoho charges in the local currency, Naira. How does it all work: is it a fixed rate? Do local debit cards work?
Kehinde: We have fixed our prices since 2020.
That was when we realized that customers were having issues making payments because of the CBN $20 monthly spending cap. We gave customers the naira pricing option back since the dollar settlement was not working.
This means that our users can pay with a Naira card from a Naira account. Even with the exchange rate crisis, we have not reviewed our pricing. And, we are not planning to do that anytime soon. Otherwise, it is going to be a burden for customers to be able to keep up with that exchange rate.
That means that our products have been automatically discounted for Nigerian customers. If you are buying the products in Nigeria, you are paying about 22% less than what you will typically pay outside Nigeria.
And, whatever you see on the website is what you will pay. There are no hidden charges. There is no additional costs.
Q: Do you charge users annually or monthly?
Kehinde: There are two options. You can pay monthly or annually. You can also make payments with your Naira MasterCard, Visa card or gift card.
Q: A major consideration for potential users is how to migrate from their existing providers. From a technical point of view, how seamless is this process?
Kehinde: Indeed, we have a standby migration team that can assist you through that process.
But, like I said, we have instructions on how to do everything on your own. Even if you are trying to migrate from other platforms, it is easy with built-in plug-and-play features.
You can migrate all your files of many years directly to Zoho in a way that does not disrupt your business. That means your staff can use Google today, for example, and use Zoho tomorrow morning.
Q: So how do people reach out if they want to migrate?
Kehinde: We have a chat application that we have embedded on our website. Click on it and request for assistance.
Alternatively, you can call our number or send an email to support@Zohomail.com and request assistance. Somebody from the team will reach out to you and schedule a meeting or help you through the process.
Q: How long will it take if someone reaches out to the team to get help?
Kehinde: Around four to seven hours. But, you call the local team if you need us to expedite that process for you.
Q: Another worry is the question of privacy and data security. Can you provide insight on what Zoho has done to guarantee data safety and privacy?
Kehinde: At Zoho, our tagline is “When you think of Zoho, you think of privacy and security”. So, privacy is at our core.
To this end, even if you are using our free products, you will not see an ad. We have also removed all third-party tracking applications on all our platforms since 2020. So your privacy is our privacy. Your security is our security. And, we have all the necessary compliance certifications.
This is why I was happy when the NDPR was signed last year. This is because we are GDPR compliant. We don’t compromise and we will never agree to anything that will breach the trust of our clients in that aspect.
Q: People would also want to migrate to forward-thinking platforms. They want to know if Zoho will offer more in the future. Are there assurances?
Kehinde: At Zoho, we invest a lot in R&D. That is why most people believe that with what we have, we are not making enough noise. And we are constantly improving the products.
Take our CRM, for example. The CRM we had in 2021 or even last year is not the same as what we have now. We have optimized it for more efficiency.
There is a frenzy about AI today. But, we had our own AI called Zari 11 years ago. With it, we have enhanced the capability of our CRM to enable you to predict your customer journey. You can also run a sentiment analysis and it will give you the best time to call the clients. You can also integrate it with third-party platforms like Open AI.
Zoho is the most forward-thinking company that I know. We are already thinking of the best way to serve you better. I can tell you that tomorrow, our products will have new updates. They have improved greatly in the last six months.
And, as you grow your business. There is always something from Zoho that will help you to grow all the way.
Thank you so much again for giving us your time, Kenny.
Kehinde: You are welcome.
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