Zoho plans enterprise SaaS pivot

BENGALURU: Zoho plans to increase its share of enterprise application business, which has higher revenue potential, pivoting from its traditional focus on small and medium-sized businesses. The software as service (SaaS) company’s chief executive, Mani Vembu, told TOI that the company plans to move upmarket with domain-specific app platforms rather than position as a SaaS vendor.
“In India, more than 50% of the revenue comes from the large businesses, and a majority of the revenue comes from mid and large segments, where the average deal sizes are higher. We want to replicate this success in other geographies by hiring regional teams, moving leadership to different regions,” he said, adding that the company’s focus on small business would continue.
The company is hiring business development teams across key markets in Europe, Asia Pacific, Latin America and the Middle East.
In January, Sridhar Vembu stepped down as Zoho Corp CEO, to focus on R&D and called developments in artificial intelligence both as challenges and opportunities. The group rejigged the leadership with Mani Vembu taking charge as the Zoho CEO.
Zoho has platforms with a set of applications for specific domains such as sales, finance, HR and legal and believes that one specific platform could be adopted by large companies instead of its complete suite. Zoho competes with global players like Salesforce in the global market.
Responding to a question on competing with major players in the enterprise application market, he said the company’s low-code tools, faster project implementation, managing changes quickly and customisation as its differentiation. “We may be one of the largest vendors to have the low-code tool offering. Since there is a huge market opportunity, we feel that there is enough opportunity for us,” he said.
However, the company refused to share revenue estimates from enterprise business. Vembu said they are witnessing good traction.
The company plans to improve its consulting capabilities in what it calls co-creating applications with customers. Zoho is also undertaking agentic AI projects across different functions like coding, marketing, etc., but Vembu said those are in the early stages.