Zoho Corporation’s strategic vision, prominently showcased at ZohoDay 2025 in February 2025, underscores a deliberate and sustainable long-term approach that aligns with today’s economic and technological demands. Attended by over 100 global analysts, the event highlighted Zoho’s commitment to innovation, affordability, and customer-centric solutions through a series of impactful announcements.
Key pillars of Zoho’s global strategy, highlighted at ZohoDay 2025:
Zoho’s Global Footprint Grows: More Pins on the Map
Zoho is implementing its translocal globalization model by setting up operations in regions with affordable housing and abundant talent pools, avoiding the excessive costs of major metropolitan areas. This strategy provides a pricing benefit for customers in markets with significant currency fluctuations against the US dollar, as Zoho prices its products in local currencies, enhancing affordability and market reach.
Zoho shared its growth and customer metrics with analysts under a nondisclosure agreement (NDA), showcasing impressive figures that either match or surpass those of competitors in the industry.
While many large SaaS players are withdrawing from some markets, Zoho is marching forward with share of revenue growing globally across Asia, Europe, and MEA. “Global diversification has helped insulate us against political and economic shocks,” said Vijay Sundaram, Chief Strategy Officer of Zoho – and we agree.
Zoho's global presence allows for cost advantages by using talent from various geographical locations with lower labor costs.
Partner-Driven Market Momentum
Zoho is placing greater emphasis on partnerships to expand the reach of its ecosystem, a key element of its growth strategy highlighted at ZohoDay 2025. The objective is to enhance the accessibility of its technology, streamline implementation processes, and deliver rapid value to customers.
Zoho offers a range of solutions, including off-the-shelf products, custom options, and third-party integrations. Central to this approach is the Zoho Marketplace, which has surpassed 1 million installations. Additionally, Zoho Enterprise Business Solutions provides a specialized service tailored to assist mid-market and large enterprises in implementing and optimizing Zoho’s software suite, supported by collaborations with global system integrators (GSIs).
The End of One-Size-Fits-All SaaS? Zoho's Vertical Bet
Zoho is sharpening its focus on industry-specific solutions, tailoring its platform to address the unique needs of diverse sectors, bolstering its appeal against generalized SaaS competitors. “There are more niche opportunities beyond the big ones,” said Anand Nergunam, Zoho’s VP of Revenue Growth. “Most verticals need multiple tightly integrated solutions. A significant opportunity for building a suite of Apps.” Among the examples Anand presented were retail and financial services.
| Image Source: Zoho Analyst Briefing |
Zoho’s strategy for catering to different market verticals encompasses the following key aspects:
- Integration with apps specific to individual verticals.
- Development of products tailored for specific industries.
- Creation of platforms that address the unique needs of various sectors.
- Collaboration with partners to expand the capabilities of Zoho’s platforms.
Zoho used customer feedback to cocreate and customize their capabilities. This strategy is effective if they can develop support and accurately size the market. Zoho has large enterprise customers, especially in India, and can apply this strategy globally. Customers can seamlessly add more elements to the Zoho platform.
Zoho also emphasized the use of their platform as a low-code solution to enable fast development of niche solutions by their clients who need to solve complex business issues quickly.
Zoho and AI: Embracing Their Own AI Solutions With a Focus on Privacy and Managing Compute Costs
A standout announcement from ZohoDay 2025 was the launch of Zia Agents, intelligent, task-specific AI assistants designed to automate workflows and enhance decision-making across Zoho’s portfolio of over 100 applications. Pre-built roles include Account Manager, SDR, HR, Customer Support, IT Help Desk, and Sales Coach.
“The best implementation of AI is when it fades into the background.”– Raju Vegesna, Chief Evangelist of Zoho. Vegesna feels that these are still the early days of AI, and the marketing of AI is ahead of reality. |
Zoho emphasized their key AI tenets: context, truth, privacy, and value. Zoho committed to continuing to bolster their unique international position – one that already spans a range of verticals across several integrated applications. Most notable was their commitment to the use of contextual AI used in the background of products that had already been rolled out. Zoho believes that “the best implementation of AI is when it fades into the background” and is used to enhance customer experience without direct incremental cost to the customer.
Ask Zia, which was released in 2018, was reaffirmed as a system-wide conversational agent that enhances employee productivity through various business tasks all contained within the interface. It also was to be aligned with Zoho’s contextual AI approach and embedded across all applications.
The next evolution of Zia comes in the form of Zia Agents. These agents will come in pre-built and customizable forms and encompass dozens of different use cases over the coming months. Users will be able to leverage the Zia Agent Studio to build autonomous agents in a no-code or low-code experience, with options ranging from custom skills to preexisting Zia Skills, as well as agents within a function to natively cross-functional agents. Zia Agents will also be compatible with third-party applications and be combinable in Zia Agent Studio. Created agents will then be able to be published in the Marketplace, allowing for distribution of both Zoho pre-built and specialized AI agents to a large network of Zoho customer organizations. Notably, Zoho is absorbing AI-related costs, ensuring these enhancements – rooted in privacy, value, and long-term thinking – do not increase customer pricing, a move praised by analysts for its practicality and customer focus.
Zoho showcases various contextual AI use cases implemented for customers. These applications, shown in the image below, are typically available only through added SaaS purchases.
| Image Source: Zoho Analyst Briefing |
Zoho has introduced an AI bridge that customers can use with both public and self-hosted large language models (LLMs). Zoho is also developing an in-house LLM, expected to launch in 2025, featuring 7B and 13B models. This initiative aims to provide Zoho with a competitive advantage in long-term deep technical ability. In a strategic move, former CEO Sridhar Vembu has transitioned to the role of Chief Scientist at Zoho to lead and drive innovative efforts. Zoho is already seeing a huge volume of AI API calls (see image below).
| Image Source: Zoho Analyst Briefing |
Zoho states that they are not a compute vendor, meaning that they are not passing on the compute costs of AI. Vegesna commented on the fact that AI compute costs will eat into SaaS budgets. Zoho is well positioned to provide AI to their customers where it is needed by using their own infrastructure with 16 data centers across the globe.
Zoho’s Growth in Finance Operations
Zoho continues to expand its footprint in finance and operations, building on its global infrastructure while introducing new capabilities. Recent advancements include the rollout of enterprise billing, early access to Zoho Payments in the US, and the expansion of payroll services to key markets like Canada, the UK, and GCC countries.
Application of AI integration such as self-service BI tools, AI-powered financial assistants, and AI-driven data extraction will enhance efficiency and decision-making for Zoho Finance customers. These are good enhancements to enable Zoho to meet evolving business needs and keep a competitive edge in the market.
Zoho: Enterprise Integration That Bends, But Won’t Break (Your Existing Systems)
Zoho offers two adoption paths:
- Modular adoption: Start with one app or module and scale gradually.
- Enterprise ecosystem: Deploy the full Zoho suite for comprehensive integration.
During the ZohoDay 2025 event, a dual approach was introduced to meet the needs of businesses of all sizes, providing scalability and affordability for CIOs and CTOs. Zoho can help customers replace point solutions by allowing the creation of integrated applications like cloud email security, churn prediction, and visitor management, reducing the need for added implementations.
There are two primary benefits of Zoho adoption by enterprises. Firstly, the implementation can typically be achieved without needing a complete overhaul of existing systems. Secondly, enterprises have the capability to develop custom modules, automate workflows, and customize the software using low-code development tools such as Zoho Creator.
Projects Plus: Zoho's Answer to Enterprise-Grade Project Management Challenges
We received an early preview of Zoho’s new enterprise-grade unified project management platform Zoho Projects Plus, which was launched March 11th. This was also part of the agenda for ZohoDay 2025 where we heard case studies from customers who were already using the platform under NDA, many of them being global companies. It was surprising that many of the customer stories also included marketing teams that were using Zoho Project Plus for agile marketing and collaboration. The issue addressed by Project Plus is the difficulty teams encounter in managing projects and the ability to use data for improved decision-making. Below is an overview of Project Plus’ key features and capabilities:
- Enterprise DIY: Zoho Projects Plus emphasizes usability and self-service functionality, allowing large organizations to implement and adopt the platform with limited external support.
- AI and data democratization: The platform incorporates AI-driven tools, including conversational AI, content generation, and NLP-based insights, enabling all project team members to access and use data effectively.
- Collaborative work management: It supports efficient teamwork by combining communication, documentation, and automated workflows, facilitating collaboration across functional teams.
- Advanced analytics: The platform offers pre-built dashboards and unified contextual intelligence, providing enterprises with detailed insights into project performance to support informed decision-making.
- Enterprise-grade security and governance: Zoho places a strong emphasis on data privacy and security, ensuring enterprise data is safeguarded as a priority.
Zoho also highlighted other aspects of their platform as key benefits and differentiators of Projects Plus.
- Unified platform: It integrates flexible project management, collaborative tools, and advanced analytics into a single solution, minimizing reliance on multiple separate tools.
- Zoho ecosystem integration: As part of the broader Zoho application suite, Projects Plus connects seamlessly with other Zoho products, delivering consistent experience for enterprises.
- Competitive pricing: The pricing structure of Zoho Projects Plus is positioned as a cost-effective option relative to other enterprise-grade project management tools available in the market.
ManageEngine’s ecosystem
ManageEngine provided updates on their service management and operations tools and discussed and demonstrated a broad range of capabilities that include managing the workforce (service desk and asset management), securing the enterprise (UEM, vulnerability management, event and security management), and monitoring and managing workloads (infrastructure, network, and application performance).
| Image Source: Zoho |
The integration and adoption of Zoho enterprise management has enabled a broad range of capabilities that can dramatically improve workflows and collaboration with multiple service teams, as demonstrated by an onboarding workflow mapped to show the process from new hire to equipment deployment. With many organizations looking to introduce automation to reduce manual tasks, the integration of Zoho tools and several IT operations tools can dramatically reduce the time it takes to schedule and organize a process that typically is complex, time consuming and error prone. The shared technology between Zoho and ManageEngine enables easy integration and flexibility in creating enterprise service management solutions that support the business beyond IT.
| Image Source: Zoho |
Known in many circles as a strong and cost-effective solution for small to medium business, ManageEngine provided customer names and statistics that show they are working successfully with enterprise organizations that can take advantage of these integrations to manage a broad range of IT and business services in various industries. Integration of Ask Zia and Agent Studios enables additional capabilities for self-service and agents.
A discussion with one of ManageEngine’s long-term, multinational enterprise customers provided insight into how they were able to dramatically reduce costs, right-size their IT security and operations, and improve customer service, by gradually increasing their ManageEngine footprint. They identified a few key areas where they felt there was opportunity for small improvements, yet they still held firm in their belief that they made a solid choice that allows them to serve their current employees well and manage acquisitions and growth using the ManageEngine solutions.
Our Take on Zoho's Vision and Recent Announcements
Zoho is making significant strides in enterprise readiness, data security, and AI-powered capabilities. These efforts position the company as an increasingly attractive option for larger organizations seeking dependable, privacy-focused, innovative solutions. As Zoho continues to refine and publicize these strengths, it could carve out a meaningful chunk in the enterprise market.
We see several key strengths emerging that position the company favorably in the evolving enterprise landscape:
- Responsible AI leadership: Zoho’s ongoing commitment to responsible AI stands out, particularly with their certified approach to implementation aligns with growing ethical expectations of customers.
- Data privacy stance: Zoho’s firm guarantee against sharing customer data with third parties is a reassuring and compelling differentiator. This commitment deserves greater visibility, as it could resonate strongly with privacy-conscious organizations and customers.
- Enterprise market ambition: Zoho’s pivot toward the enterprise market is a strategic and timely move. With its existing capabilities and focus, the company appears well-equipped to compete in this higher-stakes arena.
- Robust reference architecture: The reference architecture Zoho presented is both comprehensive and practical, offering a solid foundation for enterprises looking to adopt their solutions. It’s an impressive starting point that shows technical maturity.
- Security and governance foundation: Zoho has laid a strong groundwork for building enterprise-grade security and data governance capabilities. These are critical areas for larger organizations, and Zoho’s focus here enhances its credibility as a trusted partner.
- Data preparation edge: Zoho’s emphasis on data preparation could prove to be a strategic advantage, especially when compared to gaps in other enterprise offerings in this area. This focus may give Zoho a competitive edge in delivering AI-driven insights.
- Contextual AI across the platform: Zoho continues to maintain its extremely competitive offering in enterprise solutions, and the addition of widespread contextual AI across its product portfolio will only serve to bolster its existing position. Zia Agents will be a welcome addition to Zoho’s efforts to increase customization in its AI portfolio. Through the use of Agent Studio and Marketplace, organizations can leverage personalized Zia Agents to effectively boost productivity in various different business functions of their choice.
- However, one question that remains is the ability to quantify the exact boost or return on investment that Zia’s contextual AI brings when used “behind the scenes.” If contextual AI continues to be implemented without direct knowledge of the customer, it may become difficult to evaluate its direct efficacy and value in relation to competitors. Organizations with this concern should take care to monitor any changes in output from Zia-affected business functions as well as actively collect employee experience feedback in order to get an accurate reading of how effective Zia has been for their uses. Nevertheless, Zoho’s commitment to AI R&D as well as continuously striving to evolve Zia’s AI offerings is commendable and will surely pay off in its impressive endeavor with agents.
Conclusion:
Free from investor pressure, Zoho continues to invest in owned infrastructure and a proprietary code base, ensuring resilience and control over its roadmap.
High employee retention and potentially lower headcount costs – driven by its translocal strategy – enhance operational efficiency, a point reinforced by its talent-focused expansion.
Zoho is acknowledged as a competitive player in the SMB market and is actively pursuing growth in the US enterprise sector through enhanced investments in sales and marketing. Larger organizations evaluating options for a cost-effective, comprehensive, and straightforward suite of business applications may find Zoho to be a suitable alternative.
