The News: This week, Zoho introduced new apps and services for Zoho One business platform. Zoho One 21 includes new updates that will enable businesses to be more agile, solve data problems, and eliminate silos across the organization. Read the announcement here.
Zoho Boosts Zoho One with New Platform Enhancements and Services
Analyst Take: Zoho One hit the market in 2017 as an all-in-one enterprise suite of cloud based apps designed for businesses of all sizes. Back then digital transformation was still just slowly picking up steam with very few companies adopting technologies like AI, data analytics, and collaboration tools. Fast forward 4 years and the business world has changed. Zoho is changing right along with it with new integrations and applications in the Zoho One platform that will allow SMBs, and emerging enterprises to keep up with their enterprise counterparts.
A Fully Unified and Personalized Experience
The key theme with the new updates to Zoho One is the unified user experience. With better accessibility, consistency, intuitiveness, and speed, users will have more continuity switching from app to app or device to device. Users are also equipped with a centralized view of apps, services, and dashboards. But the best part? Data from across the entire organization can be aggregated into custom dashboards to improve visibility and decision making.
Enhanced Business Intelligence for Real-time Insights
Every app used across an organization creates and collects data, but too often organizations are stuck navigating departmental silos, team silos, and even client account silos that can hinder progress and productivity. That’s where I feel that the vision of Zoho One and in particular this round of Zoho One updates will have a significant impact. With the Power of Zoho’s AI assistant and Zoho’s Business Intelligence Platform, decision-making is easier. New updates include:
- 1,500+ Pre-built Analytics Reports and Dashboards. Businesses can make better decisions with access to data from the entire organization.
- Third-party Data Prep. Users can easily integrate, clean, model and catalog their data from third-party sources as well as use analytics functions to mine it for insights.
- Natural Language Powered Search. Powered by Zia, Zoho One can now interpret natural language requests leading to more accurate discoveries.
Improve Business Operations in a Remote World
Business operational models are increasingly complex in today’s post-pandemic world as organizations navigate hybrid work environments for employees. Organizations need solutions that will make it easier to collaborate and deliver unmatched employee experiences that will simplify talent retention all while still prioritizing employee security and data protection. Zoho recognized this need and delivered a series of new updates including:
- Mobile Application Management. Admins can manage employee devices for better insight and permission control for certain apps and data.
- Zoho Learn. A new learning management tool equipped with interactive programs and assessments to encourage employee advancement.
- Zoho Lens. Employees can feel more connected from wherever they are through augmented reality.
- TeamInbox. Organizations can streamline communication and eliminate task duplication by hosting conversations in one central location.
Unified Solution Levels the Playing Field
When the pandemic hit, larger corporations, in many cases, were able to pivot to remote work much easier than SMBs. What I like about Zoho is its acute attention to many businesses that simply don’t have the ability to vet a mountain of software options for ERP, CRM, Collaboration, Analytics and more. Zoho and its One platform may be less spoken about than other mainstream software vendors, but the company’s profile is rising and its attention to its target customer base has been successful.
Furthermore, with these updates, smaller and medium sized organizations have the same data-driven solutions that will provide the necessary visibility to be proactive instead of reactive. From the front to back office, Zoho One, as I see it, provides most, if not all, of the necessary applications that will propel organizations forward.
Disclosure: Futurum Research is a research and advisory firm that engages or has engaged in research, analysis, and advisory services with many technology companies, including those mentioned in this article. The author does not hold any equity positions with any company mentioned in this article.
Other insights from Futurum Research:
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Image Credit: Zoho
Author Information
Daniel is the CEO of The Futurum Group. Living his life at the intersection of people and technology, Daniel works with the world’s largest technology brands exploring Digital Transformation and how it is influencing the enterprise.
From the leading edge of AI to global technology policy, Daniel makes the connections between business, people and tech that are required for companies to benefit most from their technology investments. Daniel is a top 5 globally ranked industry analyst and his ideas are regularly cited or shared in television appearances by CNBC, Bloomberg, Wall Street Journal and hundreds of other sites around the world.
A 7x Best-Selling Author including his most recent book “Human/Machine.” Daniel is also a Forbes and MarketWatch (Dow Jones) contributor.
An MBA and Former Graduate Adjunct Faculty, Daniel is an Austin Texas transplant after 40 years in Chicago. His speaking takes him around the world each year as he shares his vision of the role technology will play in our future.
