Zoho opens SA office

Zoho, the global technology company offering an extensive suite of business software, has opened its South African office – and its flagship office in Africa – in Cape Town. The announcement was made during the company’s annual user conference, Zoholics: South Africa.

Zoho is also conducting an upskilling programme with UCT Developer Society, under which students can get certification for Zoho apps like Zoho Creator, a low-code development platform, and Zoho CRM, the company’s customer relationship management software. The new office has a training facility that can cater for up to 40 students per course for this programme.

“Zoho strongly believes in its growth being closely tied with the growth and development of the broader community that it serves, a strategy that we refer to as ‘transnational localism’,” says Hyther Nizam, president of Zoho for Middle East and Africa. “As part of this vision, we’re focused on contributing to the creation of self-sufficient economic clusters across the world.

“Our new Cape Town office adds to this effort and will help us effectively scale our ongoing initiatives in South Africa, such as local hiring and upskilling, and also be closer to our customers. We build from experience, and having already conducted successful skill-building programmes in other countries, like India and UAE, we’re looking forward to growing these initiatives in South Africa, especially because there is tremendous youth potential here.”

Zoho, which is celebrating its 25th anniversary this year, has had a presence in South Africa since 2019, when it hosted its first Zoholics event. In 2020, the company grew revenue in the region by more than 50%. It said it will continue to hire more local talent, forge long-standing partnerships, invest in local business communities, adopt local culture in its business operations, and support regional economic development initiatives.

Andrew Bourne, regional manager for Africa at Zoho, says: “We are looking to work closely with more local technology solution providers in order to grow the number of re-sellers and implementation partners in the country, while also hiring for customer-facing roles in order to service the high demand for Zoho’s products in the country. We are also looking out for partners for scaling our skill-building initiatives. South Africa is Zoho’s key market in Africa, and we will continue to invest in the country.”