Zoho - The Regenerative Company

04.12.24 02:44 PM - Comment(s) - By Jeremy Cox

In Spirit, by Design, in Practice

Highlights:

- Core aspects of a regenerative economy

- Regenerative business orientation/attributes
- Transnational Localism is Zoho’s driving business philosophy and orientation
- Employee care and kinship at Zoho

- Community investment is a vital facet of Zoho’s Transnational Localism
- Zoho takes environmental sustainability seriously, in keeping with its regenerative ethos
- Creative, resilient and adaptive depends on the culture, as Zoho exemplifies
- The ‘LATAM’ team faithfully reflects Zoho’s ethical orientation and the five attributes
- Transnational Localism guides Zoho’s expansion across the Middle East and Africa
- Transnational Localism is Zoho’s expression of purposeful collaboration through shared values
- Unique among technology companies, Zoho is regenerative in spirit, by design and in practice

Setting the scene

Zoho Corporation, founded in 1996, is an extraordinary company. A global technology business quite unlike any other. To quote the inspirational R. Buckminster Fuller, our collective endeavour as humans on this planet should and must be:

‘To make the world work for 100% of humanity in the shortest possible time through spontaneous cooperation without ecological offence or the disadvantage of anyone.'

We will discover that Zoho matches this calling in India, where it is headquartered, and, progressively, wherever it operates.

Many years ago, I read about the two-hundred-year-old chocolatiers Cadbury and Rowntree of England. Both had, for their time and by today’s allegedly more enlightened standards, an extraordinary concern for their employees. The founders were devout Quaker Christians who took their obligations seriously, living their faith, not simply reciting prescribed ritualistic prayers. They built housing and schools for the workforce and their families. Their faith inspired the highest standard of ethics that permeated their daily lives, most notably in the workplace and their equitable business dealings with others. I wondered why most businesses today don’t treat their employees with the same concern for their wellbeing but only as ‘human resources’, a term I find almost as inhumane as ‘human capital’.

Zoho sparked my deep interest in Regenerative Business

In the summer of 2022, I attended a two-day conference hosted by Zoho in Austin, Texas. Unusually, for an IT analyst-only event, before telling us about Zoho’s latest software innovations for businesses, the Chief Strategy Officer, Vijay Sundaram, who projects kindness, humility and wisdom, told us about the company’s business philosophy. It is distinctly different from any other IT corporation I’ve encountered. It reminded me so much of those two Quaker companies, Cadbury and Rowntree.

As I later discovered in a one-to-one meeting with Sridhar Vembu, co-founder and CEO, in early 2024 in McAllen, Texas, his Hindu faith inspires the firm’s ethical behaviours. I mention this because a higher level of consciousness regarding ethical business is required, irrespective of religious beliefs or practices. Ethical business is non-dualistic. It recognises the mutuality and interdependence between a company’s owners and leaders, employees, ecosystem partners, and communities. At its best, a symbiotic relationship where the health of the whole takes precedence over the individual. The antidote to neoliberal’s zero-sum game of ‘us’ at the expense of ‘them’.

In February 2023, along with a dozen other IT industry analysts, Zoho flew us to India to give us a first-hand appreciation of Zoho’s culture—the Truly Zoho Tour. We spent a week at their Chennai HQ and then two days in a remote village near Tenkasi, Southern India, to see the local Kalaivani Kalvi Mayan (KKM) School for young children and the surrounding organic farm, with the Western Ghats mountain range providing a majestic backdrop.

I’ll return to this later, but first, let’s examine what it means to be a regenerative business.

Core aspects of a regenerative economy

Most companies are naturally extractive, especially those answerable to the stock market. The most obvious are mining and energy companies, which, by definition, extract resources from the Earth, refine them, and sell them to others who use the materials for their own production needs. But no sector is immune from extractive impacts. Companies choose how profits will be made and what they will do with them. Those answerable to third-party shareholders can choose to invest in innovation, employee education or boost their earnings by playing the market through stock buy-backs to increase share prices. The latter, often the default, starves companies of innovation investment and sometimes victimises employees through tactical redundancies to inflate profits. This is tempting for CEOs whose remuneration heavily depends on their company’s stock price. Another common characteristic of extractive companies is their failure to consider their business’s broader environmental and societal impacts. The Anglo-American economist Kenneth E. Boulding (1910 -1993) put it like this[1]:

‘’Anyone who believes exponential growth can go on forever on a finite planet is either a madman or an economist.’’

Two organisations identify attributes of a regenerative economy

The Wellbeing Economy Alliance (WEALL) and the Capital Institute’s perspectives on regenerative economy characteristics serve as a proxy for evaluating a company’s regenerative capabilities - See Figure 1.

Figure 1: Two Views of Regenerative Economics. Source: author’s interpretation + Napkin AI graphic

Regenerative businesses share many characteristics, as identified by the founders of WEALL and John Fullerton, founder of Capital Institute.

WEALL’s version focuses more explicitly on human and environmental aspects, addressing human dignity, restoring nature, being purposeful socially and ecologically, and being fair and participative. The diagram is self-explanatory, although less explicit than the eight regenerative principles proposed by the Capital Institute.

Capital Institute’s eight principles are more technical and prescriptive and require further explanation.

The ‘right relationship’ idea recognises that we are interconnected with all life; therefore, any damage caused has negative consequences that impact that web of life.

Wealth is also considered holistically, beyond money and materials, and includes the community’s well-being and the environment that contributes to it.

Innovation and adaptability are essential as they foster resilience in an environment of constant and rapid change.

Empowered participation means everyone has a voice and a sense of agency.

Honouring the community means respecting local cultures and ensuring a positive local impact.

Edge effect abundance involves cross-fertilising ideas and practices at the intersections within ecosystems, which can generate positive innovations that benefit the system as a whole.

Robust circulatory flow of information, money, and resources to support value exchange and reuse of materials = the circular economy.

Balance-seeking is about harmonising variables rather than placing one above the others at their expense. It’s about the entire system’s health, not a zero-sum approach.

To quote its founder:

'The fundamental definition of fitness in such an interdependent world is to act in ways that serve the long-term health of the whole.'

Applying regenerative economy characteristics to a regenerative business

Both Capital Institute and WEALL have described the characteristics of a regenerative economy. This wide-angle view includes companies, consumers, the financial system, governments, regulators, etc. Regenerative business is a subset of a regenerative economy. The following diagram has a narrower beam focused on the most relevant aspects that can be applied to regenerative businesses. An ethical purpose for the company beyond profit provides the starting point. This will likely be exhibited through five core attributes, outlined in Figure 2 below.

Employees will be treated with care and respect and feel a deep kinship with their colleagues. They will be focused on a common purpose that brings meaning to their work lives, resulting in high levels of productive engagement. This echoes WEALL’s dignity maxim. It also massively contrasts with Gallup’s annual employee engagement surveys. In the US, engagement levels are low at only 33%, 23% globally, and 70% in best-practice organisations. Regenerative businesses are likely to score even higher levels.
Wherever the regenerative company operates, it will invest in the local community, bringing opportunities and financial benefits and enhancing community well-being.
Environmental regeneration will be vitally important to the company. This may be done directly by improving the environment of local communities or indirectly by customers using its products or services to contribute to environmental and social care.
Regenerative companies reinvest a substantial share of profits in continuous innovation to ensure persistent customer relevance and perpetual resilience. Customers and other beneficiaries prize and value creativity. A culture that embraces creativity strengthens the organisation’s resilience and enhances the customer experience.
Regenerative businesses operate within a wider ecosystem of customers, partners and suppliers. To fulfil its regenerative remit, co-creation partnerships must share the same ethical values. This supports Capital Institute’s eighth point about harmonising variables and balanced outcomes.

These five attributes support the characteristics of a regenerative economy WEALL and the Capital Institute advocate but narrowed down to the domain of regenerative business, a critical component of such an economy.

Having highlighted the most essential criteria, let’s see how Zoho stacks up.

Transnational Localism is Zoho’s driving business philosophy and orientation

It is rare to understand the motivation of a successful entrepreneur. Fortunately, Sridhar Vembu, a devout Hindu, is transparent and naturally humble—a far cry from some puffed-up Silicon Valley CEOs. After living in the US for over twenty years, he now lives in the village of Mathalamparai near Tenkasi, southern India. Vembu runs his global company with over 15,000 workers, serving over a hundred million users in 150 countries. He is connected by Zoho technology, although he travels regularly to Zoho customer and IT analyst conferences and to open new offices in Africa, Asia, Europe, Latin America and the US.

Championing the rural community

Vembu is a deep thinker and champion of rural communities. His observations about the fragility of globalisation and the increasing urbanisation at the expense of local communities are worth considering in any discussion of economic systems change. He challenged the accepted economic dogma driven by efficiency in pursuing profit, where increased urbanisation is viewed as a sign of progress. He highlighted the rural damage done as village after village is stripped of its young adults in pursuit of work in the cities. He likened it to the ‘loss of the topsoil’, leaving villages barren of talent and future generations.

In a tweet in 2023, he wrote:

'The descendants of those self-employed artisans are now landless labour. Their only option is migration. Those who cannot migrate fall into despair. Macroeconomists accept the decline of rural areas as a given and even welcome that as a sign of progress. Think different!'

He has proven that running a global business from a remote village, supported by enthusiastic leaders, is possible. His business philosophy, the beating heart and soul of the company, aims to redress the scourge of urbanisation, bringing opportunities to areas forgotten by economists and businesses.

In 2020, at the height of the pandemic, he put a name to this philosophy that has driven his business almost from the start:

'Transnational Localism’ - this phrase popped into my head as an antidote to the era of globalisation that has just ended. We need strong and self-sufficient local communities and economies everywhere, and community and economy are not separable.'

‘Localism’ involves reviving forgotten communities, respecting their cultural identities, deeply listening to them and using technologies to support them:

'The new twist to the tale, and a very new twist, is easy and cheap broadband. It is possible for the daughter of a rural landless worker to learn how electrical motors or Javascript frameworks work. She doesn't have to do it all on her own - local talent can lead the way.'

Vembu sees thriving communities as essential and must not be separated from economic thinking. As he said:

'There are talented people everywhere, but they should not be concentrated in New York, San Francisco, or Bengaluru.'Instead, use the power of broadband to enable the smart people to find local solutions to problems by learning about what has worked elsewhere.

Transnational Localism may be the antidote to mass migration. It would enable countries with limited opportunities for young adults to keep their ‘rural topsoil’. Since 1970, migrants’ share of the world’s population has grown from 2.3% to 3.6% (Source: International Organisation for Migration).

In a discussion I had with Vijay Sundaram, Zoho’s Chief Strategy Officer, he summed up the company’s ethos:

'Zoho is privately held and publicly responsible.'

Unlike nearly all tech companies, Zoho remains in private family hands and has been profitable every year. It is not answerable to external shareholders or fixated on quarterly results to reassure the market; Zoho’s destiny is in its own hands. This allows it to experiment, make long-term investments, and explore diverse opportunities.

The virtue of thrift permeates the company, which spends a fraction on marketing compared with other companies offering software-as-a-service (SaaS). A more significant proportion of investment goes into continuous R&D, and the company adds new products to its portfolio to make it easier for customers to run their businesses at lower costs. For most of its existence, the company has focused on small and growing businesses, and its broad and integrated portfolio of fifty-plus business applications allows companies to run their businesses cost-effectively entirely on the Zoho One Platform if they so wish. Increasingly, larger companies are turning to Zoho from more expensive and poorly integrated applications from other systems providers.

Employee care and kinship at Zoho

The COVID-19 pandemic exposed the fragility of global supply chains at the time. Lockdowns threatened the viability of countless businesses, forcing governments in more affluent countries to spend billions on bailouts. Even so, many companies laid off employees, and worker insecurity was rampant.

Before the virus’s impacts were known, Vembu courageously promised employees that there would be no layoffs and that they should stay home on full pay. Zoho has not had any mass layoffs in its twenty-eight years. What a contrast with many other technology companies and corporations in different industries.

In Marjorie Kelly’s book _Wealth Supremacy: How the Extractive Economy and the Biased Rules of Capitalism Drive Today's Crises [2] she made the following observation about one of the leading high-growth tech companies headquartered in San Francisco after laying off over a thousand employees:

'We’re reallocating resources to position the company for continued growth,” a spokesperson said silkily. The company was “eliminating some positions that no longer map to our business priorities.” Nothing in there about how the company was already substantially profitable.'

What a contrast. It is a classic case of treating people as disposable resources.

Employee development fosters kinship

On my visit to Zoho’s HQ in Chennai in February 2023, I was struck by the general atmosphere of joy and friendship of everyone in the campus canteen. It was a total contrast to what I experienced working in large tech companies like IBM or visiting campus canteens in HP or Microsoft. People seemed genuinely happy and curious about this strange group of analysts using their facilities. I also spotted a group of employees clustering around Vembu as he walked through the canteen. No sense of hierarchy held people back from animated chats with him. It felt like a family affair, with people glad to see and speak with him. Employees feel part of a massive family pulling together to pursue a common purpose they believe in. From the youngest to the oldest employee, everyone has a voice, and Vembu and other members of the leadership team value each individual as part of the extended Zoho family. This stems in part from why each employee is recruited. Recruitment is not based on qualifications but on temperament and a willingness for personal growth, aided by Zoho’s employee education.

Zoho develops its talent through Zoho Schools of Learning.

Zoho has six types of schools based in Chennai:

Zoho School of Technology — to develop software engineers. A similar school also exists in rural Tenkasi ( to attract rural students).

Zoho School of Design—for aesthetic design of products or communications, including video production and pure art.

Zoho School of Business—which teaches all aspects of business management in a modern context.

Zoho School for Advanced Study—where students can specialise in two of three subjects: technology, business or design. Many of the company’s software architects are graduates of this school.

Zoho School for Graduate Studies - a boot camp to prepare students for further education at one of the other schools.

MARUPADI (மறுபடி a Tamil word meaning ‘again’) is a school for women who have taken a career break, perhaps because of having children and now want to return to work.

Further rural education initiatives exist. Typically, the schools involve a year of study followed by work experience at Zoho. Students do not pay fees; they receive a stipend of Rs 10,000/month. This approach enables Zoho to seed and nurture its talent rather than compete in the open market. Eventually, Zoho aims to replicate this approach in other regions.

Zoho is not simply concerned with developing a talent supply for its own ends. In Kalaivani, Tenkasi, young children also benefit from Zoho schooling. Zoho, as a business, has little to gain from this initiative. It is an eloquent expression of the firm’s social conscience, and Vembu is rightly proud of this work in rural Tenkasi. The head of the school, Akshaya Sivaraman, explained the three principles governing their approach to teaching:

Build self-confidence

Help each child find their purpose

Teach them the self-discipline to achieve it.

This holistic approach to education, focused on development of the individual, exemplifies Zoho’s educational ethos found in all Zoho schools. So, it is little wonder that employees who enter Zoho after their schooling feel a strong emotional attachment to the company. As do the local communities.

Zoho stands by its employees

A fellow It industry analyst on the same India tour, Thomas Wieberneit, wrote an article highlighting a moving example of how Zoho stands by its employees when they suffer misfortune. Four years before the Truly Zoho tour, one of the firm’s highly talented artists was involved in a horrific car accident. He was told that he might need years to recuperate and might never be able to continue his artistic calling. Zoho paid for his medical expenses and continued to pay him throughout his recovery. He was honoured by using his handprint in the tour’s logo.

It is a remarkable testament to how employees at Zoho are genuinely valued and feel part of the Zoho family.

Community investment is a vital facet of Zoho’s Transnational Localism

In my YouTube discussion with Sundaram, he stressed the importance of investing in local communities, collaborating with local farms for food and hiring and developing local talent to create opportunities in these underserved areas. This goes beyond Zoho’s self-interest.

A view from the roof of the Chennai HQ shows a 250-300-bed hospital under construction. I took this photo during the Truly Zoho Tour in February 2023. The hospital will open in 2025 and serve as a central hub, connecting rural communities via Zoho’s communications and collaboration applications to provide telemedicine capabilities. Dr Balachander Govindarajan, Medical Director, Zoho, is leading the project. He is a renowned cardiologist who spent his earlier years in practice in the US. The healthcare approach will be broad, including allopathic (modern medicine) and naturopathic holistic approaches, including yoga practices to treat the underlying causes of health issues without pharmaceuticals. The idea is to bring affordable, high-quality healthcare to patients and bridge the divide between rural and urban communities. Rural paramedics will be trained on mobile devices linked via Zoho technologies to the hospital for rapid diagnoses and outpatient care for continued recovery at home.

Investing in hi-tech manufacturing for the future supporting healthcare, sustainability and job creation

Vembu wants India to become a manufacturing powerhouse for emerging technologies. Zoho has invested in several manufacturing companies.

In 2021, Zoho took a 25% stake in the medical device manufacturing startup Voxelgrids. Voxelgrids was founded by Arjun Arunachalam in 2017. He is a former lead scientist at GE Corporation in the US. With help from Zoho, this small company of 33 employees manufactures lightweight MRI scanners that are more affordable than ones imported from the US or Europe. With this support, the company aims to sell its scanners worldwide.

Electric agricultural utility vehicle manufacturer Boson Motors.

- Yali Aerospace is run by Dinesh Baluraj and Anugraha, a husband-and-wife team that aims to revolutionise healthcare and disaster management through rapid-response drone networks.

- Genrobotics was founded in 2017 and has manufactured the world’s first scavenger robot to clean sewer pipes safely. Around four million people across India risk their health and lives by manually cleaning sewage systems. The firm has also manufactured a robotic gait trainer using AI and VR to help patients recover their walking ability following injury.

- Karuvi, a ‘smart’ power tool maker that provides intelligent feedback to help users improve their use of the tools.

- Ultraviolet Automotive, a partnership with TVS Motor Company, an Indian motorbike manufacturer, to produce high-performance electric motorcycles.

- Zentron Labs, automated AI visual inspection for automated quality control in agriculture, hi-tech manufacturing and metal forming.

Zoho takes environmental sustainability seriously in keeping with its regenerative ethos

Zoho recognises that growth brings increased pressures on environmental impact. To minimise its carbon footprint, it uses a combination of strategies.

Aiming for zero waste

Rather than seeing waste as the last stop on a linear chain of events, Zoho takes a more holistic perspective on waste management. While zero waste may be unrealistic in the short term, Zoho calculates that its combination of waste management strategies could reduce greenhouse gas emissions by around 84%. To support this aim, the company has made several significant investments:

It has installed a Biogas plant to generate electricity. This also reduces food waste in landfills and the resulting methane emissions.

At its headquarters in Chennai, it installed a sewage treatment plant, where wastewater is treated and used for flushing, gardening, and cooling tanks.

Zoho IoT technologies are used for environmental monitoring of emissions, air and water quality and noise levels.

It has instituted sustainable procurement policies ensuring that e-waste is recycled wherever possible, paper use is minimised through digital means, and materials sourcing favours suppliers with positive environmental practices.

One of its most significant moves towards this 84% GHG target is what Zoho calls its Green Cloud development. According to Berlin-based climate emissions research company Climatic, the carbon footprint of data centres accounts for 2.5% to 3.7% of global CO2 emissions, now greater than the aviation (2.4%) and shipping (2.3%) industries.

Zoho has moved to solar-powered operations in its data centres in India to mitigate these impacts. The company expects to reduce emissions by around 72,000 tons annually. Its data centres are designed to be energy efficient, combining advanced technologies with renewable energy.

Creative, Resilient and Adaptive Depends on the Culture as Zoho Exemplifies

Zoho’s Transnational Localism philosophy and continuous investment in employee development and local communities provide a firm foundation for resilience and adaptability. Rather than shoehorning employees worldwide from different cultures into an identikit behavioural pattern, its transnational localism philosophy positively embraces differences and diversity. While its values are a constant, how they are expressed is down to the locality. What this means practically is twofold. Zoho eschews the command-and-control approach to business, common among many large corporations. The leadership trusts and gives responsibility to its regional leaders to decide on local priorities. These regional leaders, in turn, expect and encourage employees to identify local needs and develop creative initiatives to meet local demands. This provides an effective sensing mechanism that makes Zoho inherently adaptive and relevant locally and regionally. Let’s look at several examples in Latin America, Africa and the Middle East, which represent huge diversity in cultures and economic circumstances.

The ‘LATAM’ team faithfully reflects Zoho’s ethical orientation and the five attributes

Carla Garcia, Zoho’s Business Development Director in the LATAM region, explained how she and her colleagues interpret Zoho’s values in light of the region’s specific challenges.

Hiring and skills development

'LATAM’s hiring strategy aligns with our global approach, prioritising candidates’ passion over degrees. Despite considerable progress, education remains a challenge in the region. Although there has been an increase in primary and secondary education enrolment, many Latin American countries still face high dropout rates in higher education. In Mexico, where our operations are based, there are over 33.5 million active students across all grade levels, marking an increase since 2021. Remarkably, Mexico now produces more engineers than the US. However, a significant challenge persists in matching graduates to suitable jobs.'

Garcia explained that 80% of the 133 employees are in their twenties or early thirties. While nearly all had access to higher education, only 15% held technology-related degrees. The rest bring expertise from diverse fields such as teaching, nursing, culinary arts, accounting, etc. Now one of Zoho’s fastest-growing regions, the LATAM team has developed partnerships to boost interest and technology skills.

Education through partnerships with universities and government entities

(This exemplifies the fourth and fifth attributes outlined in Figure 2.)

'We have established partnerships with local universities and government entities, sharing the common goal of promoting technology education among students and chamber members. Our "Young Creators Program" aims to empower future business leaders by teaching them to build enterprise-grade applications using low-code platforms. This initiative has been instrumental in up-skilling students and addressing real-world business challenges.'

Students have free access to the Zoho Creator no-code platform and can enter the Creator Appathon to showcase their skills.

Non-profit support for vulnerable communities and social causes

Garcia explained that they had committed to supporting vulnerable communities and social causes throughout her ten years at Zoho. Their approach involves understanding the specific needs of communities and providing assistance, often through Zoho technology but also pro bono hours engaging with the communities and other supporting organisations. She gave me a snapshot of their activities:

Support for women who suffered from domestic abuse. Her team provides an anonymous helpline using Zoho technology, enabling women to discuss their problems with third-party counsellors and reintegrate socially.
Natural disaster relief following the devastating Category 5 Hurricane Otis in Acapulco in October 2023.
Voluntary service at local orphanages and living communities for the elderly.

Shortly after meeting Garcia in McAllen earlier this year, she returned to Mexico with Vembu to open a new office in Queretaro. Typical of Zoho, the company builds regional offices outside the main cities, bringing new opportunities to towns with talent potential but few opportunities. This follows Zoho’s usual pattern, where it sets up an office in a second-tier city or large town rather than in the big cities. As the business grows, smaller satellite offices are added, creating a hub-and-spoke connecting outlying satellite offices in more rural areas with the regional head office. Countering relentless urbanisation, Vembu envisages that:

'In five years, 50 percent of our employees will work from smaller, rural centres. We want to keep people rooted in their towns and villages and provide world-class jobs in these places.'

Zoho already supplies the required collaboration technology, and under the transnational localism philosophy, Vembu and his regional colleagues have already proven its efficacy.

Transnational Localism guides Zoho’s expansion across the Middle East and Africa

Under the guidance of Hyther Nizam, a 26-year veteran and President of Zoho MEA, Zoho is growing rapidly. The region is incredibly diverse, both in culture and economically. It consists of wealthy Middle Eastern countries and poorer African countries.

Nizam, a product development engineer by aspiration and training, was asked in 2018 by Vembu to take on the challenge of growing the business in the MEA region and running it according to Zoho’s values. Nizam explained that Zoho’s culture is to jump in and get on with it. That Vembu chose him rather than hiring from outside the company speaks volumes for the level of trust in employees trained by Zoho and steeped in its values.

Nizam agreed to take on this daunting challenge and approached it by establishing one office at a time, consistently hiring locals, typically from Zoho partners already familiar with Zoho products and values. Zoho now has offices in North Africa - Kenya, Nigeria, and South Africa; and the Middle East - Egypt, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. These offices act as hubs for each country. His family remains in Chennai, and Nizam is still involved in his passion for product development.

Community support for skills development.

Nizam explained that the type of community support required from Zoho differs by country. Nizam explained that the type of community support required from Zoho differs by country. Zoho supports Hope For Literacy in Kenyan schools, which aims to eradicate child poverty, empower communities, and improve the environment. Zoho partners with MOMO Pencils, which makes pencils out of recycled newspaper and runs the programme. It also provides tree planting and climate and sustainability education. Zoho has several partnerships to support upskilling in South Africa: BabesGotBytes, the CodeTelligence Academy and SheCode Africa.

BabesGotBytes provides a one-year boot camp for 40 girls and women. The camp aims to improve their digital literacy and help them find work. In addition to technical skills, it will nurture creativity, critical thinking, and problem-solving.

CodeTelligence Academy is a non-profit organisation that aims to provide high-quality coding and technology education for individuals of any background. It will be a six-month boot camp for 36 students, and upon completion, it will provide coaching to help students become fit for employment.

SheCode Africais on a mission to bridge the gender gap in technology across Africa by educating women from 18 to 45 and helping them find opportunities in tech. This provides them access to Zoho technologies, such as Zoho Creator, for application development and expert mentoring support.

Helping Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates digital transformation efforts

In 2023, as part of Saudi Arabia’s Leap 23 event, Zoho partnered with the Ministry of Communications and Information Technology (MCIT) to accelerate the country’s digital transformation and modernisation drive - Vision 2030. Zoho agreed to invest $30 million in credit and digital training value each year to help Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) adopt digital technologies. The Saudi government is encouraging businesses to become more digital. However, most still run their businesses using manual accounting methods or spreadsheets. Zoho has partnered with the ministry to offer its highly regarded platform, Zoho One, to companies on a free trial basis for up to five users per company.

According to the Khaleej Times, on 15 October 2024, Zoho announced that it had invested Dh46 million in strategic local government and private partnerships in the UAE as part of the country’s modernisation drive.

Zoho takes the long-term view in its pricing strategy to help customers

Zoho took the unusual step of charging for its products in local currencies. Many are vulnerable to devaluation against the US dollar. At one stage the Egyptian pound fell 100% against the US dollar, and the Nigerian Naira, Kenyan Shilling, and South African Rand have all experienced steep falls.

Localism ensures that products and pricing suit the local regions. In Africa, most tech companies charge in US dollars, which places a considerable inflationary burden on businesses if their local currency is threatened by devaluation. In countries with established Zoho offices (Egypt, Kenya, Nigeria and South Africa), Zoho charges in the local currency, reducing its margin in the short term but creating customer advocates that attract others. By taking the hit, Zoho protects its customers from currency volatility. As always, Zoho focuses on the long-term and, as a result, enjoys enviable renewal rates and a high degree of customer loyalty.

Why Transnational Localism works

Zoho’s approach is organic. First, it sends someone from India steeped in Zoho’s culture and values. Then, it hires locals within the country with local knowledge and understanding of the culture and what is needed to foster strong links and support the local communities. This marriage of core values and insight into local community needs is Transnational Localism in action. To quote Nizam:

'Sridhar stands for something, and if he stood for election, he would win. But, he is not interested in politics. He loves touching communities.'

Many communities will be thankful that Vembu sticks to his regenerative business calling.

Transnational Localism is Zoho’s expression of purposeful collaboration through shared values

The five attributes in Figure 2 demonstrably support Zoho’s ethical orientation.

Undoubtedly, Zoho is driven by an ethical purpose. For Vembu and his colleagues, it is less of a job and more of a sacred calling.
-Employees are seen not as items on an accountant’s spreadsheet but as whole people with lives to live and individual callings to fulfil. Zoho schools nurture them, and the trust placed in them gives them the freedom to develop toward their calling. This generates a powerful bond of kinship within the company and local communities. Vembu expects that within five years, half of employees will work from smaller, rural centres. As he said:

'We want to keep people rooted in their towns and villages and provide world-class jobs in these places.'

The company folds local cultures into its own, enriching both symbiotically. It invests significant resources in delivering on its transnational localism business philosophy, keeping its ears close to the ground of local communities and putting down roots within them.
It recognises that nature and the environment are essential players within its broad ecosystem. It demonstrates its nurturing instincts through thoughtful energy, waste management investments, and organic farming, providing nourishing food for employees and students.-
Creativity is prized, and an abundance of ideas and solutions to meet constantly evolving needs enables the company to maintain and increase its relevance to customers - a key reason it has been profitable every year and growing rapidly.-
It has mastered the art of collaborative partnerships with communities and organisations that respect and share its values.

Unique among technology companies Zoho is regenerative in spirit, by design and in practice

Transnational localism started as an experiment inspired by Vembu’s Hindu faith and the enthusiastic support of the Zoho family at work. It has been validated worldwide by over 50,000 customers and more than 100 million users, as well as by local communities and partnerships in diverse regions on all habitable continents.

Governed by its core values, the company exemplifies the five supporting attributes of a genuinely regenerative business outlined in Figure 2.

As Sridhar Vembu said:

‘We don’t want just to keep taking. We want to put back into the ecosystem’.

A powerful and regenerative philosophy for our times.

Footnotes

[1]: Quoted in: A Finer Future - Creating An Economy In Service To Life - L. Hunter Lovins, Stewart Wallis, Anders Wijkman, John Fullerton

[2]: Kelly, Marjorie. Wealth Supremacy: How the Extractive Economy and the Biased Rules of Capitalism Drive Today's Crises (p. 90). Berrett-Koehler Publishers. Kindle Edition.