Zoho announces Dhs100m investment for UAE expansion

Zoho, a technology company, has announced an investment of Dhs100m for expansion in the UAE.

On the sidelines of Zoholics Dubai, the annual user conference of the company, Zoho’s CEO and co-founder, Sridhar Vembu, also announced that in the five years since starting its operations in the UAE, which serves as its Middle East and Africa headquarters, the company has grown 10 times in the country, with a 5-year CAGR of 60 per cent.

In 2022, Zoho grew by 45 per cent in the UAE, the second-highest growing country globally. It has also doubled its employee base in the country as well as across the MEA region in the past year. Meanwhile, the partner network in the country grew by 50 per cent in 2022.

“As part of our transnational localism strategy, when we expand into a region, we want to give back to the local community and be rooted in the local culture as we grow,” said Vembu. “Over the past five years, we have invested in local hiring, growing our partner network, adding Arabic support in our products, and integrating with local payment gateways to adapt our solutions for the local market. We will continue to invest in growing our footprints in the country through hirings, upskilling programmes, localisation of products, integrating our solutions with local vendors, and partnering with organisations to help local businesses in their digitalisation efforts.”

Zoho has partnered with various organisations, such as the Department of Economy and Tourism (DET) and Dubai Culture, to make enterprise technology available to businesses. It has also partnered with educational institutes like the Manipal Academy of Higher Education (MAHE) and Emirates Academy of Hospitality Management (EAHM) to offer upskilling courses. Since 2020, Zoho has helped over 3500 SMEs gain access to its cloud technology through various partnerships, investing Dhs20m in wallet credits. It also invested Dhs4.5m in upskilling initiatives for imparting digital literacy to over 200 students and more than 300 companies.

We have renowned media publishing houses for our press meet today to interact with our CEO and Co-Founder, @svembu #DoMoreWithZoho pic.twitter.com/HDRTAmrtzR

— Zoho Middle East & North Africa (@ZohoMENA) February 14, 2023

“Because of the global economic conditions, more and more companies are moving towards digitalisation and choosing unified platforms that help them break data silos and bring forth contextual real-time insights that enable them to make quick decisions and be nimble to adapt to changing market conditions. We offer a unified platform for all business needs, from customer experience and marketing to finance and enterprise collaboration, with our apps being customisable, integrable and extendible. This makes Zoho an ideal choice for businesses of all sizes,” added Vembu.

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