Zoho Corp., an Indian software development company that focuses on Web-based business tools and information-technology (IT) solutions, has recently unveiled the Commerce platform to enable online stores belonging to the small and medium enterprises (SMEs) respond more dynamically to local conditions of their target markets and be more competitive.
Zoho Corp. Vice President and General Manager for the Asia-Pacific region Gibu Mathew, said the Commerce platform was developed to integrate 40 products tailored for e-commerce, which belong to the vertical group. “It is e-commerce but commerce because it combines digital and the brick-and-mortar characteristics of business.”
The Commerce platform, he said, enables SMEs to customize their e-commerce platform to the conditions of their target market.
The Commerce platform can perform sales and marketing, finance, e-mail and collaboration, IT help desk, human resources and customs solutions, enabling owners to perform all tasks by themselves.
“By providing a default in your program, we are providing automatically a system that will respond to the needs of the market. You can actually personalize it [in a way] that will enable you to provide the real customer experience to satisfy the
buyers,” Mathew said.
He said the Commerce platform also helps entrepreneurs reconcile bank statements so they can have an easier time in their financial transactions. “We also have an expensing solution that will monitor expenses of the company,” he said.
“Since this is an online platform, you can easily find them with an e-mail ID. You could all put up the setup immediately, and put up the details of the product at once,”
Mathew explained. Matthew said companies would have to shell out $20 per month for the use of the software. Interested companies can avail themselves of the software through the company’s web site.
“That is the actual vision of the company for this product. Throughout this year, we will release new capabilities [for a] full blown commerce solution,” he added.
Meanwhile, ManageEngine, the IT management division of Zoho Corp., recently launched the cloud version of ServiceDesk Plus, its flagship IT service management solution, which now includes Zia, Zoho’s AI assistant as a virtual IT support agent. As far as the Philippines is concerned, Mathew said, the response so far of the market was good, registering triple digit growth. “We also get a warm reception from the business-process outsourcing [BPO] industry,” he pointed out.
Mathew said clients from the BPO industry use the Zoho desk and the Zoho creator application for workflow processes. The tools will enable BPOs to develop a specific workflow for a specific need.
“Let’s take for example, you want to develop a shift schedule for people. You want to create an app for workers to manage their work schedule. As a result, we have developed a mobile application that workers can easily download on their mobile devices,” Mathew said.
Chennai, India- based Zoho Corp. was founded in 1996.
