| | | Building a better future | Welcome to 2021 — a fresh start! We've seen how 2020 thrust businesses into a new mode of survival, with the cloud adding layers of resilience to cushion the disruptions of how suddenly companies had to shift their work model to become more agile and scalable. | | | | | | | | | | Sridhar Vembu awarded "Best CEO" | | | | | | Zoho Workplace mobile app, 3 Zoho-to-Zoho integrations, and more | | | | | Industry highlights and awards | | | | | | | Zoho's 2020 year in review | | Our 2020 in review was also about us giving extra attention to privacy matters, as we established a firm stance against adjunct surveillance when we removed all third-party trackers from our site. | | | | | Since the approach to how work is done has been changed forever, we can expect more emphasis on how more companies will now need to derive greater actionable insights from untapped operational data. | We've also made sure that, despite sudden, forced digital transformation, smaller businesses were not left out. We introduced our simplified pipeline management tool, Zoho Bigin, with its SMB-friendly feature set that's also affordably priced. As for Zoho CRM, we remained steadfast in how we assist our customers in securing sales during lockdown. In fact, 937k+ contacts were added per day, a jump from 2019. Find out more here. | And here are some more updates on: Zoho Forms, Zoho Meeting, Zoho People, and Zoho Recruit. | | | Constellation Research recognizes our CEO | | Sridhar Vembu, Zoho's CEO and cofounder, was recognized by research firm Constellation Research as "Best CEO" in their 2020 Enterprise Awards. Constellation Research attributes his win to his steadfast commitment to people over profit, his belief that excellence lives everywhere, and his emphasis on the importance of privacy. Here's an excerpt: | | | | | Although Sridhar won the award, he views it as a win for Zoho. He's also denounced the notion that he got here alone: it's taken the effort of many people over many years to get to this point. With more than 500 employees who have been with the company for over a decade, his commitment to culture is evident in the way he leads. | | | | We've launched an integrated Workplace mobile app for both Android and iOS, with a convenient launcher to open and work on any of the products in the bundle. Advanced search capabilities—with multi-level filters—makes searching across the Workplace suite easy, quick, and precise. Download on Android or iOS now. | | Keep employees updated on their expense approvals by integrating Zoho Expense with Zoho Cliq, our business messenger app. The Zoho Expense Bot sends automatic approval notifications and also lets employees perform expense reporting tasks right from their chat window. | | Zoho Sprints can now be integrated with Zoho Meeting! Organize and conduct live meetings from anywhere, record them for future reference, and get a copy of the chat transcript at the end of every session. | | | Integrate Zoho Bookings with Zoho Assist to help your customers schedule remote support and screen sharing sessions. | | Zoho Sign has received a host of updates recently, including an integration with Microsoft Outlook, the addition of text field input validation, and the much-awaited stamp field for signers. | | Automate Zoho Inventory tasks using the new Zapier integration. Now you can connect your favorite apps with Zoho Inventory, even if you don't know how to code. Automate workflows, keep growing, and stay productive with this new integration! | | With cyber threats on the rise, it's a good time to focus on your organization's security policies. Over 80% of breaches happen because of stolen or brute-forced credentials—and a password manager like Zoho Vault helps eliminate these threats by improving password hygiene across your organization. Watch an overview of Zoho Vault here. | | | | | | | | Zoho privacy study on third-party ad trackers, and why adjunct surveillance needs to end | We "commissioned a privacy study last year, which revealed that 62% of 1,400 surveyed businesses aren’t telling customers about third-party ad trackers. And only 55% of 1,220 business leaders polled believe their company has a well-defined, documented policy on customer data privacy that is strictly applied. But why is it important to not let ad companies track your users without knowledge? We must end the era of adjunct surveillance. | | Remote work and hiring trends to watch in 2021 | We know hybrid work is here to stay, with employees' increasingly demanding more flexibility between working from home and the office. We can also expect to see more reliance on cloud-based HR tech to support staff engagement, even in remote hiring. So, why are traditional hiring models fading out, and what goes into the evaluative process when interviewing job candidates? Here are 5 trends to watch for in HR this year. | | | | Partnerships and acknowledgments | | | | | Over to you... | When we first released Zoho One in 2017, we coined the phrase "the operating system for business." And today we still believe that no one else has matched our commitment—or our portfolio. Is there anything in the Zoho ecosystem that you think needs to happen this year? Don't hesitate to give us your feedback! | Have a wonderful 2021 everyone, and thanks for being with us! | Until next time, Nicholas Koh | | | | | | |