Zoho launched Vikra, a seller app on the Open Network for Digital Commerce (ONDC) network, and Zoho IoT, a user-friendly and scalable low-code platform enabling businesses to build and deploy custom IoT (Internet of Things) solutions. The company also said that it saw a customer growth of 31% in 2023 in India. The announcements were made on the sidelines of Zoholics India, the company’s annual user conference.
“We remain steadfast in our product R&D efforts, with a focus on effectively enhancing our platform through innovating and launching new products like Vikra and Zoho IoT while also integrating AI capabilities across the tech stack. We have steadily advanced our contextual intelligence vision, applying AI technology to enhance customer experience and offer deeper insights. This commitment to continuous improvement is helping us become a preferred partner for large enterprises and government institutions across India. As businesses increasingly seek value from their software solutions and larger organisations aim to reduce bloat, we’re seeing significant growth in India, which has now become our second-largest market,” said Sridhar Vembu, CEO and Co-founder, Zoho Corp.
Vikra: A seller application on the ONDC network
E-commerce has immense potential to empower MSMEs in the country, yet, they make for just 7% of the overall retail market. This significant gap is mainly due to smaller businesses struggling with complexities in the use of technology, and facing various challenges in operating on marketplace platforms, including heavy commission fees. To address this, Zoho has launched Vikra, a seller app on the ONDC network that enables frictionless commerce across India.
Vikra is designed to function as the crucial bridge connecting businesses to the vast expanse of India’s market through the ONDC network. This initiative not only aligns with Zoho’s tradition of empowering businesses but also enhances their reach, making market accessibility frictionless. Businesses using the app can get onboarded to the ONDC network easily, set up stores, create product catalogues, and start selling quickly through popular buyer apps like Paytm, Ola, and Snapdeal. They can also receive instant order notifications on WhatsApp and SMS for speedy fulfillment. They have options to self-deliver or deliver via partners like Delhivery on the ONDC network locally and nationally.
Vikra also offers personalised support for onboarding, cataloging, managing operations, reconciling payment settlements from the ONDC network, and resolving customer disputes.
Built on Zoho’s finance and operations platform, Vikra enables seamless interoperability with other applications such as Zoho Books, Zoho Inventory, and Zoho Commerce. This allows businesses to manage their finances, handle taxes, streamline their inventory operations, and build an e-commerce store. Vikra is an end-to-end solution for businesses of any size, simplifying their e-commerce journey, and helping them become more visible in the market with significantly less investment and effort.
T Koshy, MD & CEO of ONDC, said, “Vikra represents the kind of innovation that supports ONDC’s mission to make e-commerce accessible to all. By integrating such advanced solutions from Zoho, we are not just simplifying technology for businesses, we are also opening doors to a vast, inclusive digital economy. This is a step forward in democratizing e-commerce in India, where even the smallest businesses can now thrive in the digital marketplace harnessing the power of Technology.”
Zoho IoT: A customisable low-code IoT platform with pre-built vertical solutions
Zoho IoT seamlessly collects and manages IoT device data in real-time, offering businesses insights and streamlined operational analysis. Its intuitive features empower organisations to automate processes and make data-driven decisions effortlessly, without the need for extensive technical expertise. The platform’s AI capabilities transform data into actionable insights, predict system outages, identify anomalies or forecast trends, optimize operations, and enhance customer experiences.
Zoho IoT integrates with Zoho’s existing suite of applications, providing enhanced visibility and control. Its compatibility with third-party hardware allows for quick integration into existing infrastructures, enabling businesses to scale rapidly as they grow. The platform is built with robust security measures, ensuring data privacy and compliance with global standards.
Zoho IoT offers pre-built solutions for different industries, such as Industrial IoT (users can track and manage shop floor productivity and machine uptime while reducing maintenance and repairs of high capital assets), Smart Buildings (provides users a unified system to manage and monitor assets, tenants, energy, and facilities), Energy Management (users can control energy usage by monitoring consumption patterns and enabling efficiency measures).
The platform also offers end-to-end capabilities and integrations with offerings like Point Solutions (for remote management and control, enabling operational visibility and allowing businesses to solve specific challenges such as gas monitoring, water leakage monitoring, and indoor air quality management) and Connected OEMs (businesses can boost efficiency, enable real-time data insights and remote monitoring with smart products and connected OEMs, providing it as a value-added service).
Zoho’s growth in India
Zoho’s growth has been led by demand for unified, scalable, and flexible technology solutions that are easy to implement. The top products driving revenue growth in India are Zoho One, Zoho CRM, Zoho Books, and Zoho People. In terms of customer growth, Zoho Books and Zoho Workplace are the fastest-growing products. The sectors leading the growth are IT hardware and related services, financial services, manufacturing, retail, and non-IT professional services.
Furthermore, Zoho is enhancing its AI capabilities by building and deploying multiple language models—narrow, small, medium, and large—for specific use cases within various products. Zoho’s approach towards AI is to help enterprises gather actionable insights to make decisions by adding the critical element—business context. The company also has a strong privacy focus, ensuring that the AI models are not trained on consumer data.