Zoho to expand rural presence as India emerges its 3rd largest market

Zoho Corporation will expand its rural presence by opening hub offices in Coimbatore, Madurai, Tirunelveli, and Tiruchirapalli in Tamil Nadu and is scouting for a location in Uttar Pradesh to expand its footprints in India, which has emerged as the global SaaS company’s third largest market next only to the US and EU.

At a press conference in the Tenkasi hub office, Zoho Corporation CEO Sridhar Vembu announced the company will not resort to lay-off as it has diversified in terms of product portfolio, geographic coverage of revenue and regions. Vembu, who works out of a tiny office in Tenkasi district, said the company will now focus on expanding its rural presence by launching more offices under the Hub and Spokes model.

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The hub will come up at a tier-II or tier-III city which can accommodate over 1,000 people with three or more spokes under it in interior villages with each employing 100 persons. “We will launch our new hub offices near the cities of Madurai, Tiruchirapalli, Coimbatore, and Tirunelveli very soon. We also plan to have one more in Thanjavur, which is my dream,” Vembu said.

Zoho launched its Tenkasi office in 2011 but the hub and spokes model accelerated during the Covid-19 pandemic as many wanted to get back to their roots.

The Zoho CEO said the hub and spokes model has created a revolution of sorts with the company with several employees, including those who have spent a few decades with the firm, opting to move to rural offices. “A lot of people from Chennai want to move to these rural offices. We even get requests from senior managers to shift them to hub and spoke offices,” he added.

Vembu said the company is planning to open a hub in eastern or central Uttar Pradesh to tap into the rural talent. “I will not go to Noida or choose western Uttar Pradesh. I will go to eastern/central UP because this is the demographically rich region in the country. More children are born there, and we feel we should be there to invest in them,” Vembu said.

On the SaaS industry, Vembu said India is now the third largest market for Zoho next only to US and EU. “India is now the hottest market in the world. If one takes our revenue from the US, it is just 38 per cent when compared to 65 per cent for SalesForce. India is the third largest market for Zoho after US and EU. We have been focusing on a lot of developing countries and we have clients in the Middle East, Mexico, and Latin America,” he said. However, the CEO refused to divulge the India sales figure.