Please introduce yourself to our readers
My name is Ali Shabdar and I’m the regional director for the MEA region at Zoho Corp. I have been in tech and business for the past 25 years, published a number of books, and helped various SMEs and large public and private organisations connect the dots between people, processes, and technology better.
Can you give us a brief about Zoho and what value it adds?
Zoho is a leading technology company building cloud-based business management solutions that help businesses automate and manage every aspect of their operations in the cloud. In the past 25 years, we have built more than 55 apps—from communication, productivity, and collaboration to HR, marketing, finance, IT, e-commerce, and CRM—from the ground up on the same technology stack. Zoho’s competitive advantage lies in its advanced capabilities and numerous solutions that are both affordable and scalable, which enable startups and businesses of all sizes to automate processes, and leverage technology to catapult their growth. As they are built on the same tech stack, they also integrate seamlessly with each other, helping businesses avoid the problem of data silos.
The most important aspect when using a 3rd party app is privacy, how does Zoho manage that?
Zoho is committed to maintaining unwavering ethical and honest practices with respect to privacy. We pride ourselves on being one of the few tech companies worldwide to operate with a privacy-forward approach, maintaining an ad-free revenue model in order to protect users’ privacy and ensure data remains in the hands of the owners alone. We have also removed all third-party trackers from our websites, ensuring that other vendors are not able to gain access to our user data through the practice of adjunct surveillance. Our users’ data is stored in best-in-class data centers completely owned and operated by Zoho across the US, Europe, India, Japan, China, and Australia, all of which are GDPR-compliant. We don’t host users’ data on third-party providers.
What are the types of cybersecurity issues that the Zoho Suite can help in combating?
Perhaps the biggest technological issue seen during the pandemic was cyber attacks such as malware, phishing, and ransomware due to companies being forced to work online, and employees accordingly operating outside the secured perimeters of the office. While Zoho’s cloud-based apps enabled businesses to adopt remote, we were cognizant of security risks. Therefore, we offered stringent secondary authentication protocols for our users to enable, such as push notification, TOTP (Time-based One Time Password), QR code scanning, face recognition access, and fingerprint ID. The SSO (Single Sign On) facility offered in Zoho One along with end-to-end encryption and compliance with a host of enterprise-grade security standards adds to the peace of mind of companies running their businesses on Zoho.
SMEs consider their data to not be of much value or importance. What message do you have for them?
This is a widely viewed perception by both small businesses and even individuals. The smallest piece of data alone cannot be construed in any way, but data gets aggregated over time and adds up to generate meaningful and valuable insights about organizations and people. This could be worth millions. A company’s vendors, spending patterns, received payments, sales pipeline, infrastructure, and systems in place, and even office/store location is important for data aggregation. Similarly for individuals, the latest grocery purchase, health insurance activity, a visit to a doctor, or a recent search for flight tickets, collectively make up an accurate profile about who you are as a person, and what you are interested in and accordingly tailor product recommendations, services, ideas and push certain ads that you are highly likely to engage in. Not only business or personal data is important for the well-being and prosperity of its owner, but also unsolicited exposure can pose a multitude of risks, including financial and legal.
Considering the big emphasis that is being put by Zoho on security, do you think that privacy is one of the most important pillars of any organization?
Indeed. With data privacy laws coming into force in different MENA countries, more businesses will need to rethink their privacy practices. Businesses will have to shift towards a privacy-forward model, where they put users’ data privacy rights at the core, and accordingly re-evaluate the third-party agencies they commission or trust to collect and use personal data for marketing and advertising purposes.
What have been the effects of the ad-free work model that Zoho is following?
Zoho’s business since its inception has been based on an ad-free revenue model. With this guiding principle, we stay focused on healthy revenue streams and avoid any ulterior use of customers’ data. This has served us well as we have been able to build trust with our users.
Can you elaborate more on some of Zoho’s recent partnerships and their impacts on supporting business?
In 2021, Zoho grew by an average of 52 percent in the Middle East and Africa region, which is the second fastest-growing region for the company. It grew its partner network by 55 percent and tripled its workforce in the region. Our strategy is driven by what we call ‘transnational localism’, in simpler terms: we think global, and act locally. To that end, we have forged partnerships with leading public and private entities across the region— and continue to do so—to help support local entrepreneurship and digitalization agendas set forth by local governments. For example, in the UAE, we have partnered with government bodies such as Dubai Economy and Tourism Department and Dubai Culture to support the nation’s vision of a digital economy. In Saudi Arabia, we have collaborated with Falak Investment Hub and are currently in discussion with leading public entities to collaborate to support the country’s next stage of development. Similarly, in Egypt, we have worked with private companies such as Flat6Labs and Startups without Borders to offer digital resources to the startup and SME community within their network. This continuous effort has helped thousands of businesses in the MENA access the tech resources needed to kickstart and grow.
After more than 25 years in service, what does the future hold for Zoho?
We expect to grow steadily and with our valued customers as we see only the expansion and further adoption of digitalization in all aspects of the business. Zoho has built a robust and versatile platform with the main goal of letting businesses of all sizes and sectors run and grow their business with peace of mind, using our solutions.
We will invest more in R&D, building a stronger platform, and in customer support and experience. Doubling down on our pioneering privacy-focused business model and transnational localism vision, we will contribute to a new era of business ethics and responsibility. We ask other like-minded companies to join us in serving local communities better.
What message do you have for our readers?
Technology and digitalization are an inseparable part of doing business today and there is a good chance that you are a part of or a contributor to the ever-growing knowledge economy. I invite you to be a champion of change regardless of wherever you are and what your role is in your organization. Take security and data privacy very seriously and stay up to date with best practices to do your business with maximum safety and minimum risk.
