Zoho Corp., the global technology company, has opened a new office in South Africa’s largest city, Johannesburg. The firm targets to accommodate its growing employee base in the country and cater to its customers. This follows a growth of 75% recorded in South Africa in 2021, and doubled its employee base since opening its first office in Cape Town.
In addition, Zoho and the Institute of African Royalty (IAR), a startup and SME incubator, have entered into a strategic partnership to remove access barriers to enterprise technology for small and medium businesses, and help them in their digital transformation journey.
Advanced Electronic Signature
The qualified SMEs that are a part of IAR will receive Zoho Wallet Credit worth ZAR 27,000 that can be used to avail any of Zoho’s 55+ products, including Zoho One, the operating system for business. Zoho will also provide its expertise to help businesses optimally leverage cloud technology.
The company launched Advanced Electronic Signature (AES) in its digital signature application, Zoho Sign by integrating it with TrustFactory, one of South Africa’s most reliable identity verification providers. To further support ease of business for local companies, Zoho has announced integration with popular payment gateways Yoco and PayGate, which will allow its customers to accept online payments. These announcements were made on the sidelines of Zoho’s annual user conference, Zoholics South Africa.
“Zoho believes that its growth should be globally connected, but locally rooted—an approach it calls transnational localism,” said Ali Shabdar, Regional Director, Zoho Middle East and Africa. “We have followed this approach with our growth and expansion in South Africa. We have increased our employee strength, introduced local pricing, grown our partner network, invested in upskilling initiatives and partnered with local business communities. In continuation of our commitment to the country, we have partnered with IAR to help local businesses access enterprise technology, introduced AES in Zoho Sign to help businesses leverage the power and ease of digital signatures, and integrated local payment gateways that will make it easier for our customers to receive payments online.”