Article · ~10 min read

Zoho talks up 'transnational localism' as key to success

Chris Middleton · diginomica Free Advanced India

Zoho's answer to the being-from-India question is local teams, local offices and local pricing rather than louder marketing, explained here in the company's own words. A genuinely different model from the Freshworks inbound route.

  • Transnational localism means landing senior people in each geography to build local teams and localise the product, not just opening a sales office.
  • Zoho ran 80 million users, 12,000 employees, and 50 plus apps on 650 million dollars of 2021 revenue with 240 million in profit.
  • Being bootstrapped is framed as what makes the slow local build affordable, since there are no outside shareholders to answer to.
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The question it answers

  1. We are an Indian company selling to global buyers. How do we position so that being from India reads as an asset rather than a question mark?

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