PDF version of this report
You must have Adobe Acrobat reader to view, save, or print PDF files. The reader
is available for free
download.
Zoho
Online Applications
Copyright 2017, Faulkner Information Services. All Rights Reserved.
Docid: 00011565
Publication Date: 1706
Report Type: PRODUCT
Preview
[return to top of this report]
Zoho offers a full suite of Web-based business, collaboration,
and productivity applications ranging from Office-like apps to CRM. The company claims more than
25 million users. This report reviews Zoho’s online applications along with the latest cost fees associated with these
apps.
Report Contents:
Description
[return to top of this report]
Zoho offers a comprehensive suite of online business, productivity,
and collaboration applications. The online applications suite, which
is available for free to individuals and for a fee for
organizations, is made up of offerings for CRM, mail, support,
invoices, and others.
All of the online applications from Zoho are available directly
from the Zoho.com Web site, with data stored securely online on Zoho’s
servers, and can be accessed from any Web browser at any location. Unlike
traditional software products, Zoho’s applications require no download
and installation onto a computer. Instead, all that is needed is an
Internet connection.
Vendor |
|
Name: Zoho Corporation |
Users who are interested in Zoho’s services need to sign up for a
username and password at the vendor’s site. Once an individual has
signed up for one service, he or she will have access to all other
services. Zoho targets its products to users and businesses who
are looking for full-featured offerings, want to manage information,
and get a handle on their business data but aren’t interested in, or
financially able to, worry about constantly updating software and
hardware.
As the suite keeps information online, Zoho offers a full breadth
of security to protect its users’ data, including physical security
such as biometrics and video monitoring to protect its facilities that
hold data, a variety of network and infrastructure capabilities, and redundancy
and business continuity measures.
The main online applications that Zoho offers are as follows:
Email and Collaboration Applications
Connect – Connect is a sort of social network for employees to
share information and collaborate. Teams and groups can connect to share
information about projects and events whether they are local or not. Available
as a smartphone app for both iOS and Android.
BugTracker – Zoho’s BugTracker is a tool that creates rules and
customized workflows for managing bugs including setting up notifications and
determining the severity of each one.
Docs – Zoho
Docs is a central document repository that enables users to store and
share files securely, and access them anywhere, anytime.
Mail – Zoho
Mail is an ads-free Web-based email service that can be accessed from any wireless
device or smartphone. It offers storage space, spam protection, a personalized
email address, folders and labels, and instant messaging features.
Meeting – Zoho
Meeting supports online meetings and Web conferences and supports multiple
platforms. Meeting supports multiple languages and time zones and is used
for online training sessions or demos.
Projects – To
track and manage projects, Zoho offers its Projects application. A Web
interface lets users plan task lists and tasks, task dependency,
milestones, and meetings. To complete projects, Zoho enables users to
share and post files and create an intranet to manage the project stream,
calendar, document sharing, forum discussions, project Wiki, and project
chat. To track the project’s progress, features include a project
dashboard, project reports, and time tracking.
Vault – Vault stores and organizes all sensitive data including
passwords and encrypts this information with AES-256. Privileges are
granted to share passwords with specific groups of people and Vault tracks
those users who have used passwords.
Chat – Content and communications are at the heart of Zoho Chat. Teams
can share documents, graphics, and feedback, enabling anyone within the
organization to contribute content ideas. To make Chat more fun and animated,
users can utilize emojis, guest users, channels, and other features.
Showtime – Showtime from Zoho is a presentation medium for
groups. Users create presentation files and then upload those files to
Showtime and invite an audience. The presentation is delivered via
smartphone, laptop, or both and the audience can participate in the
discussion, ask questions, or type in questions to be asked.
Notebook – Like a tablet of paper and a pen, Notebook is used to
jot down ideas and create checklists, then customize the data as best
suits the user. Data can be secured with passcodes and touch ID. Available
as an app for iOS and Android.
Sales and Marketing Applications
ContactManager – With ContactManager, all correspondence with clients,
suppliers, and partners stays in a centralized address book. Tasks, meeting
notes, history, and email correspondence is kept within the contact page.
Campaigns – Zoho offers Campaigns to automate the entire marketing
process. Pre-designed templates enable easier creation of emails and
newsletters while
analytics track the performance of marketing campaigns in real-time.
Campaigns integrates with Zoho CRM.
CRM – The CRM offering from Zoho is a
customer relationship lifecycle management application that automates sales
activities, sales tracking, and customer communication. It includes a
mobile version and CRM for Google Apps.
Motivator – Zoho Motivator contains dashboards to measure sales
performance and scorecards that sales reps can view to see their current
activity. To encourage and promote better sales outcomes, Motivator offers
contests and leaderboards.
Forms – With Zoho Forms, users can build and share forms from
any device, assign tasks to team members, and create custom reports.
Sites – Zoho’s Sites is a design tool to build Web sites and
then update them. Themes are available to be customized for a client’s
needs or the site can be built from scratch. Other features from Sites
include drag and drop capabilities, payment buttons, and blog pages.
Survey – Zoho’s Survey is a tool create surveys, collect audience
feedback, and analyze results. Surveys can be created from scratch or by
using templates and can be translated into more than 30 languages.
Social – The Social app engages the audience with appealing content
while also monitoring information that is valuable (i.e. competitor tracking,
events, new prospects). Visual reporting gives insight into a brand’s media
presence.
SalesIQ – SalesIQ from Zoho is highly customizable and gives
valuable information including visitor location and referral data for
tracking purposes and to improve the overall customer experience.
SalesInbox – Automatically prioritizes emails according to specific
requirements (i.e. from top buyers or customers). Notes and details are readily
available so that users can craft business-driven messages in
response.
IT and Help Desk Applications
Assist – Assist
is an application that allows companies to provide remote support to their
employees or customers through Web browser access. It is geared towards IT
industry personnel, customer support teams, teachers and other trainers,
and computer users.
MDM – MDM is a mobile device management application that
can be used for iOS, Android and Windows Phone devices from procurement to
retirement. Security features include authentication, passcodes, remote
device lock, full or selective device wipe, geotracking of lost assets,
and containerization of bring-your-own-device data.
ServiceDesk Plus – Manages the lifecycle of IT incidents,
projects, changes, and problems. Offers over 150 reports to manage IT help
desk performance.
Desk – A context-aware solution, Desk enables agents to support
customers with the details that they need. Issues can be handled quickly when
organized according to specific criteria. Knowledge bases can be created so that
customers have access to self-service information.
Finance Applications
Books – Books is a financial management
tool for business users. The online accounting software enables users to manage
money, customers and invoices, and to record, monitor, and reconcile bank
accounts and transactions. Business users can also use the application to
collaborate with their accountant in real-time.
Invoice – Zoho Invoice is an
invoicing software for companies to use for billing customers. The Invoice
application supports invoicing in multiple currencies and languages and
online management of billing information.
Subscriptions – With Zoho Subscription, management of the entire
customer lifecycle is made simple. It offers recurring billing and subscription
schedules while giving metrics on rates, payment transactions, and revenue.
Invoices can be tailored with templates, color, and wording.
Expense – This Zoho app handles all expense recording, even
capturing credit card transactions to include them in expense
reports.
Inventory – Zoho provides inventory control and order management
with its Inventory app. It can be integrated with Amazon, Etsy, eBay, and
Shopify for expanding selling opportunities.
Checkout – Companies can build a branded payment page with the
Checkout feature and allow for one-time or recurring payments. The
Checkout feature is entirely customizable to fit with the needs of the
company using it.
Human Resources Applications
Recruit – Recruit is an applicant
tracking system for management of job openings, resumes, candidates, and
contacts. The application is fully customizable and a central database
keeps multiple files in one spot for management purposes.
People – Zoho People is an employee
portal for human resources management. A drag-and-drop customization tool
allows for the creation of forms and fields.
Business Process Applications
Creator – Creator is a
Software-as-a-Service platform for building database applications. Zoho
Creator can be accessed from any location and has a drag-and-drop
interface to create tables and add business rules. Creator features a drag-and-drop interface, a form and table builder, data
collection, reporting, data views and analytics, alerts and notifications, a
various APIs.
AppCreator – AppCreator creates mobile apps for every business
need with pre-made components so that developers don’t need to know
programming languages. Any data collected by these created apps is stored
in the cloud.
Reports – Zoho Reports is an online
reporting and business intelligence service. Charts and tables help build
reports and data can be pulled from hosted or in-house applications.
Site24x7 – This application tracks the availability and response
times for Web sites so that performance issues can be addressed in a
timely manner. It monitors Web site performance, servers, synthetic
transactions, application performance, networks, real users, and public
status.
Applications
[return to top of this report]
The online applications from Zoho are designed to enable
businesses of all sizes to run their processes and manage their data with
limited experience and at a minimal cost without having the concerns of
purchasing hardware or software.
Environment
[return to top of this report]
Zoho’s online applications support various Web browsers
including Internet Explorer, Firefox, Opera, Safari, and Google Chrome. In
addition, for those who wish to access the site from their mobile devices, Zoho
offers apps for iOS and Android.
Support
[return to top of this report]
Zoho offers email support during business hours for its
free apps. Paying customers receive 24×5 support on business days and 24
hour response time on email. An online support form is available from the
vendor’s Web site. Phone support is available for paying customers in the
following areas: Books, CRM, Creator, Invoice, Reports, Mail, and Support. Users
of Zoho services also have 24-hour access to online forums, FAQs, and help
documents which can be found on the Web
site.
Pricing
[return to top of this report]
Table 1 below outlines the pricing options for many of the
Zoho applications.
| Applications | Pricing (USD) |
|---|---|
|
Zoho Connect |
|
| Zoho BugTracker |
|
| Zoho Docs |
|
| Zoho Workplace (an update to Zoho Mail) |
|
| Zoho Meeting |
|
| Zoho Projects |
|
| Zoho Vault |
|
| Zoho Chat |
|
| Zoho Showtime |
|
| Zoho ContactManager |
|
| Zoho Campaigns |
|
|
Zoho CRM |
|
| Zoho Motivator |
|
| Zoho Forms |
|
| Zoho Sites |
|
| Zoho Survey |
|
| Zoho Social |
|
| Zoho SalesIQ |
|
| Zoho Assist |
|
| Zoho Desk |
|
| Zoho Books |
|
| Zoho Invoice |
|
| Zoho Subscriptions |
|
|
Zoho Expense |
|
| Zoho Inventory |
|
| Zoho Checkout |
|
| Zoho Recruit |
|
| Zoho People |
|
|
Zoho |
|
| Zoho Reports |
|
| Zoho Site24x7 |
Other programs exist for infrastructure, application |
Competitors
[return to top of this report]
Zoho’s applications mainly compete with Google Docs
and Drive, Microsoft Office, Apple’s iWork for iCloud, and Slack. The Zoho CRM
application faces competition from Salesforce.com. One of the ways that Zoho
says it differentiates itself from the competition is that it doesn’t serve ads
on any of its products, even its free editions.
Web Links
[return to top of this report]
- Apple: https://www.apple.com/
- Google: https://www.google.com/
Microsoft: https://www.microsoft.com/
Salesforce.com: http://www.salesforce.com/
Slack Technologies: https://www.slack.com/
Zoho: https://www.zoho.com/
About
the Author
[return to top
of this report]
Karen M. Spring is a staff editor for Faulkner
Information Services, tracking high-tech industries including network
security, data breaches and cybercrime, CRM, public safety, business
continuity and resilience, and software tools. She writes regularly on
high-tech topics for publications in the k-12 and higher education
industry. Previously, Ms. Spring was a marketing specialist for two
computer distributors, working closely with such clients as 3Com, IBM,
Okidata, Unisys, and Acer.
[return to top of this report]