Zoho expands rural initiatives, opens new hub offices, schooling centres

Chennai, April 3

Global technology company and SaaS leader Zoho on Monday said it plans to open new hub offices in Tirunelveli and Madurai districts in Tamil Nadu and one in Uttar Pradesh.

The company has opened two 'hub' offices in Trichy and Tiruppur in the past six months, and reiterated its commitment to investing in R&D and people.

"As much as we are technologists and have a robust SaaS portfolio, it remains that business growth is not ceiling-less especially given the current economic backdrop and the speed at which technologies like Al evolve," Sridhar Vembu, Co-founder and CEO, Zoho Corp, said in a press conference here.

Zoho's investments in rural areas will focus on nurturing local talent, building deep-tech capabilities, promoting organic farming and powering overall community development.

According to the company, hub offices can accommodate 1,000 employees or more, while spoke offices can accommodate about 100 people.

The company currently has five hub offices, including ones in Chennai, Tenkasi, and Renigunta and around 30 spoke offices presently in India.

Nearly 2,000 employees are working out of Zoho's hub and spoke offices in villages and tier 2 and 3 towns, out of which about 1,000 employees were hired locally.

"The distributed workforce model reflects the idea of distributing growth and income across Tier 2/3 communities instead of urban concentration. Many of our product development teams today sit out of these hub and spoke offices, including some teams that are involved in deep-tech R&D. The long-term vision of these efforts is to create self-sufficient and prosperous rural communities," said Vembu.

Zoho also said it is expanding its current facility of Kalaivani Kalvi Maiyam, a learning centre opened during the pandemic for educating young children from villages in and around Tenkasi.

Kalaivani Kalvi Maiyam (KKM) currently has 130 students-across primary, middle, and high school-from surrounding villages, 19 full-time and five part-time teachers.

A 75,000 square feet facility is under construction at the KKM centre in Tenkasi, including a building that can accommodate 750 students.

Another branch of KKM will open in Cumbam, Theni, for which work has already started, the company said.

"The future generation in the rural areas needs to be enabled with the necessary skills, capabilities, and tools to nurture grassroots innovation, solve local problems, locally manufacture high-value goods, and drive community progress," Vembu stated.