SaaS major Zoho launches ERP platform to tap SME market in India

SaaS firm Zoho has unveiled new ERP platform for small and mid-sized enterprises, aiming to tackle high costs, long rollouts and consultant dependence that have slowed adoption among Indian businesses

SaaS major Zoho has launched a new enterprise resource planning (ERP) platform aimed at addressing the large and underserved market among India’s small and medium enterprises (SMEs).

 

The Chennai-based company believes that even today, ERP remains one of the most critical software systems for enterprises, but adoption among smaller firms in India has been limited by high costs, long implementation cycles, and heavy dependence on consultants.

 

Sivaramakrishnan Iswaran, global head of finance and operations BU at Zoho and CEO of Zoho Payment Technologies, believes that when companies outgrow their existing systems, there are no easy alternatives and businesses have to spend a lot of money to move to the next logical step.

 

 

“One of the aspects is affordability, but even if they are able to invest, there are issues. Most of the ERP systems that are available in the market are heavily consultant dependent. Small businesses don’t have the luxury of paying for expensive consultants, long rollouts, or complex deployments. There is a huge gap in the market, and that is what we are trying to solve,” Iswaran said in an interview to Business Standard.

 

Zoho will roll out the product first in India, where it sees a large opportunity driven by the rapid formalisation and digitisation of businesses as well as a growing push to adopt domestically-built software. It will eventually be taken to global markets.

 

Iswaran estimates the addressable opportunity in India alone runs into hundreds of millions of dollars. Interest is also coming from government departments and public sector units that are increasingly evaluating Indian alternatives to global software products.

 

While Zoho already has tens of thousands of customers using its accounting, inventory, and operations software, the new ERP brings these modules together into a single, integrated product. Customers that were earlier using individual applications will now be offered a full ERP suite, with the ability to expand functionality as their businesses scale.

 

Migration from existing ERP systems will be phased rather than abrupt. Companies can run Zoho modules alongside their current platforms and gradually shift workloads over time. “In many cases, ERP systems will coexist initially, and migration will happen over a period. Ease of adoption has always been our focus,” the executive said.

 

The ERP solution from Zoho is yet another example of how talent in rural India can also create globally competitive products. “ERP is the culmination of the last 17-18 years of effort that we have put into creating a suite of products,” he added.

 

About the pricing, Iswaran said, “The focus is on increasing the market share and hence it will be affordable. Historically too, Zoho’s products are always better than rivals, for instance, Zoho Books.”

 

Zoho has embedded AI across automation, reporting, audits, workflow creation, and anomaly detection. Users will be able to generate invoices, extract insights from financial reports, set up workflows through prompts, and flag irregularities without needing specialist support.