Most enterprise vendors are racing to bundle massive toolsets into unified platforms. Zoho, however, is taking a more deliberate path, one built on modularity, faster time-to-value, and a ground-up talent strategy that starts far from India’s tech corridors.
For CEO Mani Vembu, Zoho’s software philosophy is rooted in one key metric: how fast a user can see results. The company’s 55+ apps across sales, HR, and back-office operations are not packaged as a single, rigid suite. Instead, Zoho allows customers to deploy only what they need, when they need it.
In an exclusive interaction with AIM, Vembu said, “If some marketer wants to do a customer survey, they should just come and instantly do it. It should not be like they wait for the IT to provision the software and then give access to you and then you go and do it.”
That modularity is more than a UX decision. It’s increasingly vital in a world where AI promises transformation, but enterprises are struggling to move beyond experimentation. For Zoho, simplifying that last mile through modular tools becomes essential to unlocking value.
“That is why we also offer a zone bundle where we give everything together, so customers can mix and match and use the way they want. Our architecture is also modular,” said Vembu.
This flexibility helps reduce friction in AI deployment. Enterprises adopting AI often underestimate the time and cost required to make it work across functions. The challenge isn’t a lack of AI models, but the integration burden. Zoho’s approach allows teams to implement tools piece by piece, without waiting for full IT provisioning or top-down rollouts.
The same modular thinking extends to Zoho’s internal AI capabilities. Instead of focusing on massive general-purpose LLMs, the company has developed smaller, enterprise-specific models, with 1.3 billion, 2.6 billion, and 7 billion parameters, trained for use cases such as summarisation and prediction.
By tailoring the models to the task, Zoho aims to increase performance while reducing compute costs. “If you use everything we use for 7 billion, then we are going to consume more power, the cost efficiency is not there,” he added.
While Zoho’s modular approach offers an alternative to traditional enterprise software models, it operates in a space dominated by players such as Microsoft, Google, and Salesforce, whose suites are deeply integrated in a number of organisations. Instead of competing on brand visibility or scale, Zoho positions itself around architectural simplicity and flexibility.
As Vembu noted, customers increasingly expect tools that work seamlessly across functions without adding integration overhead.
Bridging AI Expectations and Reality
Despite the optimism surrounding AI and Zoho’s SaaS strategy, Vembu is quick to call out the growing disconnect between hype and actual business adoption. While AI tools may show early wins in content summarisation or text generation, real enterprise value demands deeper integration with internal systems, and that’s where the friction begins.
“With respect to AI, there is a lot of, what we call FOMO, where every business wants to adopt something. There is a lot of pressure on showing results because the promises are being made like, oh, you can eliminate people or you can become more productive.”
Vembu points out that data fragmentation and implementation complexity are major blockers. In contrast to earlier SaaS tools, where teams could get started quickly, AI rollouts often face delays due to poor data quality and siloed systems.
Building in Places Others Ignore
While the challenges continue, Zoho’s broader strategy remains to go deep where it matters, stay flexible, and avoid overengineering; the same principles apply not just to product, but to how and where Zoho builds its teams.
While most Indian SaaS companies concentrate talent in Bengaluru, Hyderabad, or Pune, Zoho has quietly invested in building R&D centers in smaller towns like Tenkasi and Kottarakkara. It’s a long-term bet that began over a decade ago and is now bearing fruit.
“When we started Zoho, in ‘96, there was no product talent in Chennai. All the software talent was in Bangalore at that time, but we started there. It’s an ecosystem that you need to create.”
That belief in creating ecosystems, rather than tapping into existing ones, is central to Zoho’s rural expansion. Over time, it has grown 1000-strong teams in these locations and Vembu believes that meaningful tech work can happen anywhere, given the right investment in training and infrastructure.
Supporting this strategy is Zoho Schools, an internal training initiative that began 20 years ago to nurture talent without requiring formal degrees. “The first student who graduated from Zoho Schools, [from] first batch, is the one who is heading our Saudi Arabia operation now,” said Vembu.
Vembu believes that the issue isn’t the lack of talent in smaller towns, but a lack of opportunity and exposure. By committing to local hiring and long-term training, Zoho has sidestepped many of the challenges associated with hiring in overcrowded urban markets, including attrition and aggressive poaching. “If someone doesn’t get an opportunity, it doesn’t mean that they are not talented. We just have to expose them to opportunities and most of them are great.”
Staying the Course
In a hyper-competitive SaaS landscape, Zoho’s bootstrapped model and rural-first mindset might appear unconventional. But its consistent focus on usability, cost-efficiency, and inclusion gives it an edge in markets where businesses are looking for more than just scale, they want sustainability.
Whether it’s building modular tools to accelerate AI adoption or setting up R&D centers away from the spotlight, Zoho is playing the long game.
“It takes a little more time. We have to invest more on training, but we are confident that it will happen,” he concluded.
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