Tech Talk Down Under | January '25

Welcome back to our monthly newsletter. We bring you good reads from our regional blog, case studies from Aussie and Kiwi customers, and Zoho product updates.

Happy New Year!

Hope you've had a good start to the year. We've had an awesome start—earlier this month, the whole A/NZ team headed to India to work from the Zoho head office in Chennai. We had a blast catching up with product teams and learning about their plans for the year. Let’s just say some of us tested our curry tolerances, courtesy of our awesome office meals. We also had no trouble smashing our 10,000 steps-a-day goal as we pottered around our expansive campus to locate our colleagues and attend meetings.

Product updates

Here's a full list of product updates we've made since our last newsletter.

Zoho Community meetups

Our Community meetups are great for meeting fellow users and exploring how Zoho can work for your business. Come say g'day to the A/NZ team!

Australia meetups | New Zealand meetups

Product training

Our training team regularly conducts online and offline training sessions?for various Zoho products. Check them out—they'll help maximise the benefits of your Zoho subscription.

Customer spotlight: Plenti

Plenti has been a key player in the Australian finance sector offering personal loans, car loans, and renewable energy loans since 2014. As a publicly listed company on the ASX, they are known for their commitment to delivering flexible financing options across Australia. Their core customer base includes individuals and businesses seeking tailored financing solutions, and they have rapidly expanded their reach across the country.

As Plenti's customer base grew, they needed a scalable solution to manage the increasing complexity of their operations. They turned to Zoho One, our all-in-one suite of 50+ integrated apps. Zoho One allowed them to streamline customer management, enhance data analysis, and maintain a high standard of customer support across all departments. Learn more about how Plenti uses Zoho One.

"We really liked the kind of ethos of the Zoho platform, which was about the capabilities to do deep integrations, move quickly and be agile to keep up with the speed of our business growth, and add new functionality as we needed it." —?Ben Milsom, Co-founder and Chief Commercial Officer, Plenti

Financial health of Australian small businesses, 2024

Despite the rising cost of living in Australia, not all businesses are struggling equally. We surveyed more than 500 business owners, founders, directors, and senior executives working in startups, sole trader businesses, partnerships, trusts, non-profits, and registered companies.?You can read the full report here.

Business owners often have a range of competing priorities. While there's an undeniable need to focus on keeping the business running, leaders should also find ways to make their operations more efficient, profitable, and socially responsible. When asked about their outlook for the next 12–18 months, this is what our respondents said:

• We see a lot of growth opportunities in the future. = 29.28%
• We've had a few bumps and dents, but we're recovering. = 33.67%
• Our industry is doing it tough, so we're aware of the possibility of hardship. However, we're not worried yet. = 23.90%
• We've had some tough times—we believe we can recover, but we're not out of the woods yet. = 9.56%
• We're under severe stress. We're keeping the doors open for now, but we're actively looking to sell our business or close shop. = 3.59%?

We're curious now—what does your '25 look like? Let us know in the comments.

Thanks for sticking through to the end. Catch you next time.