Zoho launches Zoho People, HRMS application for SMBs
Zoho has launched Zoho People, a Human Resource Management application for the SMB market.The application suite is aimed at SMBs with typically less than 50 employees and has following key modules:
- Organization Module: One can define the org structure/departments using this module.
- Recruitment Module: Like any other HR system, the recruitment module helps companies to manage the open reqs, search resumes from the resume DB as well as track a candidate’s status.
While Google is fighting the Online Office war with MS, Zoho is smartly building apps that will help them spread their footprints among SMBs.
Infact, with the launch of Zoho People, Zoho has almost closed the loop on being the “IT Department for SMBs“.
“As we often say, we want to be the IT Department for SMBs. Just offering a set of productivity applications doesn’t meet the needs of businesses. There needs to be a suite of business applications addressing those business needs. With Zoho People, we are taking another step towards offering a complete online solution for businesses.” – Raju
Few things Zoho still lacks:
- Good UI – The current UI is a drab, applicable to all the Zoho products.
- Surely not the entry point – One of the main reason why SMBs & VVSMBs (i.e. very very small businesses, like this) prefers Google Apps is the fact that one can use the @domain.com email IDs just by modifying the Domain MX records (and pointing to Google Apps). Eventually, what one gets is free email (without paying for it) and whole lot of other services (including Google Sites).
Zoho, in it’s current avatar doesn’t offer a similar functionality, and to me that’s a big hindrance in even trying out the service.
Zoho’s other business applications include Zoho CRM, Zoho Meeting, Zoho Projects, Zoho Wiki and Zoho DB; and with the launch of Zoho People, Zoho has got more closer to SMBs that any other player is.
What’s your take on Zoho’s products?
» Read Raju’s blog post on Zoho People | Demo | Interview with Sridhar Vembu, Raju | Earlier Coverage | Screenshot Tour
tags: zoho, zoho people
About the author - Ashish Sinha is a Startup Mentor/Product Strategy Coach, and the founder/chief editor of pluGGd.in.
He has launched/managed couple of products (consumer as well as enterprise) in US and India, and now consults with startups/small businesses on their product/media strategy. He can be reached at: ashish (at) pluGGd.in [+91 98452 06443]
Hmm.. I don’t think Zoho and Google Apps can be compared. While Google Apps is a collection of applications strictly for a website, Zoho is collection of “business process” applications.
If I were to start a new business, I would use both of them…
Munim – At the end of the day, corporates need to pay for these services. Zoho is building office apps + other enterprise apps (like crm/hrms etc) – and google is also trying to partner with salesforce.
Essentially, they are all fighting for same $$
-Ashish
I guess that Google apps are more consumer oriented. Zoho targets at businesses bigger than 50 employees. If you have about 15 people – you are the most vulnerable segment. There are ver few good practical tools, that can save your time and money. Perhaps, Wrike is one of them. It’s really inexpencive and lets manage various business processes, including HR. Have you heard of it?
I guess a VoIP hosted solution is the only thing left for them. If they can offer Asterix integration into their suite, it would make it the killer app!