BENGALURU: The Israel-Hamas war throws new huge uncertainties and these are the kind of things that could turn into something much worse, said Sridhar Vembu, CEO and co-founder of SaaS unicorn Zoho Corp.
In an interaction with this newspaper, the chief executive officer said three things to watch out for from the economic point of view are oil prices and if they shoot up suddenly, it will put severe stress on not just India but every other country as well, second is what happens in the Middle East has a direct bearing on India since many of our workforce is there and the third one is remittances.
“From the energy perspective, we need renewable energy. We need to build those capabilities and we can do it as there is a talent pool. What we require is imagination to challenge our talent pool to raise to those challenges, and I believe this is vitally needed across our private sectors,” he said.
For Zoho, which is privately held, India is No.3 market, after the US and the EU (European Union), and Vembu is bullish on India and its market. India has the potential to emerge as the biggest market for the company in the next 10 years.
“India contributes 10% of our total revenues and this will double and in another 10 years it will become the No. 1 market. Mexico is a very good market for us. We are growing very fast in the Middle East and with this war, I don’t know what will happen in the ME and we cannot project,” he said.
He added that Dubai and Abu Dhabi have been welcoming Indian start-ups to set up shop there and this will continue.
“Interestingly, global decision-making is also shifting towards India. CIOs are no longer taking decisions for India, they are taking decisions for the world,” he said.
The company, which has invested heavily in R&D, said that it has grown by 37% in India in 2022.
Zoho employs over 15,000 employees, and Vembu said they hired more last year and they would not go overboard, and are now hiring cautiously.
Zoho on Monday also announced the launch of Cliq Rooms, a smart conference rooms solution and announced new updates to its communication and collaboration platform Zoho Cliq.