Feature/OPED
Top 5 Zoho Platforms Helping Businesses Thrive in Nigeria
By Kehinde Ogundare
Nigeria, one of the world’s fastest-growing economies, boasts a thriving business ecosystem characterised by its dynamism and resilience. Nigerian enterprises are widely recognised for their tenacity and relentless pursuit of global competitiveness.
A report by McKinsey reveals that responses to Covid-19 have sped up the adoption of digital technologies for several years. Companies have accelerated the digitisation of their customer and supply-chain interactions and of their internal operations by three to four years.
In the current era of digital advancements, Nigerian businesses are acutely aware of the significance of embracing cutting-edge software solutions to optimise their operations and augment productivity. The pursuit of efficient and all-encompassing technological tools remains a paramount objective for these enterprises. Forward-thinking businesses recognise that investing in technological solutions is a strategic decision pivotal to achieving sustained growth.
Zoho serves as a prominent exemplar, offering a diverse array of platforms that facilitate not only the digital transformation of business processes but also the automation of operational workflows. Here is a compilation of the five preeminent Zoho platforms that Nigerian businesses are harnessing to propel their growth.
Driving enterprise collaboration
In the pursuit of business success, effective communication and collaboration are essential. Recognising the value of collaborative efforts and the importance of internal communication, enterprises are increasingly prioritising cost-effective technological solutions. According to a survey, 75% of employees consider teamwork and collaboration highly significant.
Zoho Workplace, a unified enterprise collaboration platform, offers Nigerian businesses the means to foster strong collaboration amongst internal teams and external stakeholders through its email (that can be shared), online office suite (word processor, spreadsheet, presentation and document management), video conferencing and webinar tool, and social intranet.
The recently-revamped word processor, Zoho Writer, presents a departure from the conventional Word-style interface, opting for a formatting sidebar that not only enhances visual appeal but also facilitates the creation of sophisticated and professional documents by offering AI-driven insights such as wordy phrases to improve writing quality.
With Zoho Workplace, users get a unified view of all their work. For improving productivity, it also offers drag-and-drop functionality across apps such as the ability to drag an email attachment and dropping it into a colleague’s chat to send it directly. The platform can be extended to third-party application widgets in case a company is using multiple productivity and collaboration apps.
Unify with platforms
Managing multiple software applications can pose significant challenges and high costs for Nigerian businesses. However, adopting a unified platform offers numerous advantages, including seamless, contextual data flow, improved data analytics, an enhanced Management Information System (MIS), and better decision-making capabilities, all of which contribute to business growth and profitability.
Zoho One uniquely offers the most comprehensive, unified, and centralised platform for users to run their entire business in the cloud, eliminating the need for multiple asynchronous business management applications that do not seamlessly integrate with one another. This eliminates the problem of data silos, multi-vendor contracts, and integration hassles. Zoho serves as a cohesive solution, empowering businesses to streamline their operations and maximize productivity. With approximately 45 integrated applications spanning critical domains such as CRM, project management, finance, and HR, Zoho One provides a cost-effective and customised solution tailored to meet the unique requirements of each customer.
The increasing adoption of Zoho One in Nigeria can be attributed to the growing need for enterprises to consolidate their technological infrastructure onto a unified platform. By leveraging Zoho One, businesses can transform their fragmented activities into a connected and agile organisation, establishing Zoho One as the operating system of choice for Nigerian businesses.
Build the customer experience
APSIS reports that 68% of B2B companies encounter difficulties in generating leads. Effective customer relationship management (CRM) is vital for the growth of businesses, particularly in Nigeria’s highly competitive market. Zoho CRM empowers Nigerian enterprises by efficiently managing their sales, marketing, and customer support processes.
Zoho CRM offers a comprehensive range of features like lead management, sales automation, and analytics, enabling businesses to nurture leads, close deals, and enhance customer relationships. A well-considered CRM investment streamlines sales activities, improves lead conversion rates, and increases revenue. Integrating emerging technologies, like artificial intelligence, helps salespeople gain insights such as the best time to contact a lead.
Zoho CRM’s mobile app stands out with essential features, remote analytics access, AI-powered insights, and seamless collaboration for businesses on the move. It provides user-friendly contact and deal management, along with unique features like running macros and converting leads with associated accounts and deals.
Customer support
Successful businesses comprehend the strategic significance of delivering exemplary customer service, as it plays a pivotal role in fostering repeat purchases, retaining customers, and ultimately augmenting revenue. Nigerian enterprises, cognizant of this fact, place paramount importance on providing exceptional customer support as a fundamental tenet of their approach to cultivating enduring customer loyalty.
Zoho Desk, a comprehensive customer support software, serves as a central hub for managing customer inquiries and enables businesses to deliver prompt and efficient support. With features such as customer support tickets, a dedicated support portal, contract management, and robust report creation capabilities, Zoho Desk empowers Nigerian businesses to provide unparalleled support experiences. By leveraging these powerful tools, businesses can elevate customer satisfaction levels, foster long-term customer retention, and ultimately drive business growth.
Managing people
The post-COVID-19 landscape has witnessed significant shifts in job search and hiring practices. For Nigerian businesses striving to cultivate a productive workforce, effective human resource management has become paramount. Now, more than ever, businesses recognise the criticality of establishing an enabling work environment to mitigate employee turnover and foster long-term employee retention.
Zoho People, a cloud-based HR management platform, simplifies HR processes and improves employee management. With features, such as recruitment management, time tracking, leave management, and performance evaluations, Zoho People assists businesses, addresses HR challenges, and optimises HR operations.
In Nigeria’s dynamic business landscape, harnessing efficient software solutions is crucial for maintaining competitiveness and flourishing. Businesses require a comprehensive suite of integrated applications that offer customization and scalability while also providing seamless access via cloud-based and mobile platforms. Affordability is a key consideration, alongside the ability to seamlessly integrate with third-party systems. Additionally, exceptional customer support plays a pivotal role in ensuring the optimal utilization of these software solutions. By embracing these attributes, businesses can effectively navigate the digital era and establish a solid foundation for sustainable growth.
Feature/OPED
How to Awaken the Conscience of the World?
By Kingsley Omose
Sharp conflicts have always indicated transformation points to the consciousness of the world and provided pivots. Pivot is a point of articulation, a point at which things balance.
Sharp conflicts, whether it is a world war or (war in) Iraq, has always indicated transformation points to the consciousness of the world and provided pivots to a new design of human actions.
Things change after the world is traumatised or the world has sharp military conflict or collision of the human will in the earth has always provided pivot points or transformation points to the world’s consciousness.
We look at these events, look at the terrible things that are taking place, but behind that we recognise the fact that things are shifting to new positions.” Dr. Noel Woodroffe on Core Imperatives for Successful Nation Development
Gandhi used the principle of embracing personal suffering from your oppressor without retaliation to wake the conscience of your oppressor and make him stop the oppression to free India from British colonial rule.
In doing this, Gandhi had pointed to Jesus Christ as showing the way to embracing the principle of embracing unjust personal suffering visited on him by those he came to save to awaken the conscience of humanity to the path of reconciliation with its Creator, God.
Gandhi set up unarmed Indian protesters to defy unjust British laws and policies and then for these Indians to resort with non-violence when the British Army made up principally of Indians visited them with violence in return.
While Gandhi used the principle from a majority population perspective, Martin Luther King Jr. took the same principle and applied it from a Black minority population perspective to awake the conscience of the dominant white population in the US to the evils of segregation.
He simply organised Black protesters to defy the segregation policy and not to respond with violence when the police in the South came to enforce segregation with brutality and unwarranted violence before the American media who were on hand to record it.
This was what gave birth to the Civil Rights Act in the US ending segregation and legal racial discrimination, amongst others. Hamas deviated substantially from Gandhi and Martin Lutther King Jr. in that its application of the principle was triggered through violence and killing of over 1,200 Israelis during its border invasion on October 7, 2023.
The issue before Hamas was how a minority population brings the attention of the world to Israel’s biggest open air fenced prison in the world with over 2.5 million Palestinians, and by extension, the issue of a Palestinian state.
First, without the knowledge of the 2.5 million Palestinians in Gaza, Hamas dug tens of thousands of kilometres of tunnels deep underneath Gaza.
Then, on October 7, 2023, Hamas and its allies broke through reinforced concrete walls separating Gaza from Israel, invaded some neighbouring communities, killed over 1,200 people, and forcefully took over 200 Israeli captive back with them into the tunnels underneath Gaza.
An enraged Israel with its Western allies reacting to what they regarded as a massacre swallowed the bait, and what the world has witnessed live on all media platforms in the last 13 months has been a morden defining of what constitutes genocide as the full military might of Israel and its Western allies was visited on an unarmed nonviolent Palestinian population in Gaza.
Make no mistake, implementing this strategy came at great cost to Hamas and its leaders, but what has shaken a watching world to its core has been the resulting violence and suffering visited on over 2.5 million unarmed Palestinians, mostly women and children, by the Israeli government and military with the support of its Western allies.
A peace deal has now been brokered between Israel and Hamas facilitated by Donald Trump using a 3-stage peace plan earlier put forward by the Biden administration, starting with the exchange of prisoners between both sides.
But be assured that just as happened in India gaining independence from the British with the help of Gandhi, and with the civil rights movement in the US spearheaded by Martin Luther King Jr., the Palestinian cause is now a global issue thanks to the actions of Israel and its Western allies in the last 13 months.
Feature/OPED
Reflection on Groups’ Kindness to Alidinma Mixed Secondary and Ute Okpu Grammar Schools
By Jerome-Mario Utomi
This piece was inspired by two separate but related events; the first has to do with the news report that Dr. Philomena Onoyona Foundation, in line with its vision of giving unwavering commitment to education and community development, recently made a strategic visit to Alidinma Mixed Secondary School in Agbor Alidinma in Ika South Local Government Area of Delta State, where it donated learning materials worth thousands of naira to the students.
The second and closely related to the above centres on the revelation that the Ute Okpu Community in Ika North-East Local Government Area of Delta State recently came alive as the 1990 Set of Ute Okpu Grammar School Old Students Association celebrated its annual reunion with a series of social responsibilities aimed at giving back to the society.
These activities, programmes and initiatives include but are not limited to; deworming of children aged 10 years and below, payment of tribute to the unsung heroes of Ute Okpu Grammar School, presentations of lecture series, bestowing of awards, testimonials, plaques and cash gifts on the school’s outstanding/dedicated teachers, staff, and alumni in recognition of their tireless efforts and unwavering commitment, and unrelenting passion for education.
At a glance, the above show of love by the Foundation and the Old Students Association portrays a bunch that recognizes Social Responsibility as an ethical framework in which individuals or corporations must act in the best interests of their environment and society as a whole, fulfilling their civil duty and taking actions that are beneficial to both the present and upcoming generations.
Beyond the donations, worthy of mention are their messages of hope and resolve to continually support both the present and future students within the state and beyond.
Take as an illustration, Dr. Onoyona underlined that the latest visit and donation of learning materials to the students of Alidinma Mixed Secondary School is the foundation’s way of raising from our community, academically strong and well-informed youths that will provide the future leadership needs of our nation as well as compete favourably with their counterparts abroad’’.
The Nigerian-born and U.S.-based social worker and advocate while calling on other well-meaning and quietly influential Nigerians to team up in her current quest to uplift less privileged and vulnerable youths out of poverty and illiteracy, added that this benevolent outreach which focuses on empowering students through provisions of essential educational materials such as school bags, relevant books, pens, and pencils, among others will continue and be extended to other schools within Delta state and beyond to equip the students with the tools needed to excel academically and inspire a brighter future.
In a related development, Speaking via a statement signed by one of the leading members, Chukwuka Justus Iwegbu and titled; The Spirit of Giving Back to Our Community and Alma Mater: A Tribute to the Unsung Heroes of Ute Okpu Grammar School 1990 Set Old Students Association, the Ute Okpu Old Students Association explained that the event which took place at Ute Okpu Unity Town Hall was a testament to the enduring spirit of the alumni association and its commitment to recognizing the contributions of its esteemed members.
“One thing that brought us together after so many years of leaving our alma mater is unity and love. We may not bother ourselves with the sung and unsung stories because we have a whole lot of members who believe in an unsung story of positive contribution and impact on the lives of others. Remembering our roots remains our major mandate and a call to duty.
“The Ute Okpu Grammar School Alumni Association, 1990 set, is committed to giving back to our alma mater and the Ute Okpu community. We believe that education is the key to unlocking the potential of individuals and communities, and we are dedicated to supporting initiatives that promote educational excellence and intergenerational change,” the statement concluded.
Without a doubt, it will be convenient for many to argue that there is nothing philanthropic to attract media coverage of such a low-profiled donation of learning material, particularly as the value of the donation in question is not measured in billions of Naira.
For me, there are lessons to learn from these groups and every reason to celebrate their actions.
First and very fundamental is the hidden truth that members of these groups are not in absolute terms wealthy, particularly going by Nigerians’ context and definition of riches but were predominantly fired by the burning desire to uplift the life chances of the poor and vulnerable in their environment through educational support.
Regardless of what others may say, this piece holds the opinion that these morally eminent men and women made donations to schools not only as a positive behavioural culture but largely in recognition of the time-honoured aphorism which considers education as the bedrock of development; that with sound educational institutions, a country is as good as made -as the institutions will turn out all rounded manpower to continue with the development of the society driven by well thought out ideas, policies, programmes, and projects.
Their action equally symbolises a bunch in consonance with the fact that it is our collective responsibility to ensure that our schools work and our children are properly educated at the right time.
With their culture of donating to the students’ welfare and comfort, the group, in my view, amplified the notion that children enjoy the right to education as recognized by a number of international conventions, including the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights which recognizes a compulsory primary education for all, an obligation to develop secondary education accessible to all, as well as the progressive introduction of free higher education/obligation to develop equitable access to higher education.
We must also not fail to remember that a few years ago, the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC), in line with its mandate to promote and protect human rights, established the right to education as a thematic area of focus to drive its vision of having all children enrolled in school as well as to ensure that the culture of human rights is promoted and maintained in schools.
One common fact we must not shy away from as a people is that the crushing weight arising from education funding in Nigeria and globally has become too heavy for only the government to shoulder and that is another reason why the intervention/donation by these groups is most profound.
As we celebrate these uncommon efforts, the lesson we must all draw from the example of these groups is that it is time for all to collectively find creative and sustainable solutions to educational provision for all in Nigeria, especially for the children of the poor and lowly as these children deserve the right to hold all of us accountable.
If we fail to provide this traditional but universal responsibility to these children, their future will hang in the balance as a result of such failures. And chances are that most of them will run to the streets. And, as we know, the streets are known for breeding all sorts of criminals and other social misfits who constitute the real threat such as armed robbers, thugs, drug abusers, drunkards, prostitutes and all other social ills that give a bad name to society.
Utomi, a media specialist, writes from Lagos, Nigeria. He can be reached via Jeromeutomi@yahoo.com/08032725374
Feature/OPED
Ways to Stick to Your New Year’s Resolutions Without Breaking the Bank
Embarking on a new year often involves setting ambitious resolutions – a global tradition of striving for personal growth and positive change. We vow to eat healthier, exercise more, learn a new skill, or take on challenging DIY projects. However, as the initial enthusiasm wanes, some resolution may only fall by the wayside.
To enhance your chances of success, let’s delve into some common resolutions and explore key tips that will empower you. This includes setting clear and achievable goals and utilising tools that will equip you for the journey towards achieving those aspirations.
1. Enhancing physical wellbeing: Losing weight or improving fitness often requires a lot of different things working together. To support your efforts, consider utilising tools such as smartwatches to track progress, resistance bands for strength training, and cardio equipment like an exercise bike or treadmill. For home workouts, invest in dumbbells, kettlebells, and a yoga mat. A food scale can aid in portion control. You can also stay motivated by wearing nice workout clothes that makes exercise more fun. These products are all available on Temu, a direct-from-factory marketplace offering year-round deals to help you achieve your New Year’s resolutions.
2. Cultivating healthy eating habits: This often involves prioritising whole foods, minimising processed foods, and increasing fruit and vegetable consumption. To simplify this journey, consider investing in helpful kitchen tools. A food processor can streamline meal prep, while an air fryer offers a healthier cooking alternative. A slow cooker is perfect for effortless and flavourful meals, and a vegetable spiraliser can make eating vegetables more enjoyable.
3. Prioritising stress reduction and wellness: Prioritising wellness is crucial for overall well-being. To reduce stress and feel better, focus on mindfulness practices like meditation or yoga and spend time in nature. Improve your sleep habits. Helpful tools include essential oil diffusers to create a calming atmosphere, weighted blankets for relaxation and comfort, stress balls to release tension and improve circulation, and noise-cancelling headphones to block out distractions.
4. Trying out a side hustle to diversify income: Becoming a social media content curator, for example, is a rewarding pursuit in Nigeria, however, it requires careful planning and execution. Defining your niche and identifying reliable sources of content are crucial first steps. A strong technological foundation is essential for success. This includes a reliable computer or mobile device, a stable internet connection, and specialised software for editing (video, audio, and image). Investing in affordable high-quality recording equipment, such as cameras, is crucial for capturing professional-looking content, while good lighting is essential to enhance its visual appeal.
5. Strengthening personal relationships: This is a valuable resolution that can enhance our well-being and strengthen our relationships. In today’s busy world, it’s easy to let the demands of daily life overshadow meaningful connections. To make this resolution a reality, consider scheduling regular family dinners, planning weekend outings, or dedicating specific times for uninterrupted conversations. Remember that quality time is key; put away distractions and truly engage with your loved ones.
6. Contributing to the community through volunteering: Volunteering your time to a cause you believe in is a rewarding way to make a difference in your community and the world. Find a cause that resonates with you and explore opportunities within your local area. Start small and gradually increase your commitment. Remember that volunteering is a two-way street; it not only benefits the organisation but also provides you with a sense of purpose and fulfilment.
Consistency and adaptability are key to achieving your New Year’s resolutions. Celebrate your successes, be patient with yourself, and don’t hesitate to adjust your approach when needed. Platforms like Temu can be invaluable allies, offering a wide range of affordable products to support your goals. From fitness equipment to kitchen essentials, Temu can effectively equip you without straining your budget.
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