General
Zoho Launches Canvas to Re-envision Customer Relationship Management
By Sodeinde Temidayo David
Zoho Corporation, an Indian multinational technology company that makes web-based business tools, has launched a new program called Canvas to bring to consumers, a level of simplicity to the customer relationship management (CRM) user experience.
Canvas is a one of a kind no-code design studio that empowers users to redesign the user interface of the CRM and create a personalized instance that meets their specific requirements and preferences.
This will increase the adoption rate of CRM by various users having hard times on the CRM operations.
Canvas enables businesses to create their own CRM interfaces that are better suited to the role of each employee, without IT or developer involvement. It helps simplify complex CRM implementations into streamlined and contextual employee-facing experiences.
Data and workflow customisation can render a CRM system too complex for most employees and personalising the CRM for each employee’s role involves excessive development effort and cost.
As a direct result of this complexity, productivity drops, employees become disengaged, CRM adoption struggles, and ROI can suffer.
With Canvas, companies of all sizes can now avoid these issues and enjoy the breadth of functionality offered by a general-purpose CRM and the specialised experience offered by a vertical CRM.
Also, Zoho’s customer experience platform continues to focus on building a system of experiences that simplifies the experience economy for brands and every stakeholder.
From planning and creating diverse customer experiences to delivering and evolving them for the future, Zoho CRM helps organisations of all sizes enable employee productivity, improve stakeholder collaboration, and increase customer success.
Canvas has been developed with a lot of features like any other design program. It can act as a Drag-and-Drop editor, template gallery, Industry-relevant views, self-service via Portals, role-based assignment and extensive Formatting
Canvas will be available across all editions of Zoho CRM, at no additional cost. Zoho believes that every CRM user deserves a better experience and stands for supporting the CRM community, which is why Zoho is offering Canvas free of charge to all Zoho CRM customers.
Speaking on the launch, President-MEA of Zoho Corp, Mr Hyther Nizam, said “many CRM software already offers an abundance of personalisation for customer experiences, but the same is not true for employee experiences. As a result, everyone is using the same system and paying the productivity tax for no reason”.
He also added, “Imagine a reality where the system is tailor-made for each employee’s role. That is true all-around personalisation, and that is what we are bringing to the market with Canvas. We believe it’s a more natural solution to the challenge of software adoption.
“Our ultimate aim is for businesses to create enterprise-wide software experiences with consumer-grade simplicity.”
By Aduragbemi Omiyale
Pensioners of the Bank of Agriculture (BoA) who missed the previous verification exercises under the Defined Benefit Scheme (DBS) now have the opportunity to be verified.
This is because the Pension Transitional Arrangement Directorate (PTAD) has fixed Monday, August 22 to Wednesday, August 24, 2022, for their verification.
In a statement signed by the management of the agency, it was stated that the verification exercise is also for pensioners of other organisations who could not appear for the previous ones.
In the statement, PTAD said Bank of Agriculture pensioners and others should appear at the Afficient Event Centre located on No. 74, Sultan Road, Nassarawa G.R.A. Kano State and at the PTAD Marquee, tucked in 22 Katsina-Ala Crescent, Maitama, Abuja between 8 am and 4 pm for the three days.
PTAD emphasised that pensioners with incomplete documents should obtain a Letter of Introduction from the management of their agencies and an affidavit for the loss of documents.
The documents they are expected to present for verification include the original and photocopies of their career documents, stamped and signed BVN with a picture, one month stamped and signed bank statement, NIN or any other valid identification.
By Adedapo Adesanya
A tripartite interconnected mini-grid agreement has been signed by Ikeja Electric Plc, Enaro Energy Limited and the Ayobo community for the provision of reliable and uninterrupted electricity supply to Ishokan Phase 1 Estate, Mercy Land Estate, and Mercy Land Phase1 residents in Ayobo, Lagos State.
The initiative is in line with the Nigerian Electricity Regulation Commission’s (NERC) goal of ensuring there is a reliable and steady power supply across communities in the country through partnerships between distribution companies (DisCos) and independent power generators.
The agreement, which was signed on Wednesday at Ikeja Electric’s corporate headquarters in Alausa, Lagos, will rely on the interconnected mini-grid initiative of the power sector to provide the customers with an uninterrupted power supply.
Speaking on this, Mrs Seqinah Adewunmi, the Chief Finance Officer of Ikeja Electric, who represented the Chief Executive Officer, Mrs Folake Soetan, during the signing of the agreements, stated that the initiative was a landmark in the history of the power sector in the state.
She added that those communities will be the first to experience uninterrupted power supply via a blend of grid and off-grid generation and distribution of power.
According to her, “it will demonstrate the possibility that our customers can enjoy 24 hours power supply which is in line with the core mission of Ikeja Electric to be the provider of choice wherever power is consumed.”
She congratulated everyone that has been part of the process, revealing that the initiative will transform the ways in which electricity is being distributed in Nigeria.
She further stated that this initiative will set the pace for bigger things to happen as the plan is to expand to other communities within the Ikeja Electric Franchise area.
On his part, Mr Oluwaseun Smith, the Managing Director of Enaro Energy, expressed his appreciation that the project was finally coming to fruition, adding that the journey began about two and half years ago and was glad that all the efforts towards ensuring the signing of the contract were worth it.
He stated that Enaro Energy was committed to providing the necessary resources to ensure the success of the project.
By Adedapo Adesanya
Former president of Nigeria, Mr Olusegun Obasanjo, has said Africa must take charge of its own energy destiny and use its rich resource assets for the benefit of its own people.
His comments come in support of the Africa Oil Week (AOW), which is necessitated as the world scrambles to find new sources of oil and gas to meet its energy needs following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
In this context, Mr Obasanjo noted that African countries cannot be beholden to the unrealistic ideals of the Global North for an exclusively renewables-driven economy, saying this is particularly true when the developed world is itself accepting the need for hydrocarbons.
“Like the rest of the world, Africa must follow energy policies that promote socio-economic development and sustainable hydrocarbon use,” he said.
The former Head of State, who ruled Africa’s largest crude oil producer from 1999 to 2007 said, “Africa is the lowest producer of greenhouse-gas emissions and needs to lift nearly half-a-billion citizens out of poverty.
“Responsible management of our hydrocarbons and investment in our economies is necessary to ensure a just energy transition and sustainable growth for our people.”
The European Union (EU) had previously said it intends to cut Russian-supplied oil by up to 90 per cent by the end of 2022, and the announcement has already caused global energy costs to soar.
Africa is one of the potential new sources of energy to replace this supply, with an estimated 61 billion barrels of oil equivalent being discovered in the region over the past 10 years.
Mr Obasanjo’s view aligns with that of the African Petroleum Producers Organization (APPO), which also called on member countries and other global institutions to use petroleum as a catalyst for energy security, sustainable development, and economic diversification in Africa through collaboration and partnerships.
Mr Obasanjo has been a major leader of Africa’s post-colonial period, having overseen Nigeria’s transition to representative democracy. Since his move out of the government sphere, he has been a senior statesman, active in defining geopolitical issues – including energy.
He also helped to shape the modern Nigerian oil industry, inaugurating policy reforms that have seen the country become an energy superpower on the African continent.
“Creating an African oil industry that benefits Africa’s people needs strong policy and regulation.
“During my time in government, we launched oil-and-gas policy reforms that helped to build a modern oil and gas hub. There were many learnings that we can apply across the wider region. I look forward to discussing these opportunities for Africa.”
He then called for accelerated dialogue on the sustainable development of hydrocarbons, and the role of Africa as a supplier of global energy needs.
“There has been much talk at forums such as the World Economic Forum (WEF) in Davos about a just energy transition. However, we must not allow Africa to be dictated to. The discussions at AOW will be pivotal in charting a new energy course for Africa. We will decide what is best for us,” he said.
