The updates in Bigin by Zoho CRM, and Zoho Contracts aims to considerably boost productivity, alleviate operational pain points of SMBs, and encourage their growth
Zoho Corporation, a leading technology company headquartered in Chennai, has announced new developments in its tech offerings for small and medium businesses (SMBs), enabling them to focus on future growth and opportunity.
“Small businesses are expected to be nimble, high-performing despite limited resources, and adaptable to the frequently changing headwinds of business environments,” said Mani Vembu, CEO, Zoho. “We have been delivering enterprise technology accessible to small businesses at consumer price points for three decades. As a technology partner, we keep businesses ahead by future-proofing them with advances in technologies through broad- ranging tools.”
While the company serves businesses of all sizes, in order to boost productivity, alleviate operational pain points of SMBs, and encourage growth, Zoho is introducing the following updates in Bigin by Zoho CRM, and Zoho Contracts.
“We have been delivering enterprise technology accessible to small businesses at consumer price points for three decades. As a technology partner, we keep businesses ahead by future-proofing them with advances in technologies through broad- ranging tools.”
– Mani Vembu, CEO, Zoho
New Business Management Capabilities
Bigin by Zoho CRM was launched in 2020 as a unified platform that small business owners can use to keep track of customers and sales, regardless of their familiarity with CRM systems. New capabilities to Bigin include built-in booking management system, Shopify integration, and automatic lead capture from social media platforms such as Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn, Click-to-Whatsapp-ads, Google Ads.
The platform also includes direct integrations with 10+ global payment gateways including Paytm and Razorpay for faster payment collection for businesses. This, in addition to Bigin’s pre-built integrations with Zoho Books and Zoho Invoice, enables businesses in the Zoho ecosystem to connect their accounting and customer information seamlessly. The platform also features on-device Al assistance for mobile apps, powered by Google’s Gemini, Apple Intelligence, and Samsung’s Galaxy Al.
India is the second-largest market for Bigin and has reported a steady 30% YoY revenue growth in the region. Renjith Balakrishnan, Founder of Thiruvananthapuram-based Premier Chess Academy, noted that Bigin’s WhatsApp integration has been beneficial for their team, leading to a 90% drop in customer complaints. Meanwhile, Mehul Prajapati, Founder of Ahmedabad-based Say Solar, attributes Bigin’s implementation in the company as one of their main reasons for achieving a tremendous 83% YoY growth last year.
In the coming months, Bigin will integrate with the recently-launched Zoho MCP, allowing users connect their account with LLMs like Claude to directly get contextual insights around their CRM data, without having to switch platforms. From automating administrative tasks to building hyper-personalised user journeys, Bigin will allow users to build their own custom Al Agents through an integration with Zoho’s homegrown Zia Agent Studio. Users can also leverage contextual pre-built Al Agents, such as Reply Assistant, which allows businesses to respond to sales, support, product, or general inquiries via email and WhatsApp; Cross-sell Genie, which helps businesses identify cross-sell opportunities and automatically sending the recommendations to the customers; and Churn Analyser, an agent that will carefully scrutinise lost deals and share its findings to help businesses improve their offerings.
The platform will allow quicker, Al-assisted creation of dashboard widgets such as charts and KPIs, leading to a significant reduction in time and effort, which was previously needed by businesses to visualise crucial operational metrics in the CRM system. Additional Al- powered capabilities include writing assistance, live translation, and record summary.
Bigin is also launching a brand-new app for Apple Watch along with a fully refreshed iOS app that neatly embraces Apple’s upcoming software design update, powered by Liquid Glass. The app leverages Apple Intelligence for call transcripts and smart summary of daily tasks. events, and calls.
Reimagining contract management for operational efficiency
Zoho Contracts, a platform that streamlines the contract lifecycle, improves compliance, and mitigates risks, now includes an Al assistant to help with every stage of the process. Small businesses have access to self-service templates, automated approvals, online negotiations, and built-in e-signatures that accelerate the contract turnaround. The solution is by design built to scale as businesses grow, and acts as a compliance safeguard for them.
Launched in 2021, Zoho’s Contract Lifecycle Management solution already serves 4500+ organisations, and has helped with more than 2,10,000 contracts globally. GeeksforGeeks, the Noida-based ed-tech platform has leveraged Zoho Contracts to transform their contract management process. The ed-tech player now boasts of 40% faster contract cycle times, improved compliance, and reduced revenue leakage.
The new version of Zoho Contracts includes deep integration with Zoho CRM, which helps businesses close deals faster by enhancing collaboration and transparency between sales and contracting processes. Businesses can also leverage enhanced digital signature capabilities for a more seamless and secure signing process. Additionally, businesses can now leverage multi-organisation support, manage counterparty initiated contracts, and add files or links as attachments to contracts at any stage of their lifecycle.
