CLOUDCITY ZOHO SOFTWARE CONSULTANTS

• Who is CloudCity?
• Why ZOHO’s Suite of Apps?
• What Is The Role Of The Administrator?
• How Do I Select The Right ZOHO Software Application For My Business?
• How Do I Get Started With Zoho & CloudCity?
• What Is Included In The Introduction Package?
• What Is Included In The On-Boarding Package
• What Is Included In The Full Customisation Package?
• Who Provides Ongoing Support?

Q. Who is CloudCity?

CloudCity is a Zoho alliance partner in South Africa. Our team has a strong background in Zoho Software consulting and customer software deployments. CloudCity has consulted, implemented & trained over 150 businesses in SA on Zoho Software. These FAQ’s detail how CloudCity works with Zoho customers in SA and globally and highlights what you need to consider when looking to grow your business with Cloud Based software.

Q. Why ZOHO’s Suite of Apps?

Zoho provides a wide range of on-demand cloud based software applications covering Sales & Marketing, Finance, Email Collaboration, Human Resources, Help-Desk and Business Processes. Depending on your business requirements and capabilities most apps are easy to implement out of the box with the drag and drop functionality within the software suite and the ample training resources made available online from ZOHO. Cloudcity as a consultancy in South Africa is here to help you navigate the journey to a better way to do business.

Q. What Is The Role Of The Administrator?

Business needs change over time: Managing the changing complexities of your organisation in a fast paced world is an ongoing concern in any size enterprise and ensuring your Zoho software consistently meets your organisations changing requirements does require the ongoing attention of a nominated ZOHO Software administrator. This person would be the hero in your team that champions the implementation and use of the software.

Who should this person be? Ideally this person is an owner, director or senior manager in the business that understands how to match business goals to business process. This person would be responsible for driving user adoption within the organisation as well as ongoing development of the system in order to achieve maximum return on investment in the software. Remember that software powers your business but people power the software so make sure you have the correct person driving your business.

Administrator responsibilities: Responsibilities would include basic administrative systems tasks as well as system development tasks such as task and marketing automation.
• Creation /editing of new fields & modules
• Managing software users roles, hierarchy & permissions
• Managing templates, rules, alerts and setting up automation
• Managing the subscriptions (upgrade and downgrade of Zoho Software Licenses)
• Determine a growth path for the software and other Zoho applications
• Assist your Zoho users general process queries
• Assist your Zoho users with how to queries
• Assist with basic troubleshooting
• Logging tickets to Zoho Technical Support

Who would you nominate in your business to fulfil this administrator role? Keep in mind ZOHO is a complete drag and drop system and is relatively easy to administer with limited technical know-how but it still does take time and dedication if you want this exercise to pay off big time for your business.

Once this is decided then you know you are ready to grow your business with smart software and the selection process can begin.

Q. How Do I Select The Right ZOHO Software Application For My Business?

You can only select the correct software for your business if you have a good understanding of what business goals you are trying to achieve or what problem you are trying to address with the software whether it be task automation, marketing automation, growing sales, project management etc. Once you have defined your business objectives the next task is to see if ZOHO has the right software application to meet your business requirements.

This is where CloudCity can help you determine if ZOHO is the right fit but you must consider the below pointers before you begin the software selection process:
• Know your budget: The reason many companies decide against purchasing software boils down to its cost. However with the availability of cloud computing applications, the offerings are quite affordable though not literally cheap. Do your maths and ensure that your business can afford the right Zoho Edition that will be both sustainable and allows your company to scale.
• Chalk out your requirements: Take time to analyse your current business processes. List down areas where you could apply automations to increase your staff’s productivity and cut down redundancies.
• Identify who your administrator will be: Who will take charge of the ongoing software needs as your business evolves? You will also need to factor in costs and time of your administrator selected to drive the project over and above licence fee costs payable to ZOHO.

Q.How Do I Get Started With Zoho & CloudCity?

As the reseller for ZOHO in South Africa our job as consultants is to assist you with your journey: assisting with ZOHO software selection and providing expert advice as well as offering training if applicable.

We do request that clients complete a short licence mapping process to our ZOHO reseller store when you begin engaging with us. This has no effect whatsoever for the client but does help our figures as a reseller in ZOHO’s eyes so please allow our consultants to complete this short process with you.

Cloudcity has 3 levels of interaction/packages available to clients
• Introduction Package
• On-Boarding Package (Orientation or Workshop)
• Full Customisation

Q. What Is Included In The Introduction Package?

This package provides you access to a Zoho Software Online Demo with one of our Zoho Software Consultants. Within this consultation you will discuss your requirements with the consultant and determine the right Zoho Applications to solve your business problem. You then have the opportunity to either engage in a free trial of the software and when you are happy you can go ahead and upgrade the Zoho Application to the appropriate paid plan. You can then start implementing the software into your business right away using the many training resources available directly from ZOHO for FREE!

This package is free but is generally limited to 1 hour.

Q. What Is Included In The On-Boarding Package

This package is offered as an add-on to the introductory package for new or existing Zoho users. The client can book the on-boarding package applicable to their requirements:
1) Zoho administrator orientation: A structured training session on how to administer the system.
2) Zoho administrator/team workshop: An intensive workshop which includes a combination of system orientation, administration, customisation and workshopping of your specific business needs.

CloudCity charges different rates for on-site vs off-site/remote training. Onsite training is always recommended especially for the workshop style on-boarding as it allows other client team members to be pulled in where appropriate. On-site is only available in Cape Town. Other cities will be quoted with additional travel, accommodation and subsistence allowance being for the clients account.

Q. What Is Included In The Full Customisation Package?

Customizing is the most powerful way of achieving a successful organization-specific Zoho Software implementation however the adoption will still be reliant on a capable administrator being appointed. One of the key elements of Zoho is its capacity to allow easy drag & drop customisation of all fields and modules and the flexibility to do so in a way which suits your business. CloudCity offers full customisation to organisations who may require more complex set-up and would like CloudCity to take over the initial system set-up of ZOHO.

Steps in the Full customisation process:

Select your administrator: The first step even if full customisation is required is to select the person in your organisation who will be your ZOHO administrator and own the project on an ongoing basis from when CloudCity hands over to the client.

Software selection: The next step is to select the correct software that will fulfil your business objectives with help of our ZOHO experts.

Project brief: Based on the client’s requirements we will put together a project brief detailing the customisation needed, the business processes, automation requirements, integration costs if any as well as detail any extra Zoho software that will be required to meet the required objective. The project brief is billed at R5000.00 ex vat once off cost.

Quotation: Once the project brief is signed off, CloudCity will then provide the client with a customisation project quotation, detail the project start date based on availability and specify the estimated duration of the project. The client has no obligation to proceed with the quoted cost of the project at this stage and is only liable for the project brief fee.

Data migration: Should you require data migration from another software, you will need to send a sample of your data to your Zoho Consultant during the product briefing stage in order for them to determine if a data migration is feasible. If the data migration is feasible your Zoho project consultant will provide you with a quote for the data migration or the client can take up the responsibility to migrate their own data across to the system.

Administrator training: After your project is complete and has been signed off we will provide you with Zoho Administrator Training. Within this training your appointed internal Zoho Administrator will be technically trained on how the software was setup and on how to administer the system going forward. The internal Zoho Administrator is then responsible for training all of the Zoho Software users. Within this training the internal Zoho Administrator will receive a user manual provided by CloudCity on the software. This user manual can be distributed to your Zoho users for training purposes.

Package Name	Package Elements
	Software Selection
	Project Brief
	Quotation
Full Customisation	Data Migration
	Administrator Training
	Manual

Q. Who Provides Ongoing Support?

Once your Zoho Software is setup and your administrator is trained up you will require ongoing Zoho Software support.

To achieve ongoing success with your software 3 types of support may be required: