If there’s one thing most small business owners would love to have—it’s peace of mind. (I know I would.) The path to that mindset varies, but Zoho Corporation, a leading global technology company, says its latest enhancements to Zoho One, the company’s all-in-one business software platform, can help.
Raju Vegesna, Zoho’s Chief Evangelist, says, “Customers are not licensing apps with Zoho One. They are licensing peace of mind.” Zoho One features more than 55 business apps that now “offer a seamless experience” that “facilitates easy and secure collaboration.”
Vegesna adds that Zoho’s customers expect the company to “take care of the technology part and let them be productive in their businesses.” He says these new enhancements deliver “a unified experience through unified integrations, context, workflows, and data.”
Streamlining the User Experience
Zoho calls this release its most significant unification effort to date. The updates focus on three major areas—Experience, Integrations, and Intelligence—all designed to make business software feel less like a pile of disconnected tools and more like a true operating system for work.
The platform’s new design is centered on making navigation seamless and providing a consolidated view of work:
- Customizable Spaces: Tools are now grouped into thematic areas (e.g., Personal, Organizational, HR, Finance) accessible via a new top toolbar, eliminating the need to constantly switch tabs and windows.
- Action Panel: This new feature pulls all pending approvals, tasks, and required actions from across every connected app into a single, unified list.
- Overhauled Dashboards and Boards: Users get a personalized command center through dashboards that aggregate data from both Zoho and third-party apps. These can be grouped into Boards that organize data by context (e.g., all tasks from personal, team, and project apps) rather than just by source app.
- Quick Navigation: A new tool lets users quickly jump to any app, setting, or area within Zoho One.
- Vani Visual Workspace: A new tool for collaboration, supporting shared whiteboards, mind maps, diagrams, and video calls for remote brainstorming.
Simplifying Native and Third-Party Integrations
Zoho is tackling the complexity of connecting business tools, making it easier to manage both internal and external apps:
- Unified Integration Panel: Provides admins with a centralized view of all connections—Zoho-to-Zoho, Zoho-to-third party, and third party-to-third party—making configuration and management easy.
- Unified Portal: Combines multiple app-specific portals (including those from custom or third-party apps) into a single access hub for employees.
- Streamlined Admin Tasks: Tedious processes like domain verification now need to be completed only once within Zoho One, with pre-built integrations for services like GoDaddy to speed up setup.
- Outcome-Based Workflows: Introduces smart, multi-app workflows for common business processes. For example, the new Smart Offboarding tool automates revoking access, transferring ownership, and securing data for a departing employee in a single step.
Enhancing Intelligence with Zia
Zoho’s AI assistant, Zia, is now a core part of the entire Zoho One platform, drawing insights from all connected data:
- Centralized AI: Zia’s capabilities are aggregated across the entire ecosystem, enabling it to provide insights from data scattered across various apps.
- Zia Hubs: This intelligent content management system now has a dedicated space that automatically categorizes and makes files (such as signed documents or meeting recordings) searchable.
- Platform-Wide Querying: The upcoming Ask Zia feature in the bottom toolbar will allow users to submit prompt-based queries (e.g., “What’s my schedule and what tasks are due?”). Zia will combine context from multiple apps to deliver a comprehensive, actionable answer.
- Business-Focused Recommendations: Because of the deep integration of Zoho One, Zia offers context-aware suggestions aimed at supporting real business decision-making, rather than just generic advice.
Security and Pricing,
Zoho has also strengthened the platform’s security, adding customer-defined encryption to help businesses manage identity and access more effectively. Features like smart offboarding and centralized device management help protect company data—an area where many small businesses struggle.
Zoho One’s price remains at $37 per user per month—something today’s budget-conscious small business owners can appreciate.
The upgraded Zoho One is now available globally; its AI features are rolling out continuously.
Bottom Line
Is Zoho One the right choice for your small business? That depends on your specific needs. But for many entrepreneurs overwhelmed by juggling too many tools and lacking time, a more integrated, smarter platform might be the closest thing to peace of mind that software can provide.
Rieva Lesonsky is President of Small Business Currents, a content company focusing on small businesses and entrepreneurship. You can find her on Twitter @Rieva, Bluesky @Rieva.bsky.social, and LinkedIn. Or email her at Rieva@SmallBusinessCurrents.com.
