In a move that is as much about geography as it is about technology, Zoho has launched Zoho ERP from Kumbakonam, a small temple town in Tamil Nadu’s Thanjavur district. The announcement underscores Zoho’s long-standing bet on building global software products from non-metro India and directly taking on entrenched global ERP players from there.
The new ERP platform is aimed squarely at fast-growing Indian businesses that have outgrown basic accounting tools but find traditional ERP systems too complex, costly, and consultant-driven. By choosing Kumbakonam as the launch location, Zoho is also making a broader point: deep-tech enterprise software does not have to be built only in large urban hubs.
A homegrown alternative to legacy ERP
Zoho ERP has been designed to address what the company sees as a persistent gap in the Indian market. As companies scale, they often struggle to migrate from fragmented financial systems to legacy ERP platforms that require long implementation cycles, heavy customisation, and dependence on external consultants. The result is higher costs, limited agility, and poor visibility across operations.
Zoho is positioning its ERP as a fundamentally different proposition. The platform is built with native low-code and no-code capabilities, allowing businesses to customise workflows internally without relying on third-party system integrators. This, the company argues, reduces both complexity and total cost of ownership.
AI is another differentiator. Instead of adding intelligence as an overlay, Zoho ERP embeds AI across the platform—from predictive insights and anomaly detection to automation and voice-based assistance through Ask Zia. The idea is to give businesses continuous intelligence across finance and operations rather than isolated analytics dashboards.
Shailesh Davey, CEO of Zoho Corp, described the product as a “compliance-ready, homegrown alternative” to global ERP platforms, adding that the deep R&D behind Zoho ERP has been supported by talent based in Kumbakonam. He said the company plans to continue scaling both the product and its local workforce from the town, replicating Zoho’s earlier rural development model in Tenkasi.
Built for Indian compliance, designed to scale globally
Functionally, Zoho ERP brings together financial management, billing, spend management, supply chain, payroll, and omnichannel commerce on a single platform. It supports GST and e-invoicing compliance, revenue recognition aligned with IFRS 15 and ASC 606, and payroll engines tailored for Indian statutory requirements such as EPF, ESI, TDS, PT, and LWF.
At launch, the ERP includes industry-specific capabilities for manufacturing, distribution, retail, and non-profit organisations. Manufacturers can manage everything from material planning to shop-floor execution, distributors get end-to-end visibility across inventory and dealer networks, retailers can run in-store operations with barcode-based checkout, and non-profits can track donations and generate Form 10BD for tax compliance. Zoho says additional vertical-specific modules will follow.
According to Sivaramakrishnan Iswaran, Global Head of Finance and Operations at Zoho and CEO of Zoho Payment Technologies, the ERP reflects how modern businesses actually operate—integrating finance, operations, and compliance into a single, role-based user experience. He also pointed to Zoho’s broader vision of tightly connecting fintech, banking, and business software.
Kumbakonam as a software hub
Zoho’s presence in Kumbakonam dates back to 2020, when it began hiring locally and gradually expanding its operations. With Zoho ERP set for global rollout, the company plans to open a larger campus in 2026 with capacity for up to 2,000 employees.
Beyond product development, Zoho has invested heavily in local ecosystem building. It supports nearby institutions such as City Union Bank and SASTRA University, runs upskilling initiatives, and operates community programmes ranging from coding workshops in schools to healthcare clinics and environmental projects.
In 2025, Zoho Schools of Learning (ZSL) also opened a School of Technology branch in Kumbakonam. The programme, which serves as an alternative to college education, offers a 24-month, stipend-supported pathway to make students industry-ready. Zoho plans to expand admissions in 2026.
A broader statement on India’s tech future
By launching Zoho ERP from a rural town, Zoho is making a quiet but pointed statement about the future of India’s software industry. The company is not only challenging global ERP incumbents with a made-in-India platform, but also challenging assumptions about where high-end enterprise software can be built—and who gets to build it.
As Zoho ERP scales internationally, Kumbakonam is set to become an unlikely but symbolic node in the global ERP landscape, reinforcing Zoho’s belief that world-class technology and regional development do not have to be mutually exclusive.