Why should mid-sized businesses choose Zoho Creator?

This is a guest post by Youness Outlou, founder of BSP, a Zoho Partner based out of Canada. In this blog, he highlights key challenges faced by mid-sized businesses and how Zoho Creator steps in to tackle these hurdles by streamlining processes and boosting efficiency.

Mid-sized companies face the same digital transformation demands as larger enterprises—but with fewer resources. They’re forced to make it work with limited budgets, while striving to maintain operational costs and improve processes to be as simple and lean as possible. Add to that the pressure of competing with agile startups and larger corporations, and it’s clear that every decision counts, especially during periods of instability and uncertainty.

These challenges impact operational efficiency, limit growth opportunities, and hurt customer satisfaction, putting mid-sized businesses at a disadvantage in competitive markets. For example, inefficient processes can increase costs and reduce profitability by requiring additional staff to handle tasks that automation and streamlined processes can achieve. In industries where speed and agility are critical, these limitations can be the difference between gaining or losing customers.

Why Zoho Creator is the perfect fit for mid-sized companies

So how do mid-sized businesses tackle these challenges head-on? The answer lies in Zoho Creator. The platform enables rapid application development, allowing companies to deploy solutions in mere weeks. This can be done internally with skilled developers or through a collaborative approach where both a non-developer (from the company’s business or administrative team) and a professional developer work together. The platform’s simplified environment management supports this collaboration, helping to minimize costs and accelerate delivery.

With Zoho Creator, businesses can scale their applications effortlessly, as routine maintenance—such as system updates and bug fixes—are taken care of. This ensures smooth performance and reduces operational overhead expenses, a challenge often faced in traditional development.

Its integration capabilities are equally impressive, with over 800 services and applications available for seamless workflow creation, minimizing the need for custom integrations that are typically time-consuming and expensive. And the cherry on top? Whether through custom development, or the leveraging of apps through the Solutions Hub, businesses can design applications perfectly tailored to their unique processes and specific needs, ensuring they get exactly what they want.

Customer stories

Now that we’ve seen why Zoho Creator is a perfect fit, let’s explore how it has transformed businesses in practice. Armoires AD Plus (AD+) is a family-owned Quebec-based company specializing in designing, manufacturing, and installing custom kitchen and bathroom cabinets. They were struggling with various challenges, such as:

• Inefficient administrative processes: Spending over 20 hours per week on manual tasks, which slowed productivity.
• Lack of access to real-time information: Decision-makers couldn’t access critical business data remotely or on demand.
• Fragmented systems: Disconnected tools and workflows created redundancies and inefficiencies.
• Scalability: Existing systems couldn’t support their growth, making it hard to keep pace with increasing demands.
• Limited visibility across departments: Siloed information made coordination between teams, such as manufacturing, sales, and customer service, a significant challenge.

Using Zoho Creator, they integrated their ERP system to bridge the gaps between design, production, and commercial teams, ensuring a seamless workflow. This allows new designs to be automatically shared with the production team through a structured process. The app also leverages the Blueprint feature to track each stage, validate activities, and ensure coordination across teams. The results?

• 13% growth in their initial year
• 20 hours a week saved in administration
• Access to real-time information from anywhere
• Seamless integrations with other Zoho and third-party applications

Let’s look at another case to see how Zoho Creator made a difference. Founded in 1977, Piscine Hippocampe—a Canadian family business specializing in manufacturing, installing, and selling pools and outdoor furniture—faced several operational challenges before adopting Zoho Creator:

• Complex manufacturing processes: Coordinating sourcing, transportation, and installation involved multiple steps, often leading to inefficiencies.
• Disjointed operations: Using a mix of Excel and their old applications resulted in errors and disorganized workflows.
• Inventory management: The absence of integration with their online ecommerce inventory and orders through Shopify caused mismatches and delays.
• Complicated customer payments: Manual adjustments and delays in sales data were common due to complex payment processes.

Using Zoho Creator, they developed a custom app to centralize operations, automate workflows, and integrate seamlessly with tools like Shopify and Zoho Books to address their pain points. This transformed their operations, turning disconnected processes into a cohesive, efficient system. The results?

• Enhanced efficiency: Streamlined operations save over 5–10 hours per week.
• Improved customer experience: Automation and real-time information access led to better service delivery.
• Elimination of payment delays and errors: Payments for services are now processed as soon as clients register for multiple services, with the accounting system updated instantly. This not only reduces mistakes and eliminates forgotten payments but also improves cash flow predictability, enabling better financial planning and resource management.
• Seamless integrations: The flexibility of Zoho Creator allowed connecting systems and customization of workflows to meet evolving business needs.

Actionable steps for mid-sized businesses

With these success stories in mind, here’s a simple blueprint for seamlessly adopting Zoho Creator and achieving similar results for your business:

1. Identify key areas for automation

Pinpoint repetitive tasks or bottlenecks in each department that can be streamlined through automation.

2. Collaborate across teams

Engage with relevant teams to discuss identified processes and ensure alignment across departments. Use a process diagram to visualize the desired workflow.

3. Start small

Begin by digitizing one process to build confidence with low-code platforms and then streamline other processes by keeping the takeaways from the first one in view.

4. Leverage expert guidance

Work with Partners or other regional experts to develop tailored strategies, receive hands-on training, and get support for implementation.

5. Empower internal developers

If your organization has internal developers or tech enthusiasts, consider enrolling them in Zoho Creator training. Research says that involving employees in building and using a platform leads to more effective and sustainable implementation.

By following these steps, your organization can unlock the full potential of Zoho Creator, driving efficiency and innovation across departments. With the right approach and resources, achieving transformational results is within reach.