Zoho Workplace helps accelerate HashTaqs' mission to transform SMEs.
Hashtaqs: The Company
Hashtaqs uplifts businesses in business, brand, digital transformation and internationalisation. When a business approaches Hashtaqs, the team works towards transforming the brand through online activities such as digital marketing, content production, and offline activities such as events, seminars and expos to create a wider audience and better visibility for the brand. During coaching workshops, they up skill individuals by honing their go-to-market strategies through tailor-made activities that suit the client company's profile. Hashtaqs also has been instrumental in building a community of entrepreneurs, leaders, government officials and investors, bringing together an ecosystem of industrial players across Asia with online content and annual summits.
The Work Process
The Hashtaqs team often works with SMEs who are looking to widen their reach and scale effectively. The team starts by first analysing the market they are dealing with, the ongoing brand awareness activities if any, and come up with a scope and a roadmap for digital transformation, custom made for their clients. This involves a lot of collaboration within the team, and a synchronised communication with clients as well. In seasons when they have to run events, they go through high bouts of activity, with intense planning and execution. With an evident shift in the nature of work, given the present situation, Hashtaqs has been forced to put a halt on physical events, but rather concentrate on more digital initiatives, completely running their collaboration online with its remote teams. Hashtaqs also spends a lot of time educating its community to tackle doubts about the ROI of digital events and campaigns.
The Challenge
The Hashtaqs team recognized the challenges and the hiccups they were having a few months before the COVID pandemic struck the world. Renee Tan, the Founder and Head of Business Development says, "When we started out, we did not rely much on digital tools except for the CRM solution we had, which was very costly, making us reluctant to spend on anything more." Their current CRM is restricted to lead management and email marketing. The need for communication tools and file storage platforms became more pressing for them during the pandemic.
Choosing Zoho at the right time
Renee and team started using Zoho Mail in the Workplace bundle, and could instantly see the benefits of having an explicit business communication tool. They started exploring and putting to use more apps in the bundle one after the other. "We needed an integrated solution for easier access, one that was easy to understand, and affordable too. Zoho seemed to be a good fit," she says. In no time, they could see themselves using Mail, Cliq, Connect, and WorkDrive in full swing. The choice also came at the right time, with the pandemic restricting everyone to their homes. But with Workplace, they felt well equipped, and were able to embrace the WFH culture, and not dread it.
Unified Communication and easy collaboration
As the Founder, Renee had the responsibility of making sure the team transitioned smoothly into the new work culture. With Workplace, she had better visibility into the team's work and the team was able to communicate their ideas better to their clients with a unified voice. Renee and the team also benefit from real-time updates on changes, or comments. Their choice of what Workplace tool to use is completely purpose-driven. The team uses Mail for all formal communication, both internal and external, and they extensively uses the Calendar to manage group schedules, and meetings, especially those involving the clients. They take to Cliq channels for focussed internal group discussions, one-on-one chats, and use Connect to track their everyday work items, keeping an eye on progress. The team also stores and collaborates on documents using WorkDrive's team folders, that has helped streamline and declutter file storages. For situations when they think face-to-face communication will be better, they quickly schedule a meeting and get discussions underway.
The impact on business and their clients
Not all businesses are ready to trust in digital events and meet ups. So, it was very important for the HashTaqs team to build trust. Online training on ShowTime helped them do just that. "The knowledge about why digital can be so helpful for our clients' businesses in the long run is limited. So we are constantly educating the community about it through Showtime. We also place a bunch of useful pre-recorded videos and webinars to our regular paid attendees", says Renee. Having embraced and experienced first-hand the benefits of a digital way of work, the Hashtaqs team was able to onboard their clients with more conviction and ease. With clear and timely communication, and edifying online training, the clients also found it comfortable to trust Hashtaqs to transform their businesses, and transform they did!
The Zoho Workplace benefit
To sum it all up, the top reasons why the team loves Zoho Workplace are, the single login into the entire ecosystem of apps, which gives everyone better visibility into everyday work, helps them engage in productive interaction and collaboration, while being assured of top-notch security. "We are not heading back to office anytime soon, and Workplace has been instrumental in helping us transition smoothly from Work From Office to Work From Home. The tools help track tasks and performance, and to communicate with ease. Would recommend it any day.", concludes Renee.
- IndustryMarketing and Branding
- Company-size50 - 100 employees
- Industry typeB2B
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Challenges Faced
- No unified communication and file storage platforms
- Reluctance to invest in digital solutions due to existing costly CRM
What the company loves about Zoho Workplace
- Unified Communication and easy collaboration
- Easy to understand, adopt, and affordable
Favourite Features
- Zoho Calendar to manage group schedules and meetings, especially with clients
- Zoho Cliq for focused internal group discussions and one-on-one chats
- Zoho WorkDrive to streamline and declutter file storage
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