Global tech companies land in Adelaide
Two major tech companies have set up shop in Adelaide, with software company Zoho opening a new headquarters and international video company App Demo Videos relocating from New South Wales.
Creating 50 jobs in Adelaide over the next three years, Zoho employs over 15,000 people around the world and has more than 100 million users of its applications.
Founded in Chennai, India, Zoho’s business solutions software is used by more than 700,000 businesses across 150 countries.
The company’s new Currie Street premises currently has 12 employees, with an additional six working remotely and Zoho is recruiting for its new Adelaide office.
Zoho’s regional manager for Australia and New Zealand Rakesh Prabhakar told InDaily that since the company’s beginnings in the 1990s it had made a conscious decision to “stay away from the larger cities”.
“When we were small what we realised was it’s difficult to go out and hire and retain employees in larger cities,” Prabhakar said.
“It made a lot of sense for us to go to smaller cities, wherein people are leaving such cities where…there are amazing educational institutions, there is amazing infrastructure, but then they are leaving these cities and moving to the larger cities only for employment.
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“What we realised was employees are happier when they stay closer to their families, so this gave us validation that happy employees stay longer with us.
“The longer an employee stays [and] the happier the employee is, it helps the business immensely because the knowledge pool that an employee builds goes a long, long way.”
Prabhakar said Zoho had replicated this model around the world and had looked at Sydney and Melbourne as potential Australian office locations before deciding on Adelaide.
An international video company and a global software company have established offices in Adelaide. Photo: Getty ImagesPrabhakar said the business was already established in the Australian market, and continued to grow rapidly.
“We are at a sweet point where we provide a lot of value to our customers,” he said
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“In the current market quite a few of our customers are moving away from competitors such as Microsoft or Salesforce and are looking at us as an alternative.”
Minister for Trade and Investment Nick Champion initially met with Zoho representatives in India in November last year, where he said he saw “first-hand, the enormous impact this global company is having when it comes to supporting businesses”.
“South Australia’s hi-tech ecosystem is well-placed to provide business opportunities for Zoho to grow here,” Champion said.
Alongside Zoho’s arrival, international company App Demo Videos has announced its relocation to Adelaide from NSW.
Established in the United States in 2009, App Demo Videos creates marketing and tutorial videos for apps and websites, having worked with Microsoft, Netflix and Oracle.
The company offers guidance from the initial planning stages through to the production and delivery of videos.
App Demo Videos employs approximately 20 people across the US and Australia, with plans to double the workforce over the next ten years.
Founder and demonstrations lead Adam Weiss said “South Australia’s growing ecosystem” provided “exciting opportunities”.
“The mix of tech innovators, research institutions and forward-thinking companies combines with strong government support for innovation to give us confidence that this is an environment where we will be able to grow and thrive,” Weiss said.
Weiss said the lifestyle and liveability of Adelaide was ultimately the “biggest draw” in the company’s choice to relocate.
The two companies follow a recent influx of movements to the state.
“South Australia has made a name for itself around the world within the creative and critical technologies sectors, which is evident by the numbers of companies attracted to the state over the last few years,” Champion said.
