Telecom
Zoho Redefines Small Business CRM Market, Introduces Team Pipelines in Bigin
Zoho Corporation, a leading global technology company, is today unveiling the latest version of Bigin, the company’s CRM solution for small businesses. As the preferred CRM solution for small businesses, Bigin offers a simple yet powerful CRM without the high barrier of entry and cost. Today’s product updates further support small and micro businesses by providing them the tools and insights they need to maintain and grow meaningful and high-value relationships with customers in a challenging economic environment.
“Small businesses face challenges in choosing the right technology for managing their customer-facing operations because of constraints related to time, cost, and software implementation,” said Kehinde Ogundare, Country Manager, Zoho Nigeria.
“Bigin is the only solution that brings together all customer operations like sales, onboarding, delivery, training, advocacy, and more into an intuitive interface that takes only 30 minutes to deploy.
“By bringing together all the facets of customer operations into a single view, Bigin allows small businesses to have a more accurate understanding of the customer’s journey.
“These insights help them attract and retain customers, ultimately growing the business. The fast-growing adoption of Bigin shows the expanding appetite of small businesses who want and need CRM technology suited to their particular needs, helping them move beyond old-school spreadsheets.“
Since Bigin’s launch in 2020, it has stood out as a robust, easy-to-use, and welcoming CRM solution thanks to its 30-minute set up promise. Bigin has seen a revenue growth of 161% in 2022 in Nigeria, indicating the revenue has doubled compared to 2021.
Zoho has observed that around 65% of Bigin’s global customers have never used a CRM previously, making it the ideal choice for business owners who are looking to move away from spreadsheets. When they outgrow Bigin, Zoho also offers them an easy migration to its full-fledged CRM solution.
Bigin now boasts 20,000 customers and continues to help small and micro businesses manage all of their customer-facing operations within a unified platform.
Bigin’s latest version includes the introduction of Team Pipelines, which allow customer-facing teams to manage their distinctive operations using a set of pipelines and sub-pipelines within a single Bigin account. Competitive offerings often cater only to a single function — like sales — whereas Bigin is an efficient solution for all customer-facing teams.
New features compile customer operations into one place, and enable tighter alignment and collaboration between individuals and teams without compromising the simplicity that makes Bigin stand out.
Key Product Updates
● Team Pipelines: This feature connects and streamlines various customer operations in one place, offering small businesses an easy way to manage their day-to-day processes and a single source of truth for analyzing customer data.
● Connected Pipelines: Automates the flow of customer data across processes, improving the customer experience and saving time on manual data entry.
● Toppings: Additional functionality and third-party integrations can be added to address specific business needs. Examples include the ‘Email-In’ topping which maps emails to customer records and the ‘File Cabinet’ topping which automates file collection and management.
● Mobile Capabilities: Zoho is providing new features across all platforms, including iOS, iPadOS, Android, and macOS and has added a new feature called Dynamic Display which allows users to customize the appearance of records in their pipelines. Bigin also recently updated its apps for the Apple’s iOS16 and Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 4 launches, where it was an exclusive launch partner.
● Developer Center: Bigin has opened its developer platform to a network of global app developers and partners who can create custom solutions for unique business needs. With various tools and components like custom fields, buttons, links, widgets, related lists, and REST APIs, developers can create new Toppings and monetise them in the Bigin Marketplace.
Disclaimer: All trademarks, product names, and company names cited herein are the property of their respective owners.
Pricing
Bigin by Zoho CRM starts at ₦2,100 /user/monthly (billed annually) for the Express edition and goes up to ₦3,600 user/monthly (billed annually) for the Premier edition. A free edition is also available.
Zoho Privacy Pledge
Zoho respects user privacy and does not have an ad-revenue model in any part of its business, including its free products. The company owns and operates its data centers, ensuring complete oversight of customer data, privacy, and security. More than 80 million users around the world, across hundreds of thousands of companies, rely on Zoho everyday to run their businesses, including Zoho itself.
Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) has said that Nigeria’s internet usage reached a record 1.24 million terabytes in November 2025.
According to the latest data from the NCC, the figure rose modestly from 1.235 million terabytes in October, reflecting steady growth in digital activity across the country.
Broadband penetration in Nigeria crossed the halfway mark in November 2025, reaching 50.58 per cent, up from 45.61 per cent in January, the telecoms regulator reported.
The figure, however, falls short of the 70 per cent coverage target outlined in the National Broadband Plan 2020–2025, which expires this month.
The country had roughly 109 million broadband subscriptions by November. Growth has been uneven, hindered by infrastructure and regulatory constraints, including frequent fibre-optic vandalism that triggers 30 to 43 network cuts daily, high right-of-way fees, and declining subscriber numbers earlier in the year.
Expansion of mobile networks, particularly 3G and 4G services, alongside limited 5G rollouts in urban centres, affordable smartphones, and competitive data plans, has driven uptake.
Investments in the National Communications Backbone and private-sector initiatives have also improved access, especially in underserved areas.
While Nigeria is gradually improving digital inclusion, achieving the original broadband plan remains challenging due to high infrastructure costs, coverage limitations, and deployment hurdles.
The NCC maintains that continued investment in mobile networks and broadband infrastructure will sustain gradual growth in the sector.
Commenting on the development, some Nigerian analysts attributed the surge to the broader mobile and broadband adoption and the growing appetite for streaming, online learning and other digital services.
According to the analysts, the figures suggest that internet connectivity is no longer a luxury but a necessity for both business and leisure, underscoring the slow but steady expansion of Nigeria’s digital economy.
Bureau of Public Service Reforms (BPSR) has named the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) among the top three Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs) of the Federal Government with the Best Ranking in Website Performance for 2025.
L-R: Head Special Projects, Nigerian Export Promotion Council (NEPC), Salamatu Andu; Executive Commissioner, Technical Services, Nigerian Communication Commission (NCC), Engr. Abaraham Oshadame; Director General Bureau of Public Service Reforms (BPSR), Head Customer Support Service, Galaxy Backbone, Rosemary Ehize; Secretary to the ES. Nigerian Content Development and Monitoring Board, Tahir Aminu at the BPSR award ceremony for top four MDAs in BPSR Website Performance and Ranking 2025 at the BPSR office on Tuesday, 23rd December, 2025.
This is coming barely three weeks after the telecom regulator was recognized as one of the top five best-performing Federal Government agencies for 2025 by the Presidential Enabling Business Environment Council (PEBEC) – a testament to the Commission’s consistency in investment in technology for ensuring efficient service delivery.
In the BPSR 2024/2025 scorecard ranking of agencies’ websites, the NCC came second in the ranking, trailing behind Galaxy Backbone Limited, which came first while the Nigeria Export Promotion Council (NEPC) clinched the third position, from a pool of 235 MDAs, whose website were evaluated.
BPSR deployed 14 evaluation criteria in include MDA’s website compliance with .gov.ng domain name, appearance and aesthetics (look and feel) of the website, content, relevance to MDAs mandate/government policy and the website’ structure.
Others include website’s responsiveness (device compatibility), security, load time, usability/ease of navigation, availability/uptime, functionality, interactivity, accessibility and capacity building.
The recognition was announced at the official release of Federal Government 2024/2025 Scorecard Ranking for MDAs’ Website held at the Federal Ministry of Finance Auditorium in Abuja on Monday (December 22, 2025) while the award presentation took place at BPSR’s Office on Tuesday (December 23, 2025).
The award, which is an important index metric of the National e-Government Masterplan for determining the Nigeria e-Government Status, was received by the Commission in recognition of its commitment to maintaining a world-class website that enhances service delivery to the citizens.
Receiving the award on behalf of the Executive Vice Chairman of the NCC, Dr. Aminu Maida, the NCC’s Executive Commissioner, Technical Services, Abraham Oshadami, appreciated the BPSR for the recognition, describing the award as “another encouragement for the Commission to be a better public service institution leveraging digital platforms such as our web presence to enhance public service delivery to our various stakeholders, thereby implementing the Federal Government’s Ease of Doing Business policy direction.”
While presenting the award to the NCC, alongside other two agencies, BPSR’s Director-General, Mr. Dasuki Arabi, commended the top three for their proactive decisions in maintaining world-class websites, which are compliant with the Federal Government’s policy direction in effective and efficient service delivery to the citizens.
According to the DG, the 2024/2025 MDA’s websites’ ranking represents a collective effort of federal public institutions in Nigeria to be transparent, accountable and open in governance, as well as a confirmation to align with global best practices in service delivery to the citizens.
Developed about six years ago, Arabi said as a result of the annual ranking, more public institutions have indicated readiness to embrace reforms, and align with the policy direction of the current administration’s Renewed Hope agenda on improve governance for effective service delivery, as introduced by His Excellency President Bola Ahmed Tinubu.
“The ideals of harnessing and deploying technological tools for service delivery has become imperative following the COVID pandemic, and distortions of socio-economic system of nations, culminating in the evolution of competitiveness, cost effectiveness, and agile governance.
“As engine room of governance, it behoves on us in the public service to perform our statutory duties and we must put in place technological innovations and standardized websites to operate services as well as deliver service needs to citizens,” he said.
The Scorecard exercise, he said, is part of the BPSR reform broader function of conducting research on reform implementation efforts and presenting ‘best practice’ models to the entire Public Service, and to among others, improve access to government information, facilitate seamless financial transaction, eliminate corruption and cyber theft, as well as facilitate access to government services.
Speaking on the rigorous nature of the exercise that produced the top three winners, the DG said “in the past few weeks members of the Scorecard Jury drawn from inter-Ministerial Agencies, had worked tirelessly to mill websites of selected MDAs through a rigorous process of enduring criteria for the ranking and the outcome had also passed through a quality assurance mechanism to validate the outcome.”
Taiwo Oyedele, Chairman of the Presidential Committee on Fiscal Policy and Tax Reforms, has dismissed reports that bank accounts not linked to a Tax Identification Number (TIN) will be frozen or automatically debited from January 1, 2026.
Taiwo Oyedele
Oyedele described the claims as false and misleading, warning Nigerians against panic over misinformation surrounding recent tax and financial reforms.
In a post on his X handle Tuesday morning, he wrote: “Don’t let anyone manipulate you. Your bank account is safe. Misinformation makes you panic and fear a reform that is designed to help you.
“When they tell you that your account will be frozen or automatically debited from January 2026, ask them for the evidence in the new law. Be wise.”
He stressed that no provision in the new tax laws authorises the freezing of bank accounts, adding that the rumours are part of widespread misrepresentation of the reforms.
The committee chairman reiterated that the reforms are intended to simplify Nigeria’s tax system and ease the burden on ordinary citizens, not to impose punitive measures on bank customers.
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