Project managers, rejoice! Zoho just introduced an application to usher in a bright new future for what you do.
On March 11, 2025, Zoho revealed its new unified AI-driven project management platform Projects Plus.
“Zoho Projects Plus is basically a collaboration of hybrid project management,” explained Zoho senior evangelist Aarthi Elizabeth. “One is your traditional projects and the other is your agile methodologies.”
“It then brings in data analytics as well,” Elizabeth added.
For many businesses, this constitutes a game changer. Think about the possibilities.
Zoho’s current Projects software sees greatest use amongst businesses in construction, manufacturing, banking, financial services, insurance and IT services. And the new Projects Plus application – which can be used on its own or with the earlier software – works not just for enterprise businesses but for small businesses too.
In fact, Elizabeth points out a majority of current users of Zoho projects software are small to medium sized businesses.
Building a Foundation with Projects Plus
Say you run a construction company. You just won a major contract – perhaps for a school or medical building.
Congratulations! Now you need to get down to work. Completing the project on time and on budget means keeping track of a small army of contractors all responsible for a small piece of the puzzle of your completed building.
You need to oversee the work of plumbing, HVAC, electrical, framing and masonry contractors and likely many many more.
Suppose your flooring contractor runs into delays. This may hold up other contractors too, putting you behind schedule. Or suppose your excavation contractor encounters hard rock or clay at the job site rather than the loose sandy soil expected, likely driving up that part of the budget.
Certainly you built additional time into your construction schedule in case of delays and contingency funds into your budget for such added costs.
But unexpected delays and costs remain just that – unexpected. Suppose you had a tool that could alleviate some of the guesswork.
Making the Best of Uncertainty
Or imagine you operate a light manufacturing business. You create plastic garbage and recycling bags in an industrial park in Northeastern Pennsylvania but have suppliers all over the world.
For example, your plastic extruders and blow film machines come from Taipei, Taiwan as well as any parts you need to repair them. Your polyethylene pellets used in making the bags come from a plant outside Houston, TX.
The bag making machines themselves created to cut your plastic film into your final product come from Guangzhou, China. Finally, the dyes and additives used in the plastic making process come from a manufacturer in Neenah, WI.
Obviously, to keep producing your bags to satisfy your customers’ needs, you must keep control of all these sources – and probably more. You need to watch if costs increase from domestic suppliers. And you need to monitor whether import taxes and shipping costs impact materials and equipment from suppliers overseas.
You also need to track inventory of your raw materials so you know when to order more – allowing time for shipping. And you require an organized maintenance system for your machinery so you can anticipate problems instead of being surprised.
One Platform to Rule Them All
Enter Zoho Projects Plus. While a traditional project management software might have once been sufficient, today’s project managers need something extra.
“The role of data in project management has become more critical than ever and that brings us to Projects Plus,” said Elizabeth.
According to Zoho, over the past 15 years data usage by project management teams increased by at least 100 times. And the company expects that to speed up as project managers become more and more reliant on AI.
This puts project managers on the frontier of a massive change in the way businesses get things done.
It signals a shift from intuition based decision making to data driven decision making. This in turn requires a strong data management platform with integrated AI solutions.
Imagine you work as a project manager for an IT services company charged with installing patient records software at a large number of hospitals and related medical offices connected to a large regional health network.
You know from experience roughly how long it takes your technicians to install the software. But suppose the team runs into unexpected trouble.
Drop the ball and you run the risk of not hitting installation deadlines outlined in your company’s contract.
By contrast, a data driven platform with AI solutions stands a far better chance of estimating project completion times based on an average of past performance. And your company could rely on this estimate with a far greater confidence of accuracy.
This represents the shift to a more data driven project management in general.
So what makes Zoho Projects Plus so unique? Glad you asked?
Platform Pillars of Projects Plus
Zoho’s new Projects Plus comes with some important platform pillars to help organizations understand what the application can do.
Data Democratization for All!
First, the software provides data democratization. What does this mean?
“Our aim is to make data accessible to everyone on the project team, and not just data engineers and analysts,” explained Elizabeth.
Suppose you work as a loan officer at a regional bank. You notice that a certain kind of loan the bank offers seems to often go into default. But you need to be sure your experience isn’t just anecdotal before reporting your insight.
You need not contact IT to have them pull data from past loans. A dashboard allows you to see the rate of default by type of loan across the company. Now you see whether the defaults represent a few isolated incidents or a troubling trend.
Contextual Generative AI for Smarter Decisions
Second, Zoho Projects Plus offers an important AI component.
“We have added contextual generative AI with which you can generate content and leverage conversational AI to make smarter decisions,” said Elizabeth.
Imagine the insurance company you work for puts you in charge of managing rollout of a new product you never offered before.
Use contextual generative AI to evaluate data on the new product and then generate possible risks associated with it – as well as strategies to mitigate that risk.
Hybrid Project Management for Traditional and Agile
Third, Zoho Project Plus offers hybrid project management.
“Enterprises across verticals can make use of our unified hybrid project management which is a user-friendly platform which brings traditional and agile methodologies together,” said Elizabeth.
Imagine you head the marketing department for a large ecommerce website. Your team uses agile methodology when doing project management for ongoing campaigns. You do this so your team can quickly tweak and make changes to campaigns even while underway based on customer feedback.
Meanwhile, the product management department uses a more linear and methodical approach. New products are carefully planned and then rolled out when ready for customer consumption. This makes a more traditional project management approach a better fit.
Still, both departments must talk to one another. It helps the product management department to hear customer feedback. And it helps the marketing department to know the release schedule for new products so they can develop new marketing campaigns to promote them.
“And they can also leverage the broader Zoho ecosystem to scale their businesses as they expand horizontally and vertically, “ Elizabeth added.
Collaborative Work Management to Bring Your Team Together
Fourth, Zoho Projects Plus creates a collaborative project management environment where innovation thrives.
“Our collaborative work management capabilities reduce the gap between remote teams making them more productive through content collaboration, communication and automation,” said Elizabeth.
Say your hypothetical construction company falls behind on your project. Your excavation contractor discovers hard rock at the site. Or torrential rains delay his or her work for days.
Now masonry, framing, plumbing, electrical and a whole host of other contractors are behind as well.
Contractors all on the same platform keep each other apprised of delays to avoid lots of needless team meetings. This collaboration also minimizes the cost of workers being onsite when no work can be done.
Now, imagine a marketing company with a social media team in the Philippines, a video production house in New York City, and copywriters in London, UK, and Bucharest, Romania.
Coordinating a huge campaign with video, blog articles and social media components becomes easier when teams are on one platform. They share information – and digital assets needed for the campaign – quickly. And other teams can easily see the progress of tasks completed and deadlines met.
The Cycle of Life
Take a look at how Zoho Products Plus takes your team through the entire lifecycle of a project. It begins with ideation then moves on to research and development and right on through to production.
Imagine a software company creating and designing applications for the fintech industry. Your team starts with collaboration.
Your sales team receives feedback from customers that they need a solution to automate approvals of online loan requests.
Jump On Forums
Your sales team jumps on the Forums section within Projects Plus. Members of your software development, operations, and user experience teams join them to discuss clients’ needs.
Teams discuss what customers need this new application to do. They discuss what it should look like and how it should operate. Finally, they talk about how long it will take to develop and what teams will need to be involved.
Share on Wiki
Now, you need to build a knowledge base. The Wiki feature within Projects Plus allows you to share research and ideas with all the teams working on the project – and with clients if need be.
It allows for shared knowledge and quick feedback so all parties remain on the same page.
Roll Up Your Sleeves with Tasks and Milestones
You’ve done some brainstorming, completed some research and gotten feedback from clients. You know which way you’re headed.
Your team now begins the research and development process on Tasks and Milestones. Go ahead and break your project down. Assign tasks to the appropriate teams and set deadlines.
Use Timesheet to Boost Productivity
Anyone who works on projects knows setting deadlines does not guarantee success. Perhaps one team takes too long on their part of the project holding others back. Perhaps another team gets bogged down in research and needs some nudging.
Using the Timesheets feature in Zoho Projects Plus allows you to track progress, look for ways to increase efficiency and eliminate bottlenecks.
Log and Resolve Problems with BugTracker
Bugs remain an unfortunate reality in software development. Maybe your new software stalls in the middle of the loan approval process. Maybe it approves loans without going through the proper steps. Either problem upsets clients and sends your team back to the drawing board.
But with the Bug Tracker feature in Zoho Products Plus, you log every glitch, every hic cup. You make sure all are resolved before your shiny new application rolls out to clients.
Zia is also a Part of the Mix
All of these features, and more, work hand in hand with Zoho’s AI assistant, Zia. Bring documentation for a task into Projects Plus for your team to discuss and Zia will summarize it and rephrase it for better understanding.
“But that’s a very small way to use it,” says Elizabeth.
So what’s a bigger way? Well, if you bring all your data for the task into Projects Plus, analytics dashboards are created. You then use Zia to pull data across these dashboards. Then sit back and watch the AI create insights you can use. You can also ask Zia questions about the project which it can answer using the data you’ve added in.
Zoho Leaves Competitors in the Dust
Not many other software tools in the space currently offer the range of features available through Zoho Projects Plus – without combining several applications. The platform also includes Zoho’s trademark privacy and security features.
Zoho also offers integration with a boatload of outside apps including Google’s Sheets, Drive, Calendar, Chrome and Analytics, a number of Microsoft applications and much, much more.
Zoho offers flexible pay as you go pricing for Projects Plus starting at $15 per user per month, annually. For more on the pricing plan look here.
Conclusion
The focus on data driven decisions now dominates the world of project management – and with good reason.
Teams using data in the process from ideation to project completion see an increase in efficiency and are quicker to identify bottlenecks.
The introduction of AI features allows teams to get a more holistic view of projects by pulling together data from many sources.
Zoho’s Projects Plus leads the charge in this new campaign. And businesses reap the rewards of this innovation in better efficiency and better results.
Learn more about Zoho Projects Plus and the whole Zoho ecosystem today!
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