SACHIN AGRAWAL
DATA & DATA ANALYTICS
SACHIN AGRAWAL
TITLE: SENIOR DIRECTOR COMPANY: DXC TECHNOLOGY INDUSTRY: IT SERVICES LOCATION: UNITED KINGDOM
A former entrepreneur who built HR Tech SaaS business before joining Zoho, Sachin previously spent 16 years in consulting and enterprise technology with IBM, A & M, Tech Mahindra and Tata Group.
THE CUSTOMER TRUTH IN SUPPORT TICKETS
For Zoho’ s portfolio of more than 50 business applications serving 800,000 companies globally, customer data provides product intelligence through an unusual route. Sachin Agrawal, Managing Director at Zoho UK, takes an unconventional approach to data governance that prioritises real customer problems over market research.
“ When you ask customers what it is that you want to see here, you typically get a wish list,” Sachin explains.“ That’ s not necessarily something that the customer will pay for.”
Instead, Zoho’ s leadership, including the CEO, reads support tickets daily as their primary source of business intelligence.“ When customers are actually reaching out to you to solve a problem – that’ s the real source of truth.”
This philosophy shapes Zoho’ s broader data strategy. The company publishes detailed pricing information to avoid what competitors often employ as“ hidden costs in technology.” Rather than treating data governance as a compliance exercise, Sachin’ s team uses customer interaction data to drive product development decisions. The approach reflects a belief that transparency in data handling builds stronger customer relationships than traditional market research methods.
“ That’ s where we learn our truth from, in terms of the customer interaction,” Sachin says.“ I think that philosophy has worked for us.”
220 September 2025