After PM Modi's WFH appeal, Sridhar Vembu says Zoho 'will revisit work from home now’

After Prime Minister Narendra Modi urged Indians to revive working from home amid the ongoing crisis in West Asia, Zoho founder and chief executive officer (CEO) Sridhar Vembu said the company would consider remote working again.

The Prime Minister on Sunday had also advised limiting petrol and diesel consumption and encouraged people to use public transport such as metro. Reacting to the appeal, Vembu said the company had adopted natural farming on its farm and was actively exploring ways to reduce diesel usage.

“I hope all of us heed the Prime Minister’s appeal. As a company, we adopted Work From Office fully in recent months, but we will revisit Work From Home now. We have adopted natural farming in our farm and we are also actively looking for ways to cut diesel use," he wrote in a post on X.

How will Zoho support small vendors during work-from-home periods?

Zoho has offices in Chennai and Tenkasi in Tamil Nadu, as well as Noida, Bengaluru, Kolkata, Mumbai and Renigunta in Andhra Pradesh.

Meanwhile, an X user asked Vembu how the company planned to support small vendors — including canteen operators, tea stalls and snack sellers — who rely heavily on office footfall for their livelihood.

Responding to the query, Vembu said: “We always support our canteen staff and drivers during work-from-home periods. In the past, we have also used our kitchens to distribute free food to the needy around our offices. We will do the same this time as well."

Why did PM Modi urge Indians to work from home again?

Addressing a BJP rally in Hyderabad on Sunday, Modi urged Indians to adopt cost-cutting measures — including avoiding gold purchases, postponing foreign travel and working from home — as the country faces the economic impact of the ongoing Iran-US conflict and rising crude oil prices.

He said India must conserve foreign exchange reserves and reduce fuel consumption at a time when global supply chains continue to remain under pressure due to the prolonged conflict in West Asia.

The war has also disrupted the Strait of Hormuz — one of the world’s most crucial oil shipping routes — for several weeks, raising fears of long-term supply shortages.

Modi’s remarks came after Donald Trump rejected Iran’s latest peace proposals, pushing global crude oil prices above $105 a barrel and intensifying concerns over inflation and energy security worldwide. Iran had proposed transferring a portion of its enriched uranium stockpile to another country while refusing to dismantle its nuclear facilities, a key demand of the US.

Modi said India should revive habits adopted during the Covid-19 pandemic to reduce fuel consumption and save foreign exchange.

“We developed work from home, virtual meetings, video conferencing and many other methods during Corona. We got habituated to them. The need of the hour is to resume those methods,” Modi had said.