Zendesk grows Singapore team with expansion of chat development centre

Customer service software company Zendesk announced yesterday that it will expand its chat development centre in Singapore. Also acting as the Asia Pacific commercial headquarters, the Singapore office accommodates more than 120 staff with support from the Singapore Economic Development Board (EDB).

Working with customers such as Lazada, FoodPanda, British Council Singapore and Singtel, the office was first established through the acquisition of Singaporean startup Zopim Technologies, which specialises in chat technology, in 2014. 

Since the acquisition to end of December last year, Zendesk has grown its business recently experiencing a 40% year-over-year (YoY) increase of paid customer accounts in Singapore. Stated in the press release, Mikkel Svane, founder and CEO, Zendesk said: “Singapore is a key international market for us and our commercial headquarters in the APAC region. It is home to a highly skilled workforce that understands technology and embraces innovation.”

“EDB’s support to expand Zendesk’s chat development centre in Singapore represents our collective commitment to nurturing skills in this country as well as our continued investment in our business locally,” he continued.

As the chat development centre expands, Zendesk will focus hiring for its chat research and development (R&D) team over the next few years, with roles distributed across the entire product development activity chain. The company will continue to tap into deep engineering talent in Singapore, exploring opportunities to partner with local universities and research institutes to complement its efforts in product innovation and commercialisation.

“We are pleased that Zendesk is expanding and deepening its presence in Singapore. By leveraging Singapore’s growing talent eco-system for digital, Zendesk is able to push the boundaries of big data analytics to carry out end-to-end development of its customer relationship management (CRM) software for a global clientele,” said Kiren Kumar, assistant managing director at EDB.

“We hope that this partnership will help inspire young Singaporeans about the transformational and scalable possibilities in the digital sector, and support our drive to build an innovation-led economy,” he concluded.

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