During ZohoDay 2026 in Austin, I had the opportunity to sit down and chat with Tony Thomas, the head of Zoho US. Tony has been in this role for just over a year, navigating an economic and technological landscape that got ever more complex. Our conversation covered everything from shifting macroeconomic realities and Zoho’s upward trajectory into the mid- and enterprise market, to the fundamental ways generative and agentic artificial intelligence are challenging the traditional economics of software implementation. With software pricing already being under pressure, it is more than likely that implementation costs are next. I said it before, the time-and-material billing that SI’s are still favoring is probably going the way of the Dodos.

What became abundantly clear during this conversation was that Zoho continues to forge its own contrarian path, adapting to market pressures by continuing to rethink how software value is delivered. One could even say that Zoho’s thinking gets validated by current developments.

TL;DR  

If you prefer watching the interview to reading, find the full video here.

The Macroeconomic Squeeze on the SMB  

The software market does not exist in a vacuum, and the broader economic climate over the past year or so has been challenging for businesses. Historically, SMB segment has been Zoho’s mainstay. However, Tony noted that especially this demographic is facing severe headwinds. Tony pointed to the K-shaped economy, where large enterprises continue to see gains while smaller businesses and large segments of the populace are struggling or being left behind.

Small businesses have "taken it on the chin", battered by general economic uncertainty and the specter of tariffs, casting doubt on the speed of their recovery. Consequently, while Zoho is still acquiring new SMB customers who are actively seeking better value, the existing customer base at the lower end of the market is undeniably feeling a squeeze. Zoho’s way of delivering value helps these companies.

Moving Upmarket: From Products to Solutions  

In spite of these uncertainties, Zoho has continued its push upmarket, finding significant traction in the mid-market and enterprise tiers. But succeeding in this space requires a fundamental structural shift in how a vendor engages with its buyers.

As Tony explains, small businesses generally lack the budget and time for lengthy software deployments; they demand products that work out of the box. With growing size, however, businesses don't buy out-of-the-box products; they buy solutions instead. These larger organizations demand software that is tailored, verticalized, and aligned with their strategic differentiators, in other words, requires an implementation project. For Zoho, this means adopting a heavier-touch engagement model by investing the time to deeply understand a customer’s specific business requirements and customize their offerings, whether directly or through partners.

Currently, Zoho’s sweet spot in the US is definitively the mid-market rather than the top-tier, Fortune 500 enterprises, which remain tethered to legacy incumbents. Mid-sized businesses of increasing size, however, are coming to Zoho seeking integrated, cost-effective architectures infused with modern AI capabilities.

The Vanishing UI and the AppOS Strategy, and Fixing the Disturbed Value Equation  

With the combination of generative AI and no-code and low-code environments, we can see what I call the disturbed value equation. A company might purchase a highly capable software platform at a low licensing cost, only to watch the total cost of ownership balloon drastically due to massive implementation and systems integration fees that can get avoided by adopting these technologies, either directly in the software or by system integrators. This chasm of low subscription costs and comparatively high implementation costs reduces the software's perceived upfront value drastically.

When pressed on how Zoho plans to correct this imbalance, Tony acknowledged the intense pricing pressure surrounding implementations and pointed out a new emerging reality: as customers are increasingly required to pay for advanced AI and intelligence layers, their tolerance for bloated implementation fees is vanishing.

Zoho’s answer is to use AI to compress the cost and time of these deployments, starting from the early stages of the implementation projects. Tony shared that Zoho’s solution teams are already using AI to record customer calls and automatically generate system specifications. While this AI-driven efficiency is currently most effective in the mid-market, bypassing the sluggish steering committees of massive enterprises, it represents a clear path toward restoring the value equation. By bringing implementation costs down, Zoho aims to free up customer budgets for high-value intelligence features. I am looking forward to these specifications being used 

Coupled with this is the rise of generative AI and no-code tools, which are democratizing app development. I challenged Tony on how this "DIY" capability impacts Zoho’s business model. He countered that while users will undoubtedly experiment with building their own apps, companies will quickly hit a wall of chaos. True enterprise applications require strict governance, security, and deep integration with core company data.

On top of this, we are currently witnessing a Titanic battle between different vendors to dominate AI orchestration layers and the access to the user who increasingly bypass traditional software interfaces in favor of interacting with data through chat platforms like Teams or Slack.

To manage this, Zoho is positioning its AppOS architecture as the foundational platform. Zoho intends to be the bedrock, providing the essential, compliance-heavy core applications like finance and ERP that are simply too risky to vibe-code from scratch. On top of this secure foundation, Zoho will empower customers to build dynamic, context-specific AI applications, ensuring the core data remains governed and trusted.

Looking Ahead  

Zoho operates distinctly differently from its peers in the CRM and enterprise spaces. To thrive in this new era, the company is transitioning from a product-centric, best-of-breed mentality to a holistic model combining platform, product, and deep, customer-centric intelligence. Helping customers navigate the K-shaped economy while fundamentally disrupting the cost of enterprise software implementation is no small feat, but Zoho's philosophy makes it a vendor well worth watching.

Three Main Learnings for Enterprise Software Buyers  

The Value Equation is Shifting from Implementation to Intelligence: Historically, a massive portion of a software budget went toward implementation and IT consulting fees. Today, the real differentiator is artificial intelligence and advanced analytics. If buyers spend their entire budget on getting the software up and running, they won't have the resources left to invest in the intelligence layers that actually drive competitive advantage.

Vibe-Coding Requires a Foundation of Strict Governance: Generative AI and no-code tools are allowing end-users to build custom apps quickly. However, doing this in isolation creates shadow IT chaos. For mission-critical systems involving financial compliance, data security, and legal requirements, organizations cannot rely on ad-hoc DIY apps. They need a heavily governed core platform that safely manages the data while allowing for flexible edge applications.

The Application UI is Evolving, Not Disappearing: The market is seeing a push toward headless apps and conversational UIs, where users interact with business applications via platforms like Cliq, Slack or Teams rather than logging into dedicated software frames. However, complex tasks like data analysis or chart visualization will still require traditional interfaces. The future is probably multi-modal, not exclusively conversational.

What to Look for When Evaluating Enterprise Software  

When you are assessing new enterprise software platforms, keep these criteria front and center to ensure long-term viability and value:

Vendor-Driven Implementation Efficiencies: Ask the vendor how they are actively driving implementation costs down. Look for vendors who use AI to compress deployment times and cost, so you can invest your budget into value-add intelligence rather than the plumbing.

Platform Architecture: Evaluate the software's underlying architecture. Does it offer a robust, secure, and compliant cross application foundation for core business data, while simultaneously providing safe, integrated AI and no-code tools for your teams to build customized workflows on top?

Omnichannel User Experiences: Don't get locked into software that only offers one way to work. Ensure the vendor supports traditional and modern work interfaces and offers frictionless orchestration layers.

Pre-Built Compliance and Certifications: Evaluate the vendor's commitment to keeping up with regulatory compliance. You want a vendor that absorbs the cost of updating rules, tax codes, and security certifications so your internal IT team doesn't have to constantly rebuild workflows to stay compliant.

Zoho hosted its usual Analyst Day to coincide with the annual Zoholics event in Austin TX. You’ll likely have seen the announcements already, as well as some analysis of them; I’d like to focus on one set. Zoho has opened up beta access to a set of apps that are specifically targeted to serve solopreneurs, small business owners in the making, freelancers, and similar individuals. Briefly, these apps include:

• Zoho Start, which guides individuals through the process of launching a business;
• Zoho Publish, a visibility tool to access listing services, maps, and feedback sites; 
• Zoho Tables, a hybrid spreadsheet/app combining ease of use with team access; and
• Zoho Solo, a mobile-only set of essential CRM and other business tools for solopreneurs.

On the one hand, this is very smart. The majority of solo/small businesses worldwide have a smartphone or tablet as their only computer, driven by the commonality of solopreneurs around the world, both in the developed and developing worlds. The figures Zoho quoted to us included 5 million new business launches in the US annually, more than 33 million existing small businesses, and 70 million people who consider themselves freelancers. By catering to this audience with apps and services that support them specifically, Zoho taps into a huge market that is not otherwise well served.

On the other hand, this approach is self-limiting. While we’re talking about majorities, the vast, vast majority of potential users will never grow beyond a one-person, one-device business, nor will they want to. The ones that do grow still aren’t likely to reach a level of revenue that will require a more extensive (and expensive) implementation of Zoho products. Freelancers in particular do not always fit well in the small business framework.

On the third hand (look, Austin has a reputation for being weird), it likely doesn’t matter. Zoho has a tendency to put products out into the world to see how they do, rather than focus on their immediate money making potential. It also generally acts as a good (private) corporate citizen, and does what is right as often as it does what is business savvy. Zoho Solo et al probably fits that description. It’s an investment in people, and in the future, and that is something Zoho has shown its willingness to do time and again.

The following article is an excerpt of a White Paper by Customerization’s Kira Tchernikovsky. Kira is the co-founder and CMO of this Canadian consulting company that focuses on helping SMBs stand out through superior business automation.

You can download the full white paper here.

Customer experience (CX) is how a customer feels about a company over time. Creating great CX is about positive emotions, building trust, and leaving a lasting impression with customers.

Orchestrating excellent customer experience is essential for building brand loyalty and increasing customer retention. It's also becoming increasingly important as more and more clients. B2C and B2B, choose to do business with companies who personalize interactions and prioritize customer satisfaction.

While larger businesses have the resources to invest in Customer Experience (CX), small businesses (and by small we mean <200 employees) face unique challenges in providing an outstanding CX.  

Here are a few common challenges for small businesses:

• Limited resources: Small businesses have limited financial resources and less employees to dedicate to a comprehensive customer experience solution. This makes it difficult to compete with larger businesses that have more resources to invest in customer experience initiatives.
• Lack of expertise: Small businesses may not have in-house expertise in areas such as customer experience design, research, and analytics. Therefore, it is not easy for SMEs to develop and implement an effective customer experience strategy.
• Limited data and insights: Small businesses may have limited access to customer data and insights, which in its turn, prevents them from objectively understanding customer needs, preferences, and pain points. How can they then build effective customer interactions and experiences?
• Limited technology resources: Small businesses often do not have the budget to invest in the latest technology solutions, such as personalized messaging or mobile apps, to enhance CX.

Nevertheless, when small businesses use technology and effective guidance for their customer experience initiative, they can overcome these challenges and turn them into advantages that help them grow their business.  

The importance of CX

Customer experience (CX) refers to customers' overall perception of a business based on their interactions with the company. CX has become increasingly important in recent years as customers expect more personalized and seamless experiences. In fact, 88% say experience matters as much as products, according to Salesforce's State of the Connected Customer report.

A study by Forrester Research found that companies that prioritize customer experience see a 5.1x revenue growth compared to those that don't. While the exact ROI will depend on the specifics of each business, research has shown that companies that prioritize customer experience tend to outperform their competitors in terms of revenue growth and customer retention.

So, where is this revenue growth coming from? A good customer experience leads to your customers spending more. In fact, 86% of buyers are willing to pay more for a great customer experience.

The global customer experience management market was valued at USD 10.65 billion in 2022 and is expected to expand at a significant compound annual growth rate CAGR of 15.4% from 2023 to 2030. This market growth can be attributed to the mounting importance of understanding customer behavior and their preferences, which drives various brands and organizations to implement customer experience strategies, such as regularly communicating and engaging with customers, developing a long-term program, and utilizing automation, to provide the best service performance to customers in real-time. 

The Challenges of Providing a Great Customer Experience for Small Businesses

While large businesses are investing significantly in customer experience because they have the resources (both financial and personnel), small businesses do face challenges in providing a Customer Experience at the same level. Let’s describe the key challenges:

• The first challenge is limited resources. Despite their size, small businesses need to invest in technology and personnel to provide a great CX. They also have limited data on their customers which makes personalization difficult.

• The second challenge is time. Small business owners often have to juggle multiple responsibilities, so they may need more time to focus on CX. Without time to prioritize CX, there can be a lack of consistency across the CX, negatively impacting the customer's perception of the business.

• Finally, small businesses often need more expertise in CX. They may need help knowing where to start or what strategies to use to improve their CX. Not knowing what to do next may cause a lack of confidence in implementing CX initiatives. This lack of confidence or direction often leads to analysis/paralysis or even head-in-the-sand behavior where companies pretend the opportunity cost isn’t hurting the business.

On the bright side, corporate environments may have more bureaucracy and layers of decision-making, which can slow down the implementation of CX initiatives. In contrast, SMEs may have more flexibility and agility to implement changes quickly but may lack the scale and resources of a larger company.

What Are The Key Components Of Customer Experience (CX)? 

Customer experience (CX) is built of several key building blocks that are relevant for any company, independent of size, industry, or geography. These building blocks are:

Customer journey mapping: CX begins with understanding the customer's journey from the first touchpoint to the last. Mapping out this journey helps to identify the specific steps the customer takes, any pain points they experience, and record opportunities for improvement. The company needs to get the understanding of what the journeys are in order to be able to improve the layout and connectivity of the touch points.

Customer feedback: Gathering feedback from customers is essential for understanding their needs and preferences, and for identifying areas where the company can improve. 

This can be done through surveys, customer support processes, social media, or other feedback channels.  

The ‘loop’ refers to the circular process of gathering feedback, acting upon what you’ve learned, and then asking for feedback again. 

Because this journey is circular, it describes an ongoing process that never really ends, but that should result in continuous improvement.

Personalization: Customers expect a personalized experience that is tailored to their specific needs and preferences. This requires companies to collect and analyze customer data, and to use that data to provide customized recommendations, offers, and interactions.

Omnichannel presence: Customers expect to be able to interact with companies through a variety of channels, including email, phone, chat, social media, and in-person. It's important for companies to provide a seamless experience across all these channels so that customers feel like they are dealing with one cohesive entity.

Research out of Adobe found companies that have the strongest omnichannel customer engagement strategies see 10% growth year-over-year. Plus, they increase order value by another 10% and improve close rates by 25%.

Employee engagement: Employees play a critical role in delivering a great customer experience. They need to be engaged, motivated, and well-trained in order to provide the level of service that customers expect. Employees also need the right tools at their disposal, and most importantly, to be empowered to act for the customer.

Continuous improvement: CX is not a one-time project, but an ongoing effort to improve the customer experience over time. This requires companies to collect and analyze data on an ongoing basis, and to use that data to make iterative improvements to their operations.

Overall, the key building blocks of CX are customer journey mapping, customer feedback, personalization, omnichannel presence, employee engagement, and continuous improvement. By focusing on these building blocks, companies can create a customer-centric culture that prioritizes the needs and preferences of their customers at every touchpoint.

The Future of Customer Experience for Small Businesses

The future of CX for small businesses will likely involve using emerging technologies such as artificial intelligence, machine learning, and conversational AI, as well as business processes that support customer interactions to drive revenue. 

These technologies help small businesses provide a more personalized and immersive CX. In reality, most small businesses will also need a guide and implementation experts to help them over the finish line.  

From understanding the current state of CX in the business to documenting goals, expert assistance around the business processes that need to change is a must-have. In addition, guidance on the best technology for a small business can be a game-changing experience.  

A guide is the secret sauce to making a great customer experience. It is not a one-time accidental piece of happiness but a well-thought-out strategy for maximizing revenue and increasing customer success. Small businesses should continue to focus on providing a seamless and consistent CX across all channels.

Recommendations for Small Business Owners

Small business owners can improve their Customer Experience by:

• Linking CX to business outcomes: Small businesses should tie the customer experience they want to create to the goals they have for their business.

• Investing in CX: Small businesses should prioritize CX and allocate resources accordingly.

• Collecting customer data: Small businesses should collect and analyze customer data to personalize the CX.

• Using automation: Small businesses should use automation to streamline the CX and free up time for other tasks.

• Focusing on consistency: Small businesses should focus on providing a consistent CX across all channels.

From the pre-internet dawn of segment-of-one marketing to the customer journey of the digital era, personalized customer experiences have unequivocally become the basis for competitive advantage. 

Interested in more? Download the white paper!

Now this title is not a case of do a rhyme or get bitten but actually summarizes the topic pretty well. The CRMKonvos team had a long and good discussion with John Paterson, CEO of Really Simple Systems about the needs and wants of a CRM for SMBs.

Are the requirements that an SMB has really different from the ones that an enterprise has? At the end of the day the original challenges seem to be fairly similar. Especially on the sales side, people avoid the system, just like Denis Pombriant found in a study that we talked about earlier this year in our CRMKonvo about why salesreps hate their CRM. Here a short version that just answers this very question. The parallels in thinking and observations between Denis and John are striking!

But then, there are a few differences. Listen to John explaining them.

But then this isn't all. Talking about value of the systems we couldn't not also talk about the value of AI. Is there any? Where?

Spoiler alert: There is, but one needs to know what one is doing. What? The discussion reveals it in the last 15 or so minutes.

Enjoy the conversation. We learned a lot. You can, too.

As a consequence of an organizational stuff up we had a CRMKonvo that was even better than could be expected in our wildest dreams. Our guests Sheryl Kingstone of 451 Research and Laurie McCabe of the SMB Group have a lot of data and insight to share about data driven experiences and what the digital maturity of companies small and large actually is. Do we talk digital transformation or just digitalization - even only digitization?

Will, whatever changes towards digital communication and collaboration stay? Will it change back to what it was? Something in between? Sheryl and Laurie have some very interesting data points and observations on these topics.

Two strong and renowned analysts - leading experts in their field - with different company focus and different approaches offer significant insight for us.

Great stuff. Enjoy

The News

• Seamless conversations across social channels —Expanding on existing support of Facebook pages and Twitter, small businesses can now have real-time conversations with their customers over Facebook Messenger. For example, when a customer sends a company a question via Messenger, the message is routed to an employee who can have a live conversation over Messenger, directly from within Salesforce Essentials. With Instagram and YouTube, the employee gets notified when the customer makes a comment on a post or one of its videos, and can respond from Salesforce.
• Real-time chat conversations from website or help center—Small businesses can add a Salesforce chat widget to their website, and have the chat routed to an employee who can maintain multiple chat conversations from Salesforce. This provides the employee with a complete view of the customer’s profile so they can step right into the conversation and view features like previous interactions, case history, open sales opportunities or other information within Salesforce.
• Native phone support built into the #1 CRM — Make and receive customer calls with Lightning Dialerfor Essentials, an out-of-the-box call center solution built right into the product. When an employee makes or receives the call, the customer’s profile and account information is immediately available with a pop-up screen in Salesforce, giving them the full context and customer history to provide fast and personalized service. Calls are automatically logged within the contact and account activity history of Salesforce, reducing manual data entry and making sure that information doesn’t get lost.
• Easy channel setup with walkthroughs and live help — Salesforce Essentials offers small business customers a library of simple walkthroughs within the product to easily get set up with all of these new features in minutes—including guided overviews on key channels like Facebook Messenger, chat and phone. A team of Essentials Coaches are included in the U.S. and Canada during trials and the first 90 days of purchase to provide customers with any support needed via 1:1 live chat to get set up in no time.

• G Photography— Owner and photographer Gwendolyn “G” Houston-Jack is a portrait artist specializing in creating lifestyle wall art of families and individuals. As G Photography began growing, the company outgrew all of the systems it was using and spent significant time on deals that were dead to begin with. Houston-Jack knew she needed to find a solution that grew and scaled with her company. “When I switched over to Salesforce Essentials, I literally screamed with happiness in my home office! It’s definitely life changing. I never want to feel overwhelmed with my customer interactions. Rather, I want to feel aware and present,” says Houston-Jack. G Photography uses Salesforce Essentials to accelerate sales with a multi-touch work stream. With the standard sales dashboards in Salesforce Essentials, G Photography is able to keep all of her high priority deals, accounts and goals front-of-mind and never let these interactions fall through the cracks.
• org— Founded by CEO Chad Grills, his wife and COO Stephanie Postles, and Chief Content Officer Ian Faison, Mission.org brings stories and sponsors together to create high-quality podcasts and shows around evergreen business, tech, health and self-improvement topics. With just 10 employees, Mission.org turned on Salesforce Essentials to track their roster of guests, manage their sales pipeline and focus on the customer experience—whether in the office or working remotely from their phones. “Salesforce Essentials helps us prioritize customer service and growth. As a small business, it’s important to build trust with your customers while also making revenue predictable,” says Grills. Mission.org launched their first podcast in March of 2018, and now they operate a network of nine podcasts and a daily newsletter that reaches millions of business, tech and self-improvement fans.
• PepTalkHer— Founder and CEO Meggie Palmer wanted to find a way to help women supercharge their success and close the gender pay gap. She created the PepTalkHer App, a coach in your pocket that helps women track everyday career wins and provides data to back up pay raise and promotion conversations. As a small business owner who is always looking for ways to save time, Palmer needed a technology and automation system to do the work for her and keep track of leads and potential revenue, so she  turned to Salesforce Essentials. “Salesforce allows us to have a central hub of all of our prospective and current clients so that we can effectively market to them, talk to them and sell to them now and also into the future,” said Palmer. The PepTalkHer team uses Salesforce every day to help grow their community and empower women to reach their full potential.

• Instagram and YouTube are generally available today. Both are included in Salesforce Essentials at $25 per user, per month.
• Facebook Messenger and chat are generally available today. Every Salesforce Essentials organization includes 1 license. Additional licenses can be purchased at $15 per user, per month.
• Lightning Dialer for Essentials is generally available today in the U.S. and Canada at $2 per 100 minutes.

• Read the blog post about New Conversation Channels here
• Sign up for a free 14-day trial of Salesforce Essentials: Salesforce Essentials trial
• Learn more with Trailhead: Discover Salesforce Essentials

The bigger Picture

MyPoV and Analysis

• It needs to be easy to set up
• It needs to be simple to operate
• It needs to integrate well with the main communications channels
• It needs to work for the users and not the other way round
• Finally, it needs to be able to grow with the business

The News

• Deals
• Events
• Tasks
• Highlighted Contacts
• Signals
• Stage Funnel

The Bigger Picture

• Platform as a Service (PaaS). The platform itself must support current and future technologies that enable the fast and easy creation of value through applications that are developed within its ecosystem
• A broad ecosystem. This creates the reach and relevance that is necessary to become and remain a relevant player in the enterprise software market.
• Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS). While IaaS in itself is a commodity, it can become an asset when it is combined with a strong application platform (PaaS) and ecosystem. The right combination affords the tremendous opportunity to provide (anonymized) data for machine learning models that can then provide value to all customers

My PoV and Analysis