That’s why I wanted to sit down with someone who lives at the intersection of product strategy and real-world business needs. In this conversation, I talk with Ali Shabdar, Director of Strategic Growth at Zoho, about a major new update to Zoho One, the company’s all-in-one operating system for business. Over the course of our discussion, we dive into how Zoho is trying to move from a bundle of apps to a true unified platform, what that means for day-to-day workflows, and how features like Spaces, Unified Dashboards, Vani, native integrations, smarter security, and Zia AI aim to cut complexity instead of adding to it.

If you run a small business or lead a lean team, the details matter: how your calendar connects to your projects, how you off-board a departing employee without leaving security gaps, and how you get a meaningful snapshot of customers or sales without becoming a data analyst. Ali and I explore those very practical pain points through the lens of Zoho One’s latest changes. In the transcript below, you’ll see how Zoho is positioning these updates—not just as “new features,” but as steps toward making technology more invisible, so you can spend more time serving customers and growing your business, and less time wrestling with software.

Leland McFarland: All right, I am here with Ali from Zoho. We have some brand-new news coming out of Zoho, involving Zoho One, and we’re going to talk with Ali about all of this and see what he has to say about it.

All right, Ali, great to have you on. Why don’t you start off by introducing yourself and telling what you do at Zoho?

Ali Shabdar: Great to be here, Leland, and with your audience. My name is Ali Shabdar, I’m the Director of Strategic Growth at Zoho.

Leland McFarland: All right, thank you. So from a small business perspective, what problems is Zoho trying to solve with this new major update to Zoho?

Ali Shabdar: Great question, and let me go back a little bit. It’s been almost eight years, full eight years, since we launched Zoho One. We had a number of products that each served parts or entire parts of the funnel, a function, or an activity like sales, marketing, etc., etc.. And we decided at some point to bundle these up for a number of reasons.

Number one was to reduce complexity. One of the main issues of any business of any size—could be a solopreneur to even an enterprise—is that we end up dealing with a lot of products, with a lot of software, to solve our day-to-day problems or our long-term problems. The promise of technology was to make our lives easier, but in the past quarter century, I can remember, that technology actually made things more complex in a lot of cases. Which means we have to throw more technology at the existing technology to make it less complex.

So Zoho One’s promise was to remove that complexity by starting with bundling products together. And this bundle allows the user to have a singular view toward multiple functions that they might be dealing with. At the executive level, you’re looking at your entire business, almost live, and being able to connect the dots from your sales pipeline, to your cash flow, to your marketing activities, etc., etc., depending on what you’re doing.

In the eight years, one of the key tenets of our progress with Zoho One was to remove that complexity even more. So, moving from a bundle of products, bundle of apps, to a unified platform. That unification where the products talk to each other better and better, they’re tightly integrated out of the box. So you don’t need to worry about connecting sales to the finance function; it just works. And then that means that your data gets tighter and tighter, clearer and clearer. Data hygiene and data governance also gets better. These are scary, scary labels, as SMBs might not worry about data governance, but what I mean is that you have all your data in the same place. We all know what single source of truth is. We want to open one cupboard, one wardrobe, and have everything there, and that’s what Zoho One is doing with your data: putting it all next to each other and giving it a context based on the lens you want to be looking at that entire system that is helping you to run your business.

So it’s been an evolution, again, from bundle to a unified platform where everything is connected, and a small business goes back to what they need to do: working on their products and services, making their customers happy, rather than dealing with connecting technology together and having what we call the spaghetti solution—multiple vendors, multiple products, multiple invoices, so many support teams. You just deal with Zoho, and that’s about it.

Leland McFarland: Great. So, I mean, yeah, that’s going to hopefully save small businesses a whole bunch of time, a whole bunch of money, and a lot of whole bunch of effort. So diving into some of the changes that you’ve done, one aspect was in user experience and productivity. How many small businesses struggle with many small businesses struggle with app overload. How does this new Spaces concept simplify daily workflows for a small team?

Ali Shabdar: Great question. So, again, moving toward the same direction, it is all about context and simplification, as you said. Now, I’ll give you an example, a calendar. As any knowledge worker, regardless of who you are, you’re the business owner, you’re the CEO, or you’re one of the knowledge-working team, you’re doing sales, you’re answering emails, calendar is an inseparable part of our lives. Without a calendar, I can’t live an organized life at all. Now, if if I’m a user working for again, any company of any size, imagine I have my Zoho Calendar where my meetings are, where Zoho meeting links are going. Then there might be a calendar that comes from Zoho Projects if I’m working on certain projects with a number of other team members, internal or external. If I’m collaborating with my own close team, I might have some Kanban lists, which are again with deadlines and all, as another calendar on Zoho Connect. But all I care about is a calendar. I just want a view to my all my tasks, all my deadlines in one singular place. So Spaces allows you to basically bring all of those together and see everything from through one lens: the lens of the calendar.

Now, another part of Spaces, which I personally appreciate and I could see on my day-to-day it added to my productivity, is the idea of having your personal space and your organizational space. Like the way I live in my house, we have the living room, we have the kitchen, where this is more of a place of gathering, the rest of the family and friends there, we converse, we do things, we cook together. And then there’s the bedroom for, it’s a personal space, or there’s my office. And then there’s the bathroom, more, of course, more personal. So, the division here into two major spaces or the context or areas, if you will, of personal and organizational, allows me to quickly switch between Click, Connect, Email, and my Vault where I keep my passwords, versus a Connect versus Projects or our expense management, which is more of an organizational thing. So, again, same products, different lenses, which allows my subconscious mind to work faster and connect the dots better.

Leland McFarland: Perfect. All right, moving on to Action Panels and Quick Navigation features. What practical gains might a small business owner see from these new features?

Ali Shabdar: I think the the most visible improvement is the fact that they are more accessible, more visible, and organized in a more intuitive way. So, you can, of course, make modifications, but everything boils down into better access to what you already have in a more logical way. It’s more organized.

Leland McFarland: Awesome. So, dashboards can be overwhelming for a non-technical user. How does the new Unified Dashboard help a small business owner get actionable insights without needing a data analyst?

Ali Shabdar: I hope no small business owner needs a dedicated data analyst, but that could be good news for expansion and scaling. But again, I’ll go back to the point that I mentioned: it’s again about context. By having, by providing you, the user, with a clear context that is divided into concepts and ideas that that our brain is more familiar with—tasks and deadlines, calendar, data that is coming from different places—the context helps beyond just I won’t I don’t want to say beyond our imagination, but it’s surprising how putting things in different contexts helps you just see the data faster and make decisions quicker. So, clarity is a result of that contextual look into the same data, and by clarity means that your your errors are are are less, you’ll make less mistakes, and and you will be able to make better decisions. Of course, we can get carried away and still make those dashboards really complicated, but those are best practices that I would say we should start simple, small, seeing our messages, again, the tasks, and and the data that is coming from, uh, if if you’re using CRM, if you’re using finance information, to put them in one dashboard where the data is is kind of gelled into each other.

Leland McFarland: Perfect. So, Vani is a new tool. It was just announced last month, and we we actually got to sit down with Arthi to to be able to do an interview with that, and it seems like a really great tool. And it’s been announced that it’s been incorporated into Zoho One. So, for small businesses with a distributed or hybrid team, what does Vani enable that they didn’t have before? What does it bring to the table for a small business?

Ali Shabdar: I’m very glad that we added Vani to Zoho One. It’s one of my favorite apps, I used it since pre-beta when it was still not quite stable. But now it has grown into a full-on product. I’ll I’ll tell you about our idea and why we added it, and also I’ll share you my own experience as a user, not a user that works for a large company, this the scenario also applies for smaller setups. We did not have any tool in our Zoho One platform that allowed teams and even individuals to create content that was about ideate on content and collaborate. We use Writer, drafting things, you know, collaborating live, probably use some we got on Meetings and and all. But Vani allows you to create ideas, put them on digital paper. If you’re doing a brainstorming session with your with your team or with yourself, putting a diagram, a mind map. If you’re working on a draft of your next invitation to your next event or or a flyer, you don’t need fancy graphic design software, especially if you’re not a designer or you do not have designers because you have a small business. You can ideate on Vani, have as many collaborators as you want, and and then do whatever you want with with the output. We did not have such thing in Zoho One, so I I think we the addition makes Zoho One more complete in terms of helping teams work better with each other.

And some of the practical examples: we have our internal magazine, Zoho Business Pulse, and I saw the team actually putting the draft design on Vani and sharing it with respective team members. We could have done this in some other expensive software, which we have access to, but out of the box, because everybody is on Zoho One, and this could be a company of 10,000, 20,000, or a company of five, because everybody has access to the same platform, you just share the document. You you open a space on Vani, you ideate, you put your magazine ideas, and then me, as one of the members, I can go in and share a comment about, can we move this a bit to the right, without even touching the the content, actually, leave a comment and get out. And whoever is in charge of that content, they can take my feedback, use it or not, it’s their decision, of course. So, long story short, probably we added the best collaborative ideation tool that we have till date to Zoho One. Now, somebody might use Canva, somebody might use Miro, Visio, all of those are available, they have their own capabilities, some of them are cool, really cool packages. But you’re getting this product as a part of Zoho One. All you need to do is use it. You already are familiar with with the interface, you’re not paying anything extra, and it integrates with everything else as well.

Leland McFarland: Perfect. All right, so let’s move on to Native Integrations and Security. Small businesses often mix many tools together, leading to disjointed workflows. How does Zoho One’s new approach to native integration help reduce that fragmentation?

Ali Shabdar: This is an excellent point and and often overlooked point, because security, first of all, is not in the back of our mind. Secondly, we usually are not skilled enough, so we can just forget about it until something bad happens. We want to solve that challenge as much as possible for the user, for the customer, without getting them involved in the technicalities. So bringing native integrations to Zoho One is in line with that with that strategy. I’m sure you’ve seen the demo in previous sessions of how Zoho Directory actually took everything to the next level. I couldn’t believe it when I saw it. We are using it in the background as users. However, I saw all these features where you can integrate, of course, Zoho to Zoho products, no problem. Zoho to third-party product, still not a problem. But there’s a much tighter grip on the security and how things work. And then third-party to third-party integrations. So, you can bring both of your third-party products within Zoho Directory, which is the underlying layer of of Zoho One, and the entire platform, and then make sure that you’re on top of that integration and nothing bad happens there. Of course, there’s a bit of Zoho admin knowledge needed, but you don’t need to be an IT person, you don’t need to be a data scientist for that matter. It’s really intuitive, just a quick look will logically explain everything to you and and you’ll be able to do those things. I think Directory has grown leaps and bounds compared to how it was for the users even a week ago. The team has been working really hard on on adding those features, one of them is is what you mentioned, and that’s integration and security.

Leland McFarland: Perfect. All right, so the the press release that you guys put out mentioned Unified Portals. How is this different from traditional integration or dashboards, and what pain points does it solve for small teams?

Ali Shabdar: I think again, it’s about context. Until now, portals were there again, it looked to me as a user as a bundle of apps present together in an environment. Now, I can easily find myself forgetting about those barriers between certain apps and just look at them as concepts. I want to do X, I want to check my day, I want to work on my projects, I want to work on my finance. So, we move from product-focused workflows into context-focused workflows. And and the portals and the interface is trying to communicate that and drive that behavior for the users. Now, mind you, this is the best version we can come up with so far, but I’m sure that our users, starting today, we’ve officially launched it, are going to come back to us with a lot of comments and and and tell us how it can be improved. We can’t wait to hear from our users and our partners how we can take this to the next level.

Leland McFarland: All right, perfect. All right, and final question in the native integration and security. So we have Smart Off-boarding, which sounds particularly useful to SMBs that lack a robust IT department. How would this feature protect small businesses during employee transitions?

Ali Shabdar: Another favorite feature of mine. I remember probably five or six years ago, talking with a customer who had multiple different products. They were using a couple of Zoho products, but most of their stack was outside Zoho, and they did not use Zoho One. And they realized, one of their marketers, who departed, left the organization almost a year before. Of course, they removed their access from their email, the first, you know, obvious thing is, okay, remove the access to email and CRM. But they still had access to the entire marketing stack, including the Facebook accounts and other things. Thankfully, nothing bad happened, but you know, you don’t want to wake up one day and see that some somebody had access to your speakerphone, which is your marketing channel, or to your financial information. Now, Zoho One again tries to reduce that risk by allowing you to just disable one user account, and boom, boom, boom, their access is gone from all the products. This was existing. But now, if if you open the Zoho One, well, in the back end, in the admin space, you can see off-boarding. You start the off-boarding process, it takes you through a checklist of, of course, removing app access, software access, changing the reporting structure. Imagine if the person was a manager, and a couple of other people were reporting to the person. You can choose the new reporting structure, a bunch of other settings, and I need to remember how many, probably more than 10 different items in that checklist, where you slowly remove everything, terminating their accesses and all of that. And of course, all the legal considerations also happen in that space. So you make sure that the person is off-boarded in the best way possible, hopefully in good terms, so you can have a good conversation, log all the experience as well, and making sure that there is not a single gap left when the person is moved down from your organization. The admin space is is really great, really intuitive.

Leland McFarland: All right, that sounds very useful and really good when it comes to security, especially when you know, if if an employee doesn’t leave on good terms, you want to make sure that they can’t cause any damage on their way out.

Ali Shabdar: Absolutely.

Leland McFarland: All right, moving on to Zia and your AI. Small teams typically work across multiple apps, email, CRM, documents. How does Zia help unify this data so they spend less time searching and more time acting?

Ali Shabdar: Right out of the box, because you’re using Zoho One, which means all the apps, all the products are integrated. When you open, ask Zia textbox, and you ask any question, it’ll pull data from across your your entire stack. So if you’re checking, “tell me more about Ali”. The data is pulled from CRM if I’m your contact, if we had some ongoing deals in the past year or so, if there are notes about what kind of prospect I was. If I’m a customer, it pulls data from Desk where it can show you some of the recent tickets. If if I’m an employee or a contractor, it can pull data from HR, from Projects. So you get an almost immediate full picture about the question you have to the system. Of course, you can pull data the pull information that that rely on data about sales seasonalities and sales data and analytics and all of that. But to me, if I want to, let’s say, I’m about to get on a call with you, and I don’t remember much because the last time we spoke was three months or six months ago, or I’m somebody handed over your your your account to me, I’m just going to ask, “tell me more about Leland”. And it’s it’s going to give me whatever information we have about you. And the good thing is, not only it’s pretty accurate today, but also it’s learning more and more and more. So it’s not just one snapshot in in the history. So if I ask the same question two weeks from now, and if there’s a development in our relationship, from the point of data, then the information will be different. So, and and I think in the past couple of years, most of us have learned to talk to AI more or less. It is in English, but sometimes you have to be more specific to come up with the prompt. I I see Zia to be quite forgiving when it comes to writing a prompt. It understands you fairly easily. You don’t have to really get very regimented in formulating your sentence. Again, productivity.

Leland McFarland: Nice. And that really does sound nice, not having to open up 50 different apps to get 50 different pieces of information and then bring them together manually or anything like that. Just having Zia pull it out automatically just sounds like a dream.

Ali Shabdar: Absolutely.

Leland McFarland: All right, so wrapping it up. With these updates, where do you see Zoho One heading in the next few years, especially in supporting small businesses growth?

Ali Shabdar: Our focus is small businesses, multi-medium businesses, especially when it comes to, you know, development of Zoho One features. And we want to we want to make sure Zoho One gets out of the way of the customers, the users as much as possible. The best technology is invisible technology. So, if you can open the environment, if it’s a Spaces in five years, or it’s something else, or if it’s constantly, you know, on call to listen to you, to to be able to not only answer your questions, give your data in the best way possible, visually clear and all of that, but also become more and more proactive and, you know, kind of tap on your shoulder and remind you of things. The things you know that you don’t know, and the things that you didn’t know that you did not know. So I think again, simplification, more context. In the age of AI, the focus on human-computer interface is even more because the the lines are blurring. We are entering an age where we are literally talking to our computers, to our machines, and where where our workspace is becoming hybrid. By hybrid, I’m not talking about remote work. I’m talking about having digital colleagues, digital employees, where probably my my copywriter, my social media marketer, or a bunch of other people are actually agents. So we are moving towards that space with Zia Agents, with Ask Zia, with Zia as a whole empowering the entire platform. Today, if I want to use the overused iceberg cliché, you see the tip of Zoho, is Zia. A lot of it is is hidden with with the things it does in the background. It’s been doing for a long time before LLM advent. And we want to keep it that way. We want Zia to be there when you need it, but do a good bunch of things in the background and help you more and more to focus on what matters: doing your business and and scaling.

Leland McFarland: Sounds perfect. I can’t wait to see what comes next. I I’ve got to dive into what you’ve got put out now a little bit more for myself, but it’s it’s very interesting to see where Zoho is going with Zoho One. And you’re just adding more and more to it, making it such a good value, especially at what was it, $37 per person, I think it is?

Ali Shabdar: It is.

Leland McFarland: Yeah, I got that right. It’s it’s insane. That’s less than like a dollar an app. But perfect. Thank you for coming on. That’s all I got for you. And and yeah, thank you for for sharing.

Ali Shabdar: Thank you for having me. It was a pleasure.

Stepping back from this conversation with Ali, what stands out to me most is how much of Zoho One’s roadmap revolves around a simple, almost old-fashioned idea: get out of the user’s way. Small business owners don’t wake up excited about integrations, dashboards, or AI prompts. They care about finishing projects on time, serving customers well, protecting their data, and keeping costs predictable. The updates we discussed—Spaces for contextual work, more intuitive action panels and navigation, unified dashboards, Vani for collaborative ideation, stronger native integrations, and Smart Off-boarding—are all attempts to turn those goals into something the software quietly supports in the background.

From my perspective, a few themes matter for small businesses. First, context is becoming just as important as features. Whether it’s viewing all your deadlines through a single calendar, or seeing customer information pulled together in one Zia query, the value lies in how quickly you can understand what’s going on and act on it. Second, security and governance can’t be “someday” topics anymore. Tools like Zoho Directory and Smart Off-boarding may not feel glamorous, but they directly address real risks around user access and fragmented stacks—problems that hit small teams hardest when something goes wrong.

Finally, the way Zoho talks about Zia and “digital colleagues” hints at where small business software is heading: toward AI that doesn’t just answer questions, but anticipates needs, nudges you with timely insights, and handles more of the repetitive mental load. We’re still early in that journey, and there will be a learning curve for every team. But if Zoho One continues down the path Ali describes—more unification, more simplicity, more invisible intelligence—then the real opportunity for small businesses is not just saving a few hours a week. It’s being able to run a modern, data-driven operation without needing an enterprise-level IT department or a budget to match. As I continue to dig into these updates hands-on, that’s the lens I’ll use: does this help small business owners focus more on their business—and less on the spaghetti of software behind it?

This article, "Interview with Ali Shabdar: Zoho One’s Big Update for Small Business" was first published on Small Business Trends

As small business owners, we often wear more hats than we can count — designer, marketer, accountant, customer service rep, and everything in between. Balancing creativity with the demands of running a business can feel like walking a tightrope without a net. I know that feeling firsthand, and it’s one reason I was drawn to my recent conversation with Amanda Stewart, the founder of Mochi Kids. Amanda has built her brand from a handful of handmade T-shirts into a beloved children’s clothing company known for its minimalist design and inclusive themes — all while managing operations, production, and marketing largely on her own.

During our discussion at Adobe MAX 2025, Amanda opened up about how she evolved from selling on Etsy to running a brick-and-mortar store and how tools like Adobe Acrobat and AI-powered assistants are helping her manage the less glamorous side of entrepreneurship — contracts, timelines, and content calendars — with the same creativity she brings to her designs. What stood out to me most was how she’s using technology not just to streamline her work, but to expand her capacity to create.

For any small business owner trying to balance artistic vision with operational reality, Amanda’s story is both inspiring and instructive. Below is our full conversation, where she shares how creativity and productivity intersect in her business — and how technology is quietly helping her do it all.

Leland McFarland: Amanda, for those who may not be familiar, can you start by telling a little about, uh, Mochi Kids and what inspired you to stay, start the brand?

Amanda Stewart: So Mochi Kids is, it started as a children’s clothing brand almost 10 years ago. And we’ve evolved to include a brick-and-mortar store. I started my business super organically. I needed um, an a creative outlet and I wanted to create some tees for my son that matched his interests. He’s always been interested in things like science and space, but I couldn’t find though t-shirts with those designs at an aesthetic that I also liked, and so I used my design skills and started creating my own t-shirts. Um, and I sold them to friends and family, eventually strangers on Instagram started asking for them, and I opened an Etsy shop, and then a regular website, and then, um, a brick-and-mortar store. So.

Leland McFarland: Great. Um, how has design and creativity shaped the way that Mochi Kids connects with customers and builds its community?

Amanda Stewart: I would say design is like central to what I do. We have a very distinct aesthetic and, uh, a lot of people are are attracted to like our minimalist, um, cute designs. And our community is, um, very inclusive and we try to reflect that in our designs that we do. So we will, um, design based on themes that, um, make people feel included and represented. We have a lot of Asian-American themed designs and then designs that are a little more like on the nose promoting diversity and, um, things like that.

Leland McFarland: That’s great. So you’re here at Adobe MAX. Uh, what does this event mean to you as a creative entrepreneur?

Amanda Stewart: Yeah, this is my very first year at MAX and I’ve already… today’s the first day, right? We’re like halfway through the day and I’m already just kind of blown away by all the things that I’ve learned here. Um, I came to this conference with one goal in mind, which was how I can learn more about the AI tools that there are to increase the productivity in my business because I’m, you know, as a small business owner, I’m sure you are aware, we’re just often like one-woman shows and we don’t have full teams of, um, copywriters and marketing professionals and, um, production managers. It’s all kind of me. I’m wearing all the hats and so. Um, I’ve been learning a lot more about Adobe Acrobat this year and I knew that coming here I’d be able to find more tools to use to increase my productivity. So that… I like to just have one goal when I come in somewhere, something that feels attainable. And that was it for me is trying to figure out how to increase my productivity as like a one-woman show.

Leland McFarland: So how do you use, uh, Adobe Acrobat in, you know, your day-to-day?

Amanda Stewart: I use it a few different ways, uh, and I’m sure there are other ways to use it too. That’s one cool thing about coming here is I get to see other people speak about how they’re implementing it into their workflows. But for me, I love to use it as a place to keep all of my contracts. So our brand, um, we not only sell our own products, but we often will license our artworks to other, um, companies who want to use our designs. And that involves like a contract and deliverables and timelines and all of that is a lot to keep track of for one person when that’s just one of the many responsibilities that I have. So, um, I love Adobe Acrobat, um, PDF spaces, which is the new feature that they have, because I can upload all of my contracts there. I can also upload my email transcripts there and just any correspondence or anything I have regarding to the project. And then I can ask the AI assistant there like, “Please create a timeline of deliverables for this project,” and it will give that to me. So that’s one, one way I use it is like as a place to keep all of my contracts and to be able to communicate with those and get quick answers for what I’m looking for, as opposed to having to go back and scroll through my emails and be like, “I know they said something about this here sometime.” Um, and then kind of like the next step that I use it for is like, let’s say I want, I now have a timeline of my deliverables. I can ask it to create like a content calendar around it. And because it’s like an, uh, chat-based like AI assistant, I can really ask it whatever I want. Um, it will even give you like content ideas. So sometimes it’ll come up with like, okay, here’s a content calendar and then I’ll say, “Can you write me like a script for the first one?” and I’ll go in like greater detail to get exactly what I want from it. So, um, using it for content planning is great. And then another thing that I use it for is my production management. So I can go and say, like, you know, my spring launch, I know it’s going to be a certain day. And then I know how long the turnarounds are for each thing. Sorry, this is like so specific.

Leland McFarland: Go for it. Go for it.

Amanda Stewart: And I can just write exactly what I want, like, you know, “Please make a, um, production calendar for our spring launch.” Like, I, I know like production is two weeks, um, I have to order my materials like three weeks before that and just map out the whole year of like deadlines. Okay, I need to order my fabric for spring this day. I need to have items in hand by this day for my photo shoot this day. And, um, you know, throughout the year. So it’s a lot to manage as one person. Like how do you, how would I be on top of that? And before what I did is I had a paper calendar on my wall and then I would, once a year, fill out the whole calendar. And then I get behind, then my whole paper calendar system is messed up. Right? But this, I can very easily be like, “Okay, we got to move everything by two weeks. Move all the spring launch dates, everything.” So.

Leland McFarland: So it’s kind of become sort of a secretary, you know, like assistant, uh, overall.

Amanda Stewart: That’s like what the AI assistant is, I think is like, you can ask it to do things like that, like administrative, like planning kind of things and it does it for you. So. And I’m still, you know, learning how to implement all of this into my workflow, but it already it’s been changing my productivity and helping me to feel like more efficient and more organized.

Leland McFarland: Were there any kind of growing pains when it came to implementing this and and learning how to use it or was it fairly smooth?

Amanda Stewart: So, I would say, I think Adobe puts a lot of time into like the user experience and trying to make these intuitive. So I feel like on that front, it was really good. For me, personally, I’m not like a tech-savvy person, right off the bat, but um, I, I don’t think it was, like it was much easier than I was expecting it to be.

Leland McFarland: That’s good to hear. Yeah, it is not.

Leland McFarland: How does Adobe, uh, fit into the broader, um, creative toolkit, uh, alongside or Acrobat. How does Acrobat fit into the broader, uh, creative toolkits along with other Adobe apps like Illustrator or Photoshop? Do you use those as well?

Amanda Stewart: Yeah, so I use Illustrator and Photoshop all the time, like on a daily basis. And when they asked me to be an Acrobat ambassador, I was like, “Oh, I guess I use Acrobat too,” but I I wasn’t as familiar with the software and all of the capabilities. So, but I was a little surprised. I was like, “Oh, wouldn’t like Illustrator be a better fit for me?” But, um, yeah, I use Adobe Illustrator, um, Adobe Express, Photoshop, and, um, now Adobe Acrobat all the time. I would say like as a creative person, I, I had this reaction that I told you about that I was like, “Oh, you want me to be an Acrobat ambassador? Okay.” But as a small business owner, it makes so much sense. I wasn’t seeing it from like a productivity and like workflow standpoint. I just kind of seeing it as like a design creative standpoint, but every like creative person that I know struggles with the keeping deadlines, planning, managing contracts, managing files. So they really do go hand in hand, like as far as creatives also need this tool to administratively be able to keep on top of things.

Leland McFarland: I see. Good answer on that.

Leland McFarland: Do you use, uh, the, uh, features in Acrobat such as e-signatures, commenting, um, reviewing PDFs together with, uh, teams or customers or anything like that?

Amanda Stewart: I definitely use e-signature all the time. Um, before I started using that, I would like paint my signature on using Photoshop. But now it’s like much more legit and I can send it securely and I can ask for someone’s signature in a way more like official manner than just like, “Okay, here’s the JPEG, like sign it and send me a photo back.” But this way, you know, it has an electronic signature and they can’t the document can’t be altered after it’s been signed. So yeah, I’ve been loving that tool. Um, I don’t use as much like team collaboration because like I mentioned, it’s mostly me doing all of the work, but, um, hopefully someday I will get to that point.

Leland McFarland: I’ve ran into that too. Uh, I used to have a salesperson who would send an Excel file, not a PDF or anything like that, an a raw Excel file, and one time it came back differently. So, I, yeah, and someone had modified the contract in their favor and…

Amanda Stewart: Ooh.

Leland McFarland: Yeah, so I I get it. You know, I I love the age of these digital signatures and you know, glad that Adobe has that as well.

Amanda Stewart: And one nice thing about PDF spaces is you could upload both of those contracts and you could say, “Please find me any differences between these contracts” in case someone does, like through their revision process, sneak a change in.

Leland McFarland: Yes, that that would be nice.

Leland McFarland: Um, many, uh, creative entrepreneurs struggle to balance, uh, artistry and uh, business paperwork. Um, how has Acrobat helped you bridge that gap?

Amanda Stewart: For sure, that is definitely a struggle. Um, I love like the PDF spaces like I mentioned to keep all my contracts organized. And I also think the Creative Cloud is a great tool. Um, so I can access, you know, designs that I’ve been working on on my desktop on my phone if I need to. And, um, yeah, I I’m almost prefer that to my Google Drive, which is what I I’ve been using before because it’s like, um, it’s just easier to find things, I feel like. Like the searchability is better and I can see like the image preview of whatever I’m working on, because sometimes in Google Drive, it’s just like, you know, a file looks like a file folder and like, sometimes it’ll show the image preview, but not all the time. So then I just have to like click on the photo image till I get to the one that I’m looking for. So.

Leland McFarland: Um, do you find, do you find that, Acrobat makes administrative tasks like invoicing, legal forms, or proposals, uh, feel a bit more manageable, uh, even creative?

Amanda Stewart: Yes. Um, so I do have Acrobat on my phone and I love that I can edit PDFs from my phone. I didn’t know I could do that until this year. So what I was doing before is like, sometimes I’d even like take a JPEG and then I would like Photoshop like a box over it to clear out whatever was there and then a new text box, which was like such a, it’s such a clunky way to do it. But yeah, I do love like on my phone, I’ll edit PDFs and send invoices that way, or I I have to send purchase orders as well, like when I buy um fabric or whatever we’re making. And I love doing that on my phone. A lot of old school people will like require you to have a purchase order from your brand with your header, with the all of your company info before they’ll sell you something. So.

Leland McFarland: Yeah. Well, it helps, make those of, those official orders a little bit easier, right?

Amanda Stewart: Yeah. Mhm. I can just, I just have the it in my creative cloud and I can just edit it real quick to what I want on it to say.

Leland McFarland: Nice.

Leland McFarland: Um, what advice would you give other small business owners about, uh, bringing the same creativity they put into design into their business documents?

Amanda Stewart: Okay, let me ask you that again.

Leland McFarland: Okay. Please. Sorry. What advice would you give other small business owners about bringing the same creativity they put into their designs into their business documents?

Amanda Stewart: I feel like a lot of, um, creative small business owners that I know, we have, like I said, the similar struggle of like staying organized and being on top of the administrative things. And a lot of the times these things are like, for me, it’s like a weight on my shoulders a little bit and it’s like a thing on the back of my mind that is like a nagging that I need to like do or fix. And I feel like just starting a new system of like keeping things organized and, um, it’s like really freeing and can help you in your creative practice to feel like you have more like mental space for that and you’re not as like concerned as much. Yeah, I would say that’s definitely been true in my life. Like the tasks that I don’t like to do as a creative are now feel like a little more attainable.

Leland McFarland: It’s easier to be creative when you’ve cleaned your room first, right?

Amanda Stewart: Yeah. Yeah.

Leland McFarland: A little more order, organized. You don’t have that hanging in the back of your head going, “Oh my gosh, that sock over there. It’s bugging me.”

Amanda Stewart: Yeah, I am someone who has to clean like my entire house before I can get any work done. So, I can relate.

Leland McFarland: I’m I’m the exact opposite. I’m more of the I’ll do the administrative, I’ll do the paperwork. Creativity is not necessarily my forte, so.

Amanda Stewart: Oh, yeah.

Leland McFarland: So, I I can make processes, I can do paperwork. My wife though, she’ll she’ll handle the creative part.

Amanda Stewart: It’s funny, everyone has like their strengths and struggles and yeah.

Leland McFarland: All right. What are some of your takeaways from what you’ve seen so far from Adobe MAX, uh, this year? Um, have have you gotten into like the Adobe MAX or uh, the Acrobat uh, demonstration? Have you, is there anything there that you’ve uh, seen that has piqued your interest?

Amanda Stewart: Um, I will say I did not know anything about Firefly until today. And, um, as someone who has a clothing brand, I think it’ll be super helpful for me to like mock up my designs, um, with Firefly, because I, I use Photoshop, you know, to often like move my design from Illustrator onto like a piece of clothing. And I’ll do it manually, Photoshopping it over, and with Firefly, I can just like “eye drop that, eye drop that” and then it puts it together for me. So it’s going to be way easier to make mockups and do any kind of Photoshopping. So, that was a big takeaway for me. Um, yeah, I think I’m going to save a lot of time Photoshopping things. And then, I, I, I used Premiere like maybe a couple times, but I’m not like super versed in it. And, um, the Premiere app looks like it’s going to be awesome, too. Did you go to the keynote this morning?

Leland McFarland: I did.

Amanda Stewart: Yeah. So that… there’s just so many things. I’m like…

Leland McFarland: I was impressed. Is that how it is every year? There’s just like, oh man.

Brian Domingo: So, yeah, peek behind the curtain. Uh, you know, being PR, we work on these announcements, you know, obviously collaboration with our product teams and engineers for months. So like, just kind of the keynote is a, it’s very celebratory for us PR people because it’s like, we brought it to life with with the product engineers and with the product marketers, and we put their innovations to words and announced it to the world. So, yeah, it’s it’s like that every year. We have like a lot of announcements and it’s just so the labor of love over the course of a lot of time.

Leland McFarland: Is it Is it hard to sit on these awesome new features?

Brian Domingo: Not for me because I get to play with it internally before you guys. But, um, you know, like, I have friends who are also entrepreneurs and small business owners and creatives and they tell me about the stuff they’re working on. I’m like, “Wow, I wish I could tell you about this, or wish I could get you on the limited beta for this,” but, you know, that’s that’s kind of the fun part of it, too.

Leland McFarland: All right. How do you see tools like Acrobat evolving to support creative small businesses in the next few years? I mean, what would you like to see?

Amanda Stewart: I feel like Adobe Acrobat is on the right track as far as, um, like I mentioned, making it easier for us creative people to stay organized and the AI assistant. Um, I’ve been telling so many of my friends about the PDF spaces. Um, yeah, I have a friend who runs a nonprofit in Uganda and she has like a case file on every child in her, um, school that she runs over there. And it’s like a paper, it’s a paper case file. And so I’m like, “You got to get, you know, on this so that when you are emailed stuff about this kid, you can just file it in there.” So I would say just more tools for like productivity behind the scenes, kind of contracts. I think that’s what Acrobat is kind of known for is, um, doing like a paper trail, but electronically. So all that kind of like file management. I mean, if I knew the answer to this, I could probably be rich because I would come up with an incredible software. But yeah, I would love to see just more tools to help with that.

Leland McFarland: All right, final question. What’s next for Mochi Kids and how does technology, especially tools like Acrobat, play in your future plans?

Amanda Stewart: Hm, that’s a good question because I always said that opening a store is like my old lady job. So when I get like burnt out of doing my clothing brand, I can be like a shopkeeper and work in my store. And that still sounds very appealing, um, to kind of, you know, retire but like still own a business and work. Um, but I think I want to get back into doing more apparel. Um, it’s been, like we’ve been kind of going up and down with creating our own custom styles versus buying like blank sweatshirts and t-shirts that are already made. And, uh, yeah, we we are developing some new clothing styles right now. We just developed a new t-shirt pattern that’s really cute. And we have sweatshirts that are being made right now in LA. And then we have pajamas on order. And then we have like a cute woven like unisex kid pant that hopefully next year will come out. So, just getting more into doing more clothing styles. I think, um, a lot of my competitors have gone out of business, which is very sad, in the last few years or stopped making clothing because it’s a challenge. And a lot of the manufacturing in the US in apparel has gone overseas. And, um, and now overseas manufacturers, like with the tariffs, it’s so much more money to create things. So I’ve seen a lot of my fellow clothing brand people close, other fellow clothing brands. So I I do see like a gap in the market for, um, made in the US clothing for children.

Leland McFarland: Well, here’s here’s hoping, you know, you can get into that market and continue to grow.

Amanda Stewart: Thank you.

Leland McFarland: Well, that’s all the questions I had for you.

Amanda Stewart: Awesome. Thank…

Listening to Amanda Stewart talk about her journey with Mochi Kids reminded me how much small business success depends on both passion and adaptability. It’s one thing to have a great idea; it’s another to sustain it over a decade while evolving with technology, market shifts, and creative demands. Amanda’s ability to keep her brand fresh — from developing new apparel lines to integrating digital tools like Adobe Acrobat and Firefly — is a testament to her resilience and willingness to learn.

What resonated most was her practical perspective on using AI and Acrobat as part of her creative workflow. She isn’t replacing her artistry with automation — she’s augmenting it. For small business owners, that’s the real takeaway. Tools that once seemed designed for big enterprises are now becoming indispensable companions for one-person operations. They can help us reclaim time, reduce mental clutter, and refocus on what we love most — whether that’s design, storytelling, or building community.

Amanda’s insight that organization fuels creativity struck a chord: when your digital workspace is clear, your mind is free to explore new ideas. It’s a principle many entrepreneurs overlook until they experience the difference.

For me, this conversation underscored something simple but powerful — technology isn’t just changing how small businesses run; it’s changing how we think, create, and thrive. And as Amanda’s journey shows, the best creativity often grows from a foundation of order and innovation.

This article, "Interview with Amanda Stewart – Founder of Mochi Kids" was first published on Small Business Trends

After spending time at Adobe MAX this year, one announcement stood out for small business owners looking to level up their marketing: the introduction of Adobe Express’s new AI Assistant. I recently sat down with Parimal Deshpande, who does global product marketing for Adobe Express, to unpack what this update really means for entrepreneurs who juggle design, promotion, and operations all at once.

Over the past few years, Adobe Express has grown from a simple design app into a complete creative platform for non-designers—people who need professional-looking graphics, ads, and social posts without spending hours learning complicated software. The new AI Assistant, announced at MAX, pushes that even further. It promises conversational creation and editing—so instead of hunting through menus or endlessly tweaking templates, you can describe what you want and refine it in real time.

In our interview, I asked Parimal how these updates translate into tangible benefits for small businesses. We discussed how Express helps owners stand out in a world of look-alike templates, how Firefly AI keeps content “safe for commercial use,” and how built-in brand kits, ad integrations, and one-click resizes can save hours of repetitive work. For small teams who need to get from concept to content in minutes, this conversation offers insight into where creative tools are heading next—and how to make them work for you.

Leland McFarland: All right, so why don’t we start by introducing yourself and uh what you do and then maybe talk a little bit about uh Adobe Express.

Parimal Deshpande: Great. So my name is uh Parimal. I lead Express uh product marketing uh in a global role. And uh I I like to describe my job as just bringing the best of what Express has to um all kinds of audiences, uh including the small business owners. So excited to be here with you. Some…

Leland McFarland: So, Adobe Express, they they came out with some um, well, you know, at least, you know, one really big um announcement, you know, for for uh at at Adobe Max. Uh want to let us know what it is?

Parimal Deshpande: Yes. Uh before that, maybe I’ll just take 30 seconds to explain what is Express and the kind of…

Leland McFarland: Yeah, go for it.

Parimal Deshpande: …the the vision behind it, right? What we found is uh for all kinds of businesses, including small business owners, uh there is a need for a a design and a creative tool that can help them, you know, grow their business ultimately. And it has to be very accessible, easy to use, and uh brings the best of Adobe. We felt that’s a big opportunity for Adobe because yes, we are known for the flagship products, uh but why not bring the best of those products into one easy-to-use tool or an app that anyone can create uh promotional content, marketing content, you know, small business content and accessible wherever they are. Could be desktop, could be mobile, uh iPhone, Android, and it’s a freemium product. So they can start free and at some stage if you want to get more, you can always go to the paid plan. So that’s the kind of vision for Express and uh we’ve had really good momentum with the small business owners. Now to answer your question, the other exciting thing we just announced and it’s a big announcement we just made uh yesterday was we announced for the first time ever all new AI assistant for Adobe Express. Now, why this is a game changer and why why why all customers we’ve been talking to are really like this is this is the right um uh major feature to announce is because what we’ve heard is templates are helpful. Yes, people went from the blank canvas to the templates, but what we hear especially from small business owners is that if you just use templates, your business looks like everyone else’s business. And that’s a problem for a small business owner. You ultimately want to differentiate yourself if you’re, you know, uh from from the from the others. And what, and this is where AI assistant uh comes in. It makes something that is simple to use even simpler, number one. Number two is yes, you can prompt. A lot of AI assistants can also prompt, but the the game changer here is you can prompt and edit. So it’s the prompt, you know, anything and edit everything, which is powerful because sometimes people don’t quite know what exactly they want and prompting is still a skill, it’s a language that is still evolving for all of us. So the hybrid combination of prompting and editing is a game changer. And behind the scenes, the way we have done this is it’s very content aware. So the AI engine knows when you say something like change a t-shirt or change this, it knows what you mean the object. And so it’s very precise. So it gives you the best of prompting, so makes it simple, and uh it also lets you edit when you want to just take it over, right? And then the uh the last thing I’ll say about AI assistant is it’s powered by Firefly AI, which is safe for commercial use. And that is important for small business owners because you want to use AI that is not trained on other people’s IP. You want to use AI that is ethically right, it’s trained on the content that you have licensed the rights to. And that safeguards your business from potential uh trouble down the line. And so we are really happy to say that uh the AI that powers Adobe Express is safe for commercial use.

Leland McFarland: How? So where I I I mean you got to train it on something. So what do you train all of these?

Parimal Deshpande: We have, we have a massive like millions, millions of like Adobe stock content that we have licensed to that we pay creatives for and we compensate them fairly for that. And that is what we train it on.

Leland McFarland: Okay. So they’re not going to potentially go after people for, you know, utilizing…

Parimal Deshpande: No. No, I mean, that’s the whole idea. So, uh, it’s a bit of a buzzword, is safe for commercial use, and this is what I say just to explain what that means for people, right? Is ultimately everybody wants to be treated fairly, right? Creatives also want to be treated fairly. So, as a creative, you don’t want your content to be trained by an AI and you don’t get compensated for it. So we don’t do that, right? So we have a huge collection of excellent high quality uh stock content, whether it’s photos, videos, gifs, you know, fonts, all kinds of things. And they’re really high quality because we have to stand by the Adobe quality. And we that’s that’s our contribution to all our customers is that whatever you get, it’s not just simple, but it’s also Adobe quality. And the kicker is that it’s all um uh AI that is trained on content we have licensed to. And therefore it’s safe for commercial use.

Leland McFarland: All right. So the uh press release that you put out uh talks about from concept to content in minutes. Uh can you share uh an example of how a small business might be able to use uh the assistant uh for real world projects, say social post, flyer or product demo?

Parimal Deshpande: Yeah. So you have to understand what makes a small business a small business owner? What’s unique challenges and opportunities for a small business owner? It’s really starts there. If you if you summarize, a small business owner has limited resources, not necessarily a lot of specialization, right? Limited resources and has to wear multiple hats. And the person could be a small business owner, also marketer, also salesperson, also might be uh, you know, actually doing the work itself. So so, and then time is limited. So there’s a lot of stresses, time is limited, resources are limited, and the skills are limited. Um, so the real world example for that would be, okay, given this constraint, like what are the kind of things they do and what is ultimately the opportunity? Ultimately, the opportunity is for everyone wants to grow their business. That’s why it’s called a small business. They have to grow their business. And they have to do so in a way that uh makes it authentic for them, helps them differentiate their product, their brand, their service from the 10 others who who are also trying to do the same thing. And uh so in practical terms, that means use cases like you want to create a logo, right? That stands out. You want to create a a flyer that stands out. You want to create social media that drives more eyeballs and that gets more followers because these are all things that are ultimately going to bring more audience and more customers to your small business. So, so, so from that perspective, Adobe Express works on desktop and and mobile, uh iPhone and Android, so it’s very accessible. They can start with the freemium product if they’d like to. Premium is also uh commercially safe to use. And you can start there and start creating all these use cases. And uh AI assistant will make it even easier. You can start with the template, then you can change that with an AI assistant. You can start with an AI assistant and then start taking it over with editing. All types of permission combinations are possible. And you will have in minutes something from scratch to completion based on, you know, your your brand aesthetics. If you don’t have a brand, you can create a brand kit in uh in Express. And if you have a brand kit, you can import that. And that way, anything that you create is sort of on brand as well. It looks like everything else you already have created. And consistency is key because that’s ultimately your brand value.

Leland McFarland: So,

Parimal Deshpande: I’d add maybe one more thing that I forgot. That’s a good one too, is the other thing we have seen in small businesses is you can also create ads. Uh, small businesses can create ads. Ads uh up until now often was uh difficult to create and you have to know what you’re creating. It was quite sophisticated to use various ad managers, but what we’ve done with Express is we have built integrations with all the kind of major ad platforms. And what that means is you can create a piece of content, let’s say it’s social. And if you like the piece of content, now you can turn that into an ad very quickly through our ad integrations, whether it’s with uh TikTok, it’s with YouTube, now Amazon, you know, Meta, and things like that. So a lot of the ad creation is in the creative. How how good is the creative? And because it’s Adobe content, often it’s a higher quality bar and therefore it just performs better. And it’s easy to use. So now anyone can create an ad uh in minutes to drive uh the business forward.

Leland McFarland: Is there integration? I I think I remember seeing like the reach and stuff like that on the uh on the uh demo that was on the keynote. So is there like integrations and could I do like AB testing and?

Parimal Deshpande: Yes, you can. Yes. So there are integrations in the uh uh with the ad managers and Express, these are add-ons that you can add depending on which platform you want to create the ad for. And then it can tell you, you know, what it’s going to perform before you actually publish, potentially what the reach is and what you could change before you actually publish.

Leland McFarland: Okay.

Parimal Deshpande: So that’s very powerful.

Leland McFarland: What what other kind of integrations does it have?

Parimal Deshpande: LinkedIn. LinkedIn is one where if you have a small business that is more geared towards uh business professionals as a service, let’s say you’re a consulting shop, your audience is going to be on LinkedIn. And LinkedIn is uh is a big partner, very keen to uh to grow this because they see that uh people who can create businesses who can create ads just, you know, uh gets the word out faster. And now you’ve made this easy. So it’s ads made easy, just like anything else made easy.

Leland McFarland: So, what about small business owners who are just maybe maybe a little scared of doing a prompt, you know, they got they they’re thinking in their head, okay, I got to make it really good. What would you say for those people?

Parimal Deshpande: I’d say, um, it is a lot easier than you think it is. And sometimes you just have to take the first step forward and not worry about getting perfection. As soon as you take this first step forward, just go check out Express and create something simple. Create something simple and you will find how delightful it is. It is based on whatever use case you want to create. You can create a flyer, you can create a poster, you can create a QR code, you can create a logo, whatever it is that you want to create, take the first step forward. What we found is as soon as you take the first step forward, the creative confidence shoots up. Right? Seeing is, you know, just by doing it, you believe. And and then the second, third, fourth steps are incredibly easier. And in that process, you know, play with it. Um, I would just say, take the pressure off, play with it. It’s a tool that is going to help you grow your business, you know? So, go for it. And uh that’s what we hear is a lot of the initial hesitation is is sometimes almost in the head. Once you take the leap of faith, the first step is all that matters.

Leland McFarland: Okay. So, Express includes uh millions of assets and templates. Uh how does the AI assistant help users find the right look and or layout faster, especially if they aren’t sure where they want to start?

Parimal Deshpande: You can often start with uh a template for inspiration if you’d like, by just searching for templates. There’s millions of templates. So, no matter what types. So, for example, Halloween is coming up right now. A lot of small business owners will often do seasonal sales and promotions to tap into the customer psychology. There’s Halloween, there’s Black Friday, there’s holidays, there’s December, right? So there templates that are culturally relevant, that are inspired by all these themes, for example. So you can start with that as as a theme, right? And then from there, if you have uh if you have a brand kit you already have used, you can import that and make it like that. If you don’t, you can set up a brand kit, and you can start there. Let’s say, you know, you like a certain look, or maybe you want to refresh your brand, you set up a brand kit, and then make assets that are very similar. And then the other uh magical part about Express is that it can resize. One of the delightful features coming think think about how easy it is to use is what we found is when you like a design, right? When you like something, okay, you created a flyer for Thanksgiving, let’s say. But you have 40% off on your small business order. Great. If you like it, now you want to share this with as many people as possible with as many platforms as possible. You’ll often have your Instagram account, or a Facebook account, or a TikTok account, or a YouTube account, or whatever account that you are promoting your small business on. With one click, you can resize that asset into 100 plus different sizes. Uh, YouTube thumbnail, you know, all kinds of things in just one click. It’s magical.

Leland McFarland: Nice.

Parimal Deshpande: Yeah. It saves a lot of time.

Leland McFarland: It saves a lot of time.

Parimal Deshpande: It saves a lot of time. And the the other thing we have seen as a pattern is when you like something, you can make copies and start changing it. So if you like your poster for Thanksgiving, well, clearly you like it because it’s your brand, you like some colors, it makes you what your business is about. It it is unique to you. If it speaks to you, you can now make copies and only change it, change elements that you need to change. For example, you can turn the Black Friday poster or a flyer into a Thanksgiving, uh sorry, into a New Year’s, uh Halloween, Cyber Monday, spring sale, summer sale, what have you.

Leland McFarland: Great. All right, so on on branding, you mentioned um, briefly, the uh brand kits and and and all that. Can you kind of go into a little bit more and how that can really help small businesses kind of um stay on brand and and also how maybe the person who’s kind of making the brand kit wouldn’t necessarily use it, but maybe like their employees. It’s like handing out…

Parimal Deshpande: Yeah. Yeah. That’s a good question. There are two two questions you asked me there. What does what does what does setting of a brand kit mean, you know? And the second is like the collaboration, the partnership between various teams, right? On the first one, what is a brand kit ultimately, right? And the brand kit is simply how do you express your business? What is the logo? What is the colors? What are the fonts? Uh the brand elements together they make a brand kit. Um, most small business owners have have an idea for a brand kit, even though that term brand might be a bit more marketing term, but they know what they are. There’s a logo for whatever small business you have. That’s uh So you have a brand kit. Can you just create that in Express that would be set up for all future users? So so it’s a simple process that we allow in the in in Express to create your own brand kit. And now the question is, how do you scale it internally, right? What we have found is um, often there’s a marketing or a brand person, right, who will set this up. And then you want this to be self-served by various people in the company, right? So that they can all create this. And what you can do is you can create templates that include the brand kits and you can lock down certain elements. So if it’s a flyer for um for uh Halloween, let’s say, you’re going to lock down the logo, you’re going to lock down the type of font you can use because that’s part of the brand kit. And then you can give it to your employees to say, you know what, uh remix this. And the things that are locked down cannot be changed. The things that can be changed, like text can easily be changed. So Halloween can then become Black Friday, and then become uh Christmas, you know, uh and those can be changed. And that’s the collaboration piece we do. The other scenario we also do is often small business owners have an agency they work with, a small agency they work with, right? They may not do the initial setup in house. And we see so many examples here with our ambassadors is these are small agencies, one or two persons, small agency, but they work with small business owners uh to serve them. And so the agency, which is essentially an external brand person, can set up these brand kits for the client, and then the client can self-serve these things all day long without needing to every time pay for the agency. So the cost goes down. So there’s a big cost saving, and there’s a big uh uh empowerment. Why not use our people and a self-serve tool, and you can do this in house very easy.

Leland McFarland: So, are there any ways to ask for permission to go out of the locks? So, say for instance, you block down um fonts, but it’s Halloween and I want to use this slimy font that is not in the brand kit. Is there a way that I could then like ask for permission to be able to use…

Parimal Deshpande: Oh, yes. So, uh Express is by design very collaborative. In fact, collaboration is built into Express. So every time a brand person can create a brand kit, obviously they have access to the files. We can request, you know, uh you can have soft locks, for example, you can have hard locks and you can have soft locks. Hard locks are things that you cannot change. Soft locks are things that we don’t recommend you change, but it’s okay if you change, right? Uh so there are things that you can do. Plus we can collaborate, right? We are commenting and back and forth in terms of, “Hey, I like this, but actually on second thoughts, I like, I want to change this.” And then it’s a conversation between the brand person and and every everyone in the company. It’s very flexible in that way. It it really does, yeah. Uh the other thing I’ll just say is sometimes based on how big the small business is, you can have multiple brands. Right? So if you have as a small business owner, if you have multiple brands, you can have multiple brand kits also. So there and then there are concept of projects within that. So projects, certain people have access to projects, and that way the brand and the team people working on brand A versus brand B can have two different projects completely. It’s very flexible and it scales according to the needs of small business owners.

Leland McFarland: Nice. All right. So for small business owners who may feel intimidated by AI tools, I mean, it’s everywhere and they are getting bombarded left and right and it almost feels like every week you have to learn something new. Yeah. Um, what would you say to convince them that this that Adobe Express is approachable?

Parimal Deshpande: Um, I’d say I completely understand the sentiment. If you look back, AI came into our lives three years back, give or take. If you look back three years back, none of us had much knowledge about using AI. And look here we are, right? So sometimes it’s give yourself more credit than you think, right? Uh, give yourself more credit. You have, to all our customers, I would say, you already are well on the path of learning AI already in just very short three years. Right? Um, second is I would say frame it as an opportunity for what it can do for you. Right? And when you just take the first step, just take the first step, uh, you will find, “Oh my God, like all the mundane things that I didn’t like to do, it can now do it for me.” And therefore, then I can focus on things that I really care about doing that only a human being can do, right? The creativity that uh that inspires us all, that makes us human, that is going to come from human beings. Thinking about your business, you need some head space to think about your business. That’s the number one problem we hear from small business owners is they’re always like drowning, wearing multiple hats. So now this gives you space to think about your business by offloading things that AI can help you with. And uh about Adobe Express, if you notice, uh it’s very flexible, right? You can use it when you want on your terms. If you just rather do simple editing, that’s fine, too. There’s an option, you know, there’s an option to use it when you want, and uh when you’re ready for it. So it’s not going to be forced on you, but it’s very, very powerful, and we encourage you at least take the first step.

Leland McFarland: So, what advice would you give small businesses uh just starting to integrate AI into their creative process? Uh where should they begin with Adobe Express?

Parimal Deshpande: I’d say, first of all, I would just say, uh, definitely understand the risks of AI that is not safe for commercial use. And I say that because choice is a good thing for customers. There are lots of choices, but they’re not all good choices. So I would just say, first of all, please read whatever AI you’re going to use, read what it’s going to be trained on. This is where we feel good about Express, both because we care about small businesses, and also it’s the right ethical thing to do, is to make sure the AI is trained on content and you have rights to that content. So that’s the first step. Second is start, take your first step on uh on your desktop or your uh mobile device of choice. It’s uh Express works wherever you are, and uh it’s a free product. Try free, give it a shot. Create just one thing with AI or with the template, just start somewhere and you’ll see what magical things it can do for you. And then after that, you will not stop using it.

Leland McFarland: All right, looking ahead, crystal ball. What’s what’s what’s in store for the future? How do you see uh tools like AI assistant uh shaping the future of small business marketing um over the next few years?

Parimal Deshpande: I’d say the small business marketing AI will help them, and Express tools, and Express AI is part of Adobe Express. So easy-to-use tools that are delightful to use and high quality and commercially safe will help them unlock even more opportunities than they would have otherwise today. Uh it is a force multiplier. It is literally your hidden superpower for small business owners particularly because of the constraints that a small business owner has, that you want a creative tool that is there to help you uh offload things that you’d rather not do. And then even when you do them, they’re on brand and help you grow your business. Uh I see that future just, you know, multiplying. I also see people really appreciating how the value of being unique and having a unique authentic voice and your brand show up as a small business owner. So you don’t look like everyone else. And therefore, not using templates that everyone else is using. So this is an opportunity for you to get beyond your templates, beyond the templates to create something that is truly speaks to your business.

Leland McFarland: Nice. Well, that’s what I have for you. Um, thank you for your time.

Parimal Deshpande: Thank you for your time. Thank you.

Leland McFarland: All right.

Looking back on that discussion, it’s clear that Adobe Express isn’t just keeping pace with creative trends—it’s reshaping how small businesses approach design and marketing. What struck me most is how approachable it has become. Between the new AI Assistant and Express’s expanding library of templates, stock assets, and brand management features, small business owners no longer have to choose between quality and speed.

If you’re thinking about trying it, start by setting up a brand kit to keep your look consistent. Lock in your logo, fonts, and colors so every post or flyer you make stays on brand. From there, use the AI Assistant to brainstorm and refine campaigns—swap out imagery, adjust tone, or reformat designs without losing control. Once you have content that works, take advantage of Express’s integrations to turn your posts into ads across LinkedIn, Meta, TikTok, and other platforms with just a few clicks.

The most important takeaway for me was Parimal’s emphasis on creative confidence. Small business owners often hesitate to experiment with new tools, but Express seems designed to remove that barrier. The AI handles the heavy lifting, while you stay focused on authenticity and growth. For anyone who walked away from Adobe MAX wondering how AI could realistically fit into their day-to-day marketing, Adobe Express just might be the most practical place to start.

This article, "Interview with Parimal Deshpande – Global Product Marketing for Adobe Express" was first published on Small Business Trends

As small business owners, we all know that growth comes with both opportunity and challenge. Scaling efficiently—without losing control over operations, finances, or customer experience—has always been one of the toughest balancing acts. For years, technology has promised to make that journey easier, yet many of us still find ourselves managing a patchwork of systems that barely communicate with each other. At SuiteWorld 2025, Oracle NetSuite’s annual user conference, that conversation took center stage—particularly around how artificial intelligence is shifting what’s possible for small and midsize businesses.

I sat down with Sam Levy, Senior Vice President of Growth and Execution at Oracle NetSuite, to talk about what’s new, what’s next, and how the company continues to shape its vision for small businesses that want to compete like large enterprises—but without the complexity. From the debut of NetSuite Next and its conversational AI “Ask Oracle” assistant, to real-world success stories from customers who doubled their revenue without doubling staff, Levy offered a front-row look at how automation and integrated systems are redefining small business efficiency.

For entrepreneurs considering when to move beyond QuickBooks or spreadsheets, or for those already seeking smarter, faster ways to grow, this discussion highlights where NetSuite sees the greatest potential—and what small business leaders should be doing now to prepare for the AI-driven future ahead.

Leland McFarland All right, I am here at Oracle’s NetSuite, um, SuiteWorld 2025 with Sam Levy, SVP of Growth and Execution at Oracle NetSuite. Um, got a few questions for you.

So, SuiteWorld always brings exciting uh updates. Uh, for those who couldn’t attend, what’s the key message Oracle NetSuite wants small and mid-sized business business owners to take away this year?

Sam Levy Obviously. Well, well, SuiteWorld’s our annual user conference. And what’s more exciting, this is, I think our 12th or 13th year doing SuiteWorld as a as a conference where we bring all of our customers together and talk about strategies of what we’re where we’re going. Our theme this year is “No Limits.”

And it’s really been practiced into “no limits of scaling your business.” And whether you’re a small or medium-sized business, scaling, growth can be hard. And so the things that we are talking about and the themes we’re talking about is “no limits” is how do companies scale? What’s the current trends of scaling? How is technology an enabler? And now this exponential multiplier, what we call AI, how is AI going to help me scale or how should I be, you know, consuming AI in our business?

Leland McFarland Perfect. So, NetSuite has long uh served growing companies. How would you describe its current vision for SMB companies compared to five years ago?

Sam Levy Well, the vision has much been the same for us uh for NetSuite for since 27 years ago when Evan started the company and really being one, a revolutionary company that was cloud-first.

So, we only service cloud, we only deliver in the cloud, and that was from the born-on date 27 years ago through today. And so, part of what our transformation strategy of helping small and medium businesses is to transform their business. One, to do that digital experience of how do you take and do that digital transformation? Digital transformation is not just moving your books from on-prem to the cloud.

That is kind of just a functional shift and lift of technology. Processes have to evolve in that, and so there’s a maturation that occurs. And our biggest strength is one, we go to business and go to market by industry. So, we understand your industry, what it takes to operate your industry. And so, whether you’re a healthcare company or you’re a manufacturer or you’re a retailer, there’s a different set of automation and industry metrics that you need to solve your business issues.

And we come to small businesses and help them mature that. So, when we talk about digital transformation, the first thing is looking at is, how do we help businesses just get control of their current environment? Look at their processes and then unify them. Because we’re a suite for each industry, we offer all the components to run your business. And it’s really nice for a small or mid-sized business that they really want to act like a big company, but they want the processes and the scaling of the entry points to be for the small and medium-sized companies. Exactly what we do. Provide them that level of industry comfort, and then let them scale.

Leland McFarland Perfect. So, for many small businesses, they see uh ERP or Enterprise Resource Planning, um, they they kind of view it as enterprise software. I mean, it’s kind of in the name. Um, and it’s kind of meant for larger or maybe medium-sized businesses. Uh, how is NetSuite breaking down that perception to make ERP accessible for smaller companies?

Sam Levy Yeah. This is something that we introduced a decade ago with the conversation of “SuiteSuccess.” And SuiteSuccess was essentially is taking an industry playbook and saying, “For this industry, here is your stairway.” Start with financials first, then add on operations, then add on sales, then add on your supply chain, then add on commerce, whatever it might be for your industry.

And what’s the nice part about that is how we scale down for businesses that are very simple, but yet they’re going to evolve, is we have that stairway approach. Making it really fast and simple for them to join NetSuite, and then have a growth patch, you know, pattern with capabilities that they never have to leave. It’s simply as kind of what we look at probably with our iPhones. You get onto the iPhone platform, you buy a few modules and applications, and the outset is, you need some more capacity, you just turn it on. You need another module, you get another application and you go with it. Same with business, making it really easy for a business platform to start the financials and then grow the rest of the way.

Leland McFarland Perfect. So, what are some of the biggest pain points that you see small and medium-sized businesses that are facing um that are they’re facing today, um, that NetSuite directly helps to solve?

Sam Levy Most businesses today, and I was just, you know, meeting with hundreds of customers this week, have a business need for certain systems and requirements. They have business issues. And whether they need to fill out a timesheet, they don’t have tracking, they need some information for human capital and talent, they can’t close the books, they have business issues. And I think what one of the things that NetSuite’s making it really easy for companies to do is, jeez, if you have these ripe issues, how do we help you, you know, transform your business? And that’s been the secret sauce for for us, I think is is the first part of your question. I think the second part was, how are we transforming? What was the second part of your question?

Leland McFarland Um, how are are you using or what what’s involved with the NetSuite? You know, what what does NetSuite have that can kind of really address those uh pain points?

Sam Levy Okay. So the the main thing I was talking about is, well, I was saying they say business issues that arise from small businesses, they want to grow quickly or they want to manage cost. And most small businesses have to chew gum and walk at the same time, meaning both. They have to grow, but they don’t have a bunch of people that they can add into their business. So they need some automation, a platform to help them. Let me give you an example.

A company that comes with us with $25 million in revenue, they want to double and get to $50 million in revenue. They need to invest in their product and R&D, but they don’t want to add in a bunch of accounting and operational staff. They come to NetSuite because they can automate their business and grow without adding additional headcount to support their business system. They’re adding the investments where it truly is going to make them grow. So that’s one of the offsets that we see is, just basic automation and operational improvement helps them get control of their operational costs.

Leland McFarland Okay. That seems like it’ll be very helpful, um, for small businesses, uh, who need to get, you know, as you said, control over their finances and and whatnot. Um, can you share a recent example or a customer story where a small business significantly improved operations or profitability using NetSuite?

Sam Levy Yeah, I mean, I’ll talk about some of the companies that were on stage even this week. We did some keynote addresses. One that comes to mind is a company called Cymbiotika. Now, Cymbiotika is a wellness company. They’re well-known for taking supplements and wellness, liposomal, I should say. It’s not supplements, but it’s just liposomal. And those are good for your body. And so one of their challenges is as they were growing from a $50 million company to $100 million company and launching their brands, is the complexity with them.

Now, their organization adopted NetSuite and they went live with NetSuite. And what’s interesting about their operations is their operation headcount has roughly stayed flat through their growth patterns. They’ve added a few employees, but as they doubled their revenue, they did not double their employees.

I think that’s a true testament, I think, a case study of, how do you look at leaders in your industry and what are they doing that perhaps we should be considering doing? Or how do they do it? What is their secret sauce? So how do you double revenue without adding double staff?

And so for them, they were using automation to do that. They were doing the things that that once took a team of people can now be done by an individual. An individual now instead of owning one account can manage 10 times the number of accounts. And so that became their offsetting maneuver. That was a great story that Kimberly talks about on their growth strategy.

Leland McFarland Oh, that’s perfect. All right, switching over to AI and automation, which has been basically uh most of what’s been talked about this week. Um, AI has been a huge theme this year. How is uh NetSuite’s approach to AI helping small businesses uh compete on the same level as the uh big boys?

Sam Levy The big boys? This is interesting. Uh, AI is in every, you know, it’s in every conversation seems like in business today. How we are helping companies is twofold. One, we are unique that every one of our customers is on the same version, the same release, and ultimately the same data model. So 43,000 organizations all use the software the same, from the biggest to the smallest.

AI, we believe that the best AI comes from the best data. So having all of your data in one place, there’s two approaches: outside-in versus inside-out. The outside-in approach is, let me take a Claude or a large language model like ChatGPT or Claude and use it against my current NetSuite account. So how do I unlock all of my data in my current infrastructure and tie it into a large language model? And that’s what we’ve done. We announced Model Context Protocol (MCP), which is a connector. It’s free for all of our customers to connect their NetSuite data to Claude or to ChatGPT. Now you can go in there and simply ask prompts inside of Claude, which is, “Who are my top five customers?” “What is my inventory levels?” “What’s my financial statements?” Your conversational AI, that’s an outside view in. That’s our first approach to AI being outside-in. It’s been really successful and taking an enterprise product like that and really making it simple for small and medium businesses.

The inside-out approach is doing the opposite. Building AI with inside of NetSuite and solely for just NetSuite data is you can go into NetSuite now and use certain AI capabilities inside your your your application.

So, you can use either either or or and or both ways to do it. There’s a lot of things that we use and we’ve released now for years of continuing to add onto AI capabilities from the inside-out. The outside-in approach has been good because sometimes you want NetSuite data connected to other systems. And Model Context Protocol allows then chat to not just interface with NetSuite data, but also maybe another system that you have out there. Maybe it’s a commerce system or maybe it’s Salesforce data, you can then pull in together through MCP.

Leland McFarland Right. Um, are you partnering with any outside LLMs to kind of or are you building from scratch, um, your own LLM, um, or or AI uh protocols within uh um your own system?

Sam Levy We definitely partner because those best-of-breed applications are certainly market leaders. When you think about ChatGPT and what they’ve done, you think about what Google has done, you think about what Meta has done, you think about xAI, they’re big in R&D and billions of dollars just in these large language models. Uh, we did we first start with Cohere two or three years ago as our first large language model, and then we’ve adopted all the others as subprocessors within inside of our environment. So we’re definitely leveraging all of them.

Leland McFarland Perfect. Um, what are some practical ways SMBs can use NetSuite’s new AI capabilities to save time or make smarter decisions without needing a data science team?

Sam Levy Well, the new interface, and I don’t know if you use ChatGPT, hopefully you probably do to summarize notes and so forth, or if you’ve used Claude, I think that the most interesting piece of it is it’s taking what used to be a technical way to get your answers, and it’s it’s really making it simple into context, a simple language context.

So before, if you wanted to go ask a question, which is summarize summarize my financial statements and show me year-on-year compares and show me, you know, FEs that I had, you might have to go run data from multiple systems or multiple NetSuite reports and searches to do that. You’d have to write the research or report and then pull it all together. So, very feasible, and that’s what customers have done for years. Very linear though, one report, one answer, one report, one answer, and then pulling it all together.

The nice part about taking chat is I just ask the question inside ChatGPT or I ask it inside of Claude. Show me the same data, pull my financial statements, do the year-on-compairs, do the FEs, change my visualization, show it to me in a chart, make it beautiful, hit enter. It goes and runs the searches, runs the reports inside the data, shows you where it’s got its data, and then it presents it back to you in matter of minutes now, what perhaps was days before. And that’s a simple way, I think that the most people are getting the biggest value is just taking a non-technical approach just asking the conversational questions.

Leland McFarland All right, perfect. That’s seems very useful. Hopefully it’ll save uh small business owners a bunch of time and effort.

Sam Levy And give them the visibility to their business, right? Most important, yeah.

Leland McFarland Um, switching over to industry and growth trends. Uh, from your perspective, what are the next biggest trends shaping the future of small and mid-sized businesses over the next two to three years?

Sam Levy Well, I think everyone is being asked, the biggest trend is, how can I grow but yet control my operational cost? And we’re seeing that with these, you know, the invention of the AI business models out there where, you know, we call it the multiplier effect with AI. And I think the biggest trend right now is, how can AI give me an advantage, a competitive advantage going forward? One, I got to simplify my back-office processes, make it really simple to do business from the back office, meaning how do I enter an order? How do I collect cash? How do I create a procurement transaction, receive it, and so on? So making that really simple is number one. But then how do you take that simplified process and make that a competitive advantage externally? So when a customer comes and does business with you, they don’t find it five, you know, it may take them too long to get their product or their service. Making it very easy to do business with them, and that’s been the growth lever is they’re trying to simplify things, because transactions are happening faster and faster. But we’re simplifying the complexity of the transaction, which has been the big theme today. Not a lot of complexity, simplify it, but just more transactions.

Leland McFarland More transactions, more money.

Sam Levy Well, that’s good. That should be the simple linear equation with that one. Yeah.

Leland McFarland Um, are there specific industries like manufacturing, retail, or services where you’re seeing especially strong SMB adoption or innovation through uh NetSuite?

Sam Levy This is a uh it’s a good leading question of which industry is hot and which one’s not. They all seem to have challenges going on in their business and headwinds, whether that’s macroeconomic or it’s industry pressure. You know, some product and inventory-based companies had tariff issues. And so that helped, you know, that helped help create a big headwind for them. How they reacted to it, though, I think were a little bit differently. And so, I look at some of these industries are breakthrough, meaning inventory ones that had to deal with tariffs, they were forced to use better planning and budgeting tools to get the right SKU assortments and so on.

The people that were in healthcare on the other side of it, finding more avenues to service their customers. And so they wanted to automate billing, automate billing to their insurance carriers. So they needed help on automating. For them to grow, their issue wasn’t buying more product, it was making billing to their insurance carriers more easily and more streamlined without people. And so we’re we’re seeing it kind of all industries are growing. And some are some are, I wouldn’t say contracting. High-tech has been a good one because of AI, and you’re a high-tech company creating AI. So you see a lot of sourcing, you know, uh capital going into AI companies. But I think that money is being used now across all the other industry segments.

Leland McFarland All right. Um, flipping that a little bit, are you seeing any kind of industries that it’s it’s a little difficult for you for for NetSuite and in general to kind of break into for the small business?

Sam Levy For small business? Well, one of the things we we generally say is if you’re in a regulated industry, that can be more difficult for NetSuite. Government or municipalities have a lot of restrictions. Some health and biotech have a lot of restrictions. Some government contracting and DOD have a lot of restrictions. And the restrictions are how and their compliance works with their data and how it works with the government entities and businesses that they solve.

So for our commercial business, we tend not to go after heavily regulated industries. There’s compliance, but heavily regulated industries, when you look at public sector or uh financial uh institutions that have different type of governance, we generally stay away from those. Uh, just not not our bellywick, right? We stay to the ones that are commercially available that we are really good with.

Leland McFarland All right, that’s good to know. Um, many small businesses are moving from QuickBooks or spreadsheets to cloud platforms. What triggers this transition and how is NetSuite supporting them in that journey?

Sam Levy One of the most popular systems that we replace on the entry-level market is QuickBooks. And it’s not even it’s just entry level anymore. We’re finding that it’s not just entry-level, they’re medium-sized businesses that are running QuickBooks, but they’ve certainly outgrown it, mostly for the capabilities. The number one reason they usually come to us is they can’t do something or it’s too bespoke.

So, if they’re growing internationally, they have too many databases to manage, and they want to put it in one infrastructure and have one global process. It’s very hard to do with QuickBooks. So that’s an interesting one. If they have advanced inventory items, where they’re putting in multiple warehouses and demand planning and point of sale and distribution, QuickBooks is for very simple companies. Once you add a lot of complexity to it or start to customize it, you’ve really outgrown it. And that’s where NetSuite picks up and really excels. The complex small business.

Leland McFarland All right. If you had, if you had uh one piece of advice for a small business owner looking to future-proof their operations, what would it be?

Sam Levy Wow, hire the right people. I mean, that’s a bit, you know, people and human capital and certainly in a small business is critical. And and some of the traits you say, “Well, that’s fine, but what type of competencies would you look for?” Certainly the entrepreneur spirit, challenge the status quo, and you you’ve got to make some big bets. And if you’re not making the bets around using AI in your companies, I tell founders all the time, I think you’ll be leapfrogged by a founder who is using AI to get that competitive advantage.

Leland McFarland All right, final question. What’s next for NetSuite when it comes to serving the small business market? Any areas of investment or innovation where you’re uh you’re especially um excited about?

Sam Levy Well, we announced it this week, “NetSuite Next.” It is our next generation of how we’re evolving our AI strategy and just making it available everywhere in the application from the inside-out. What we’re building and what we’re releasing for all of our customers and new customers is the kind of “Ask Oracle” concept. It’s AI-ready everywhere at any time. And it’s the conversational piece of it.

You don’t have to go learn a menu structure and navigation, the how-tos. Our firm belief is the way that you interact in the future is going to be conversational. Like we’re having now, that’s how you’re going to be interacting with your business system. Very much conversational, not menu-driven, searching for data. You’re going to be asking and prompting versus clicking and pointing. And so that is, right, the big excitement that we have is we’re doing it, we’re prototyping it now, and we’re slowly releasing it to the masses. This time next year, it’ll be fully available and it’ll be so exciting to see so many customers on it.

Leland McFarland That will be exciting and I’m I’m I’m interested in trying it out. Having a nice digital assistant.

Sam Levy Yeah, exactly.

Leland McFarland All right. Well, that’s all I got for you today. Thank you so much for uh coming on and uh putting up with all my questions.

Sam Levy Great. Good to meet you, Leland.

After speaking with Sam Levy, one thing became clear: small businesses no longer have to choose between growth and control. The tools that once seemed out of reach—enterprise-grade analytics, automation, and now AI-driven insights—are being built with accessibility in mind. NetSuite’s approach to scalability, especially through its “SuiteSuccess” industry playbooks and AI integrations, is transforming how entrepreneurs operate. The idea of “no limits,” this year’s SuiteWorld theme, isn’t just a marketing slogan—it’s a mindset shift.

Levy’s point about AI serving as an “exponential multiplier” resonated deeply. Small business owners have always worn multiple hats. Now, AI can help us wear them more efficiently—managing data, identifying trends, and freeing up time for strategic decisions. Whether it’s automating billing, unifying processes, or simply asking conversational questions to get answers that used to take days, the value of accessible AI is undeniable.

What’s most encouraging is NetSuite’s commitment to making this technology practical—not just powerful. As Levy put it, the future of business systems will be “conversational, not menu-driven.” For small businesses, that future is arriving faster than many realize. The real question now is how quickly we’ll adapt. Those who embrace AI as a trusted partner in growth, rather than a distant concept, will likely define the next wave of small business success.

This article, "NetSuite’s Sam Levy on How AI and Automation Are Redefining Small Business Growth" was first published on Small Business Trends

As small business owners, we often hear about the importance of innovation and adaptability—but sometimes, the most powerful examples come from unexpected places. At SuiteWorld 2025, I had the chance to speak with Claudia Freed, President and CEO of EALgreen, a nonprofit that’s rethinking how to fund higher education through the principles of the circular economy. Her organization doesn’t just hand out scholarships; it transforms surplus inventory that might otherwise go to waste into life-changing financial aid for students.

That’s an idea any small business owner can appreciate—turning inefficiency into opportunity. Whether it’s unused products, outdated processes, or legacy systems, every organization faces the challenge of doing more with less. EALgreen’s story proves that innovation doesn’t have to be confined to tech startups or massive corporations. It can come from a mission-driven nonprofit that has sustained itself for over 40 years without outside funding.

In our conversation, Claudia shared how EALgreen evolved from a grassroots idea into a model of operational efficiency and purpose-driven leadership. She also discussed how NetSuite’s cloud ERP system helped modernize their operations, eliminate risk, and unlock new growth opportunities—all while staying true to their mission of helping students succeed. Here’s my full conversation with Claudia Freed at SuiteWorld 2025.

Leland McFarland

All right, I am here at Oracle’s NetSuite’s uh SuiteWorld 2025 with Claudia Freed, President and CEO of EALgreen. So, Claudia, thanks for coming on and uh doing this interview. So, first of all, for those who are maybe not that familiar, uh can you start by telling us what EALgreen does and who you serve?

Claudia Freed

We are a non-profit organization founded over 40 years ago and what we do is give students scholarships so that they can go to college and fulfill their own human potential. What we do that is so unique is how we do the funding of the scholarships, which is in the space of the circular economy and reverse logistics. We convert donated inventory into financial aid.

We serve a population of college students that would love to go to college but sometimes are limited with regards to their finances. We also serve corporate donors that have a supply chain challenge of product that they perhaps would have had to send to the landfill. And ultimately, uh we feel that we serve the world and society so that everyone has an opportunity to go to school.

Leland McFarland

So similar to like consignment shops that utilize um donations to uh support local uh charities but instead or you utilize um objects that may go to the landfill or even surplus to be able to uh donate to uh college students, right?

Claudia Freed

In fact, let me help you with an analogy. We think of a college as a small city. So a small city uses products for transportation, equipment, supplies to maintain their infrastructure. Therefore, we work with corporations that have that type of product to donate. And then we evaluate three different channels where we can either reuse the product on a college campus.

If the product cannot be reused because it may not be in the right place or in the right condition, we will either try to repair, or if it has to be resold, the funds that we raise fund additional scholarships. And ultimately, if it cannot be reused or repaired, it will be recycled.

The brilliant model that we inherited from our founders from 1982 is that when that snowblower, let’s say, went to a college campus, the university generates operational savings. That means that those savings are then transferred to a student to lower their financial aid costs.

The cool thing about my story is that I was the very first student that they ever helped in 1982. And I have felt the impact of the work that we do in my own life. And that is what is a large motivator for continuing that legacy.

Leland McFarland

So what inspired the founding of it? So original founders and and you you were the like the first recipient, so you can you can really attest to this.

Claudia Freed

The the the great question, you know, what inspired an engineer and a businessman that were friends um in 1982? And there was the perfect storm of ideas and opportunity. What inspired them was the thing they had in common: both gentlemen had gone to college with the financial aid help of a scholarship. So that is what they had in common.

And they were really ambitious. And they said to themselves, “Not if, but when we become successful, we want to pay it forward.” So what is the principle behind the founding of EAL? Is this concept of paying it forward and giving back. And that has been the core value of EAL that despite technology changes 40-some years in business, uh we hold very dear.

Leland McFarland

Great. Uh what challenges or pain points led you to start looking for a solution like NetSuite?

Claudia Freed

Great question. Part of being successful in business is managing risk very well, recognizing when you have an exposure, managing the risk and taking mitigating actions. A few years ago, we began to look at a potential single point of failure. We were looking at outdated technology. We had gone from pencil and paper to digital, then to um a point where if we hadn’t made the decision of updating our technology, we were going going to probably not be able to continue to grow and thrive. We also had a very fragile system of volunteers and IT personnel that were either going to be retiring or transitioning. So we recognized that as a single point of failure. Our motivation was to save the business from becoming obsolete. And that is the point at which we then began the journey to look for a partner.

Leland McFarland

Okay. Um, how were you managing operations before NetSuite? Now, you you did cover that. You you said pen and paper and so, yeah. Um, can you share how NetSuite has changed your day-to-day operations?

Claudia Freed

NetSuite has changed our day-to-day operations in ways that has made in some ways life a little bit simpler. And how? By giving us tremendous visibility into the organization, and giving us mobility, and giving us the safety of our data in the cloud to have a backup. So, specifically how it has changed: at any one point, anyone in my team has been able to develop their own KPIs and their own dashboard. So whatever their area of operation or responsibility, at a moment note—at a moment’s notice, they see data real-time. When we had five different systems, we had to be jumping from one to another. So it has changed the efficiency with which we arrive at data, empower decisions. We can now make decisions much faster. We don’t have to wait for five reports. If we have to pivot, if we have to offer a different solution, the ability for NetSuite to provide that data to us more quickly, more clearly, uh in a reporting format that can be communicated, uh that has been a tremendous boost to the operations of a small organization with 12 employees.

Leland McFarland

So drilling down a little bit, was there like a aha that like that that that moment where you just go, “Wow, this thing works and this thing is going to save us money”? Was there that defining moment?

Claudia Freed

Well, yes, and it continues, right? The moment for me, because I am responsible for finance on top of the uh mission, uh was really when we declared that we were going live. And we had to transfer data, so we had to bring data from other systems. The process took a few months, but the aha moment for us was when we recognized our own data in the new shiny model. So for us, it was the ability to trust the data the moment that it landed there. Those were our numbers, that was our P&L, those were our scholarships.

I think if we had not been successful in that transition, you cannot accelerate the change the way that we have done it. But we made a very good first step. From there, we can build out from it. The second aha moment is really coming now as we are playing and demo um AI solutions to see the way that AI is expanding our ability to analyze the scenario, the ability to think about potential risks and potential opportunities for us to create more scholarships. You mentioned about, you know, how does the business measure its success in terms of how can you be more financially successful. For us, success is measured by the number of students we can help. And NetSuite has enabled us to measure those uh lives as well.

Leland McFarland

Great. You’ve already answered some questions that were down here too. So, but um which NetSuite models or tools are you most criti— or are most critical uh to your organization’s success today?

Claudia Freed

Great question in terms of pairing your business to the right solution. We, as I have said, are a non-profit organization. NetSuite does have a module called Social Impact. Social Impact is designed for non-profit organizations that operate a more traditional fundraising model, where perhaps you are tracking grants, you are tracking ticket sales to a gala or an event. That is not the EALgreen business model. We live in the world of reverse logistics and operations. So for us, what was most attractive was the wholesale distribution model. So we use wholesale distribution to track a catalog that has about 1.5 million SKUs, through which we then fulfill orders. The second module that we use out of NetSuite is SuiteCommerce Advanced. And SuiteCommerce Advanced is, of course, the more advanced version of SuiteCommerce. And why we need that? Because our model is predicated on an object, a piece of inventory, a tool, becoming a scholarship. And when you are under an integrated system, as NetSuite is, that transaction will end up on your general ledger to feed into your financials. And SuiteCommerce Advanced allows us to do that.

Leland McFarland

That’s great. Um, you already talked about like measurable results and and and the efficiencies that you’ve already um achieved through uh NetSuite. Um, how has having real-time data through NetSuite influenced your decision-making uh um decision-making um as a uh CEO?

Claudia Freed

It enables me to communicate to my board of directors the impact of their support. So their decision to support a digital journey a few years ago, before this was even a known a known frontier, we said, “We recognize a risk. We need to make an investment. Trust us, we are going to find the right partner.” And the ability to now demonstrate success, not only to the board, but also to donors. How are we measuring success?

Over the years, we have converted over $40 million worth of donated inventory into over 30,000 scholarships. Those are real students that have gone to college. Year over year, just in the last year, because of the new tools that we have implemented in NetSuite, we have seen a 55% increase in the scholarships that are being awarded to students. The average scholarship is $3,000. We are on our way to award 1,000 scholarships this year alone. In SuiteCommerce, the platform, through an implementation of AI, which is intelligent item recommendation, our customers, who are physical plant directors of colleges and universities looking for that snowblower, a hard hat, tools to complete their work, they can log onto the system and be provided recommendations. That has increased engagement with our own partners by over 13%. And as a CEO, having data very quickly that you can follow through and investigate why is that happening, why is it 13% and not 15, or what made it go from 10 to 13, it gives you the power of analytics very quickly.

Leland McFarland

That’s great to hear. Um, as a leader, how do you balance EALgreen’s social mission with the need to stay operati— operationally efficient?

Claudia Freed

Many, many years ago, I had to come up with a metaphor for that question. Because in life and in business, it’s always about a trade-off. We’re trading off a benefit and a cost. And so for us, it’s always been the idea of flying a twin-engine plane. We need the mission to attract the support. And without the support, we really, what’s the point of a mission? So for us, they they matter in equal measure.

And one of the things that we are very proud of is that when we speak to our donors, some of whom have been with us from day one, they funded the very first scholarship and they’re still our donor without interruption. One of the words that are used to describe EAL is that we’re a thoughtful organization. And I believe that that comes from that idea that you have to always be mindful, what’s the mission of EAL? To help students go to college. And what is the business model? We are self-funded. We rely in absolutely no outside funding. We don’t have grants. That’s why we don’t use the Social Impact model, but we use the wholesale distribution. And every aspect from the board of directors on down, we know that what we do every day matters to that student that one day may be sitting here with you speaking because we do change lives.

Leland McFarland

All right, final question. Uh, if you were to describe your NetSuite experience in one sentence, what would it be?

Claudia Freed

In one sentence. Um, challenging but rewarding. Challenging and rewarding. I I wouldn’t say but. Challenging and rewarding. Rewarding because uh we are now on the other side. But better yet, let me uh share with you, just before coming here, I’m the CEO, I call Greg at one of our fulfillment centers on a Thursday afternoon at 2:30. He was understandably nervous. Why is the CEO calling me unannounced at 2:30 in the afternoon?

And I said, “Greg, I’m preparing for this event in Las Vegas. Would you describe for me a couple of good things about NetSuite and a couple of not-so-good things about NetSuite? What has been your experience?” And he was so quick to enumerate, “Well, Claudia, we now have a lot of visibility. I know where all the snowblowers are.” Great.

“Some things that are not so good.” And I heard nothing. Silence for a couple seconds. And I was like, “Greg, are you there?” And he said, “Well, I have to think about it. However, if you had asked me that question two years ago, the list would have been flipped. I would have only bad things to say. It was challenging. We didn’t have the right systems. We had the right data, but we had to put better Wi-Fi in the system, in the warehouse. Um, we had to uh acquire different type of equipment for them to do their job.” So there were some pain points. But with anything, with anything in life that is a change or an improvement, um, it’s difficult. Even if you are trying to be more fit in your own life, um, this is bringing fitness into our operations. And therefore now we are completely reliant on our data that comes from NetSuite. So for us, it has been challenging and rewarding and the proof is that we are here today as their guest, showcasing and sharing the benefit of EAL being a customer, and we believe in that.

Leland McFarland

Great. Well, thank you uh for your insight. Uh, it speaking with you has been really great. And I I love seeing what you’ve been able to do with NetSuite and and being able to accelerate your growth and and yeah, it’s it’s it’s truly amazing. Thank you.

Claudia Freed

Thank you, Leland. I I appreciate your curiosity and the questions and, you know, I could talk all day about EAL. I love what I do, but I know we have things to do. So thank you very much.

Speaking with Claudia reminded me that technology, at its best, isn’t just about automation—it’s about amplification. It amplifies impact, efficiency, and the reach of a good idea. What EALgreen has done through its partnership with NetSuite isn’t just a story about software implementation; it’s a blueprint for resilience and reinvention.

Small businesses can learn a great deal from EALgreen’s journey. Claudia’s focus on managing risk, eliminating single points of failure, and aligning mission with metrics reflects the same balancing act entrepreneurs face every day. Her metaphor of “flying a twin-engine plane”—keeping both the mission and operations in harmony—resonates deeply in an era when many small organizations struggle to grow sustainably without losing their purpose.

Even more inspiring is the measurable impact: converting $40 million in donated inventory into 30,000 scholarships, and seeing a 55% increase in awards after modernizing with NetSuite. That’s proof that efficiency and empathy aren’t opposites—they’re partners in long-term success.

For small business owners, the takeaway is clear: digital transformation isn’t just for big enterprises. With the right mindset and tools, it’s possible to scale impact, make smarter decisions, and ensure that every ounce of effort drives both profit and purpose. EALgreen’s story shows that meaningful growth starts with a clear mission—and the courage to evolve.

This article, "Interview with Claudia Freed, President and CEO, EALgreen" was first published on Small Business Trends

For many small business owners, managing growth often means juggling too many systems — from spreadsheets to accounting tools to supplier portals — each working in its own silo. That’s the exact challenge Odeko set out to solve. Originally launched in New York, the company began as a disruptor in the café and coffee shop supply chain space, offering independent operators a way to consolidate their vendor relationships and ordering processes into one simple platform. Instead of having to “talk with five, six, eight vendors a day,” as Kelly Simons, Director of Enterprise Systems at Odeko, put it, small coffee shops could focus on what matters most — running their business and serving their customers.

In our conversation, Simons shared how Odeko’s digital-first approach has evolved alongside its rapid growth. As the company expanded from local delivery to a full omnichannel operation — including service, e-commerce, and software-as-a-service (SaaS) lines — its need for a unified system of record became clear. That’s where NetSuite came in. Simons explained how the company transitioned from basic accounting software to a full ERP platform capable of supporting acquisitions, financial consolidation, and automation across teams. For small business leaders facing similar scaling challenges, Odeko’s journey shows how the right systems foundation can transform complexity into opportunity — without losing sight of operational efficiency or customer experience.

Here is the full transcript of the interview:

Leland McFarland So, uh Kelly, for readers who may not be familiar, uh can you start by telling us a bit about Odeko? Uh, what do you do and what type of customers do you serve?

Kelly Simons Sure. Uh, well, first of all, let me introduce myself officially for you so you know where I fit in the organization. My name is Kelly Simons, I’m the Director of Enterprise Systems at Odeko. So anything that doesn’t have the Odeko name on it, like our ordering portal or an e-com site, all falls to me to do. I’m the de facto owner. So Odeko, uh originally started as a disruptor in the supply chain area. Uh, for mostly targeting mom and pop’s, uh coffee shops, independent chains, cafes, that kind of thing. Um, they we developed a portal that was homegrown and custom built to allow them to place orders in a seamless manner. Uh, one of the things that happens in the world is if you are an independent company, um, you have to talk with five, six, eight vendors a day, right? That’s not efficient. You want to focus on running your business. Um, and also you don’t always get the best prices because you’re buying a case of oat milk instead of like allowing us to buy it, you get the better discount.

So the goal was to kind of consolidate and give a one-stop shop point for these people that own these businesses to place orders and to get benefits of more bulk buying power, right? Um, and that was the original genesis of our business. Um, originally started in New York and uh that’s what we still call our home. And we have an office, a mothership I call it, in New York because it’s just a small drop station. Our company is digital focused and we’re remote first on our corporate level. Um, and so that’s how we interact with our customers.

Leland McFarland Perfect. Uh, what was happening in your business or tech stack that made you decide it was time to implement NetSuite?

Kelly Simons So, predates me being there, but, um, research, questioning, that kind of thing. Um, at one point in our business, uh, they were on the typical small basic business model of accounting software. Um, I’m sure we all know which one of those could be because that’s very common. Um, and uh there was an inflection point where they realized that they needed something more powerful in order to lay the foundation for growth. And that was one of the things that they were looking for was a system that was reasonably priced, fit the needs of the market, and could grow as the business grew. Uh, that was one of the main focuses on it. Now, there was a talk at one time of building their own ERP. Evidently, I heard that there were people that looked at people like they had lost their mind because NetSuite has spent 27 years crafting an ERP and it still grows every day. Uh, so that was kind of the impetus behind it. Laying a platform that they could use uh to consolidate and talk one language: inventory, ordering, accounting, finance, typical things that you would do.

Leland McFarland Okay. Uh, when did you first begin your NetSuite journey and what were the top goals you were uh hoping to achieve? And by you, I know now that you uh, it’s more of Odeko, not uh…

Kelly Simons Yeah, yeah. So, um, whenever you’re in a rapid growth model for a startup business, um, people come on and as you make an acquisition, let’s say, they don’t speak the same language, they don’t have the same information, the systems are different. Um, so having a system that is the source of truth that allows you to pump things in and out of it back and forth. Uh, the goals were to be able to to unify, have a common point to go get information, and to consolidate financials to so our shareholders were happy. We could say, “Hey, look, here’s the information.” Right? So that’s some of the main things that we did.

Leland McFarland Great. Um, can you walk us through your uh NetSuite setup? Uh, which models and tools are most crucial for uh your your daily operations?

Kelly Simons Sure. So we are a OneWorld instance for NetSuite. Uh, we did have multiple subsidiaries. We’ve recently collapsed some of them just because we’ve kind of restructured a little bit. Um, so it’s very valuable to us to be able to use that to utilize if we need to have different subsidiaries and if we do a different new product, which we just recently launched. Sometimes we may want to put it as a different business unit so if we needed to jettison it, God forbid, you could easily, right? Um, we regularly on a daily basis are using inventory management, operations tools for ordering and fulfillment and all of the normal things to get orders through and out the door to our customers. Uh, there’s a lot of financial tracking that goes along with that. Um, being able to use the traditional models, fixed assets, which was done all on a spreadsheet, which is now internally in the system. Uh, just, um, it allows us to be a little bit more agile to pivot faster and to see things quicker. We also have leveraged the extensibility of the system by going with partners. So Celigo, Brex, those kind of things for anything that we needed to be a little bit more sophisticated than some of the standard models might be, right? So, that’s what we do on a daily basis. It’s our lifeblood now.

Leland McFarland Now you’re you’re attached at the hip with uh NetSuite, right?

Kelly Simons Well, I’ve always been attached to the hip with NetSuite. That’ll be what I do until I retire in 10 years. So…

Leland McFarland Um, how has NetSuite changed the way your finance or operations teams work on a day-to-day?

Kelly Simons So before, if we had bought a company or did anything like that, we’d have to go to three or four systems, pull data, try to match the data, try to align the data to make sure it works, right? Um, nowadays when we acquire a company using our repetitive playbook, um, we groom the data, put it in the system so it all matches. They go to our chart of accounts, they go to our structure for customers, things like that. And so in the given day, people are more agile, more efficient, and are able to process things more quickly. A a good good tidbit here is we use Celigo to take our e-com business into NetSuite, all of our ordering. That was a manual process a year ago, took two people 90 hours a week just to process manual e-com orders. And now we’ve grown the business about 40% year over year with the same amount of people because we’ve automated. So all those kind of efficiencies that we gain from being able to quickly pull financials and metrics and things are huge in our company.

Leland McFarland Perfect. Um, how have you customized or extended NetSuite to fit the unique needs of a business like yours?

Kelly Simons So we have, um, an engineering team internally and they focus primarily on our portal and our front-end processes, right? And some of the integration stuff, like microservices into into NetSuite. Um, but we have some workflows that we do to add pieces of data. We have some custom scripting. Uh, we built a workflow that forces invoices to print twice a day. Right? It creates the invoices twice a day. So somebody doesn’t have to manually monitor those. Um, we’ve used custom fields and rules and forms and records, you name it, we’ve done it. Uh, we haven’t gone too far afield and crazy, right? Uh, but we are using that. And then of course, again, as mentioned, we leveraged the extensibility from the partner network to help us if we need to extend beyond. Right?

Leland McFarland Do do you know how the implementation went uh originally?

Kelly Simons So from my understanding, the initial implementation went pretty well. Um, again, you’re typically dealing with people who have never used NetSuite before, so they make decisions are made that maybe, you know, five years down the road probably were need to be reviewed and refined. Uh, I don’t think it went really badly, but of course it was a very skeletal implementation. So it was like a very small segment. I use the analogy it was like the iceberg. They got the tip, but there was all underneath that wasn’t being used yet. And so, um, it, I don’t think there was a lot of bumps. I do, I will say there was some clarity that was needed about what NetSuite could do. And uh they were also, keep in mind, doing this around the time when a lot of the pandemic was coming around and, you know, so the world was different. We all know the world in that time period was different, right? So…

Leland McFarland Yeah. So it was kind of more of a gradual integration?

Kelly Simons Yeah, so they did a, they did the first part which is more financials and some of the order managing and that kind of process. But as time has passed, and especially as I’ve joined as well, we’ve, not saying I’m perfect or the be-all end-all, but we’ve moved it more and more into the center and started to use more and more of the layers of the product.

Leland McFarland Perfect. All right. So NetSuite has been making big moves with AI this year. Um, has Odeko started using any of uh NetSuite’s AI-driven tools or automation?

Kelly Simons So, some of them are like really new, hot off the press. The one that I use the most right now that I love is in the NetSuite knowledge management area. There is thousands upon thousands upon thousands of articles and how-tos, right? And in the times past, you’d have to go type in what you want, it would give you a list of 200 articles, you’d have to click into them, then you go into a rabbit hole where you click into another article that was on another article, that was on another article, right? Um, the new language that they use where I can human speak and type in a prompt and it returns me the top things that it might be, and says here’s one, two, three, four, this is your best option, has been game-changing for me because it takes me what would have taken hours is like seconds to find an answer usually. Um, and I love the fact, one of them the other day actually said, “I’m sorry, you can’t do that from in NetSuite.” It just said you can’t. I was like, “Okay, that’s good to know.” That that’s nice to know, you know, I’d rather you tell me I can’t. Um, I guess, you know, and I’m excited about some of the things coming. Uh, I’m also equally a little bit nervous about NetSuite Next and how much more. Um, but we’re slowly but surely starting to adopt some of those principles in NetSuite.

Leland McFarland Now you mentioned NetSuite Next. Is that the thing, like, out of all the AI advancement, you know, the the the coming soons, um, is that the one that you’re kind of looking forward to most or is there another AI tool that you’re kind of…

Kelly Simons Well no, so I’m really looking forward to NetSuite Next. But again, cautiously optimistic. Because in my mind, I see a positive, but I also know that in the adoption curve, if you move too quickly with some users, they are paralyzed. And now I can see a prompt for a controller and they’re going to be fine, but a warehouse clerk may struggle a little bit more with a prompt, right? Now we all know in the AI world that the world will change and a BA might not be a true BA like we’re used to now or a developer even might not be a true developer. They may leverage an AI tool to do their job and then their responsibility is to check the work, right? Um, so I I think that that’s where I’m most excited about. I’m excited to see things come in. One of the things that I know is coming that I think is going to be awesome is uh being able to tell it what I want a workflow. I can type in what I want and it will give me basically what needs to be done or tell it to go do it itself. Another thing that I’m really excited about that I just learned about here is the autonomous close process. Right? Now, we’ve gotten our close down to pretty tight. We’re about three to five days. When I first started, it was close to 30 for a monthly close, which was insane to me. But the autonomous close process that it basically goes and acts on your behalf in the back, posts the things up, you need to review and you hit yes. It just, I’m I’m in awe. You know what I mean? It’s going to be a great, it’s it’s going to be a very big game-changer in our company.

Leland McFarland Now, now you talked about adoption and having uh users adopt it. Now, we’ve all seen the the the old person, you know, not necessarily old, the person who loves the older systems in the back doing everything pen and paper and using an abacus. Um, how do you address uh those types of users?

Kelly Simons So, first of all, one thing that is really hard for me to kind of do is a lot of the people I know of that are in like warehouse jobs and things like that, they equate AI to job loss. So the first thing you have to do is retool that narrative of it’s not a job loss, it’s a direct, your job is evolving, right? So that’s always a new thing. I think, uh, change management is one of the hardest things to do. And there are people that I know of that sometimes I have to get on with them and I’m like, okay, let’s walk through this. Okay, now tell me what you don’t understand, right? So it’s a little bit of hand-holding with them, which I don’t mind. I would rather them ask and we spend time than them to assume and something just paralyze them, right? Um, there is the theory of the adoption curve, which I’m, I don’t know if you’re familiar with. It’s like an 80, it’s a 20-60-20. There are those people, like, for instance, that bought the iPhone. They were standing in line when the first iPhone came out. Then there’s that middle group that waits to see what happens with the first phone and then they buy it. And then there’s the group that you have to wrap a a rope around their feet and drag them behind you to get them to buy said thing. It’s the same thing with this. Uh, there are going to be some people that it just, they’re not going to transcend into AI very well and it’s because there’s a fear. And it’s how do you address them where they are? How do you meet them where they’re at? Because my mother would be good at AI because that’s just her. My stepdad, no. He he’ll be completely lost. So that’s the same thing with people we work with.

Leland McFarland All right. Final question. Yep. Um, what’s next for Odeko and how do you see your partnership with NetSuite evolving over the next few years?

Kelly Simons So, we are now an omnichannel company. We have a service line, we have a a BU, an e-com line, we have a regular local delivery line, we just launched a new project that’s uh a software SaaS product that we’re rolling out. Uh those are going to continue just to accelerate. This year we bought five companies. We have, yeah, so there’s that. In 2026, our focus is on organic change with some other additional acquisitions possibly. Now I don’t know for sure. It’s always one of those things that’s up in end. Um, we are going to continue to grow. That’s the goal. Is to continue to become a larger company, more and more, more and more market share, that kind of thing. Uh with the ultimate goal at some point of pre IPO. And uh how our partnership with NetSuite is just my platform that’s going to continue to be my base to help me enable that. Um, even whenever they come to me sometimes and say, “Hey, I want to go do blah blah blah,” and I’m like, “NetSuite can do that.” “But I still want to talk to someone else.” “Okay, fine.” But in the back of my mind, NetSuite is still going to be the one to do that. You know what I mean? But sometimes you have to do that. Uh so NetSuite is still going to be our partner. It’s going to be there for a while. Um, I don’t see us ever moving away from it in the next five years.

As Odeko continues its upward trajectory — having acquired five companies this year alone — its partnership with NetSuite remains central to its long-term vision. “NetSuite is still going to be our partner. It’s going to be there for a while. I don’t see us ever moving away from it in the next five years,” said Simons. With plans to expand organically while eyeing a potential pre-IPO future, the company is using its ERP backbone not just for accounting, but as a growth engine.

Simons described how automation and AI are now reshaping everyday workflows, from financial closes to order processing. Tasks that once took “two people 90 hours a week” are now handled in a fraction of the time thanks to integrated tools like Celigo. She’s also optimistic — yet cautious — about NetSuite’s next wave of AI innovations, such as autonomous close processes and natural language workflows. “I’m excited to see things come in,” she said. “It’s going to be a very big game-changer in our company.”

For small business owners watching AI transform enterprise software, Odeko’s experience offers a practical roadmap: start by building a solid digital core, embrace automation thoughtfully, and lead your team through change with patience and vision. Growth is no longer about scaling chaos — it’s about scaling smarter.

This article, "Interview with Kelly Simons of Odeko" was first published on Small Business Trends

At Zoho’s SMZ 2025 event, collaboration was the word of the day — but Zoho is giving that idea a whole new meaning with Vani, its intelligent visual collaboration platform. I sat down with Aarthi Elizabeth Anbu, Product Marketing Manager at Zoho, to learn how Vani reimagines teamwork for small businesses that juggle multiple tools, tasks, and time zones.

Where Knowledge Begins

When asked about the name, Aarthi smiled. “There is an Indian goddess called Saraswati, who is the goddess of knowledge and learning,” she explained. “So Vani is another name for her. Because this is where knowledge begins, where brainstorming starts, so that’s why Vani.”

That origin fits the platform’s purpose perfectly. Vani is designed as an intelligent, visual collaboration space — a kind of shared digital whiteboard where teams can brainstorm, draw mind maps, plan projects, and even host video meetings without switching between multiple apps.

Why Visual Collaboration Matters

Aarthi described Vani with a vivid analogy: “Imagine a football coach trying to plan a game without a formation board,” she said. “Everyone’s going to have to imagine it in their head. And that’s complex.”

The same is true for teams, especially small ones, trying to plan projects or manage workflows across tools like Slack, Zoom, and email. “Imagine a team trying to plan an entire project from start to finish without a Kanban board, without a Gantt chart,” she continued. “It’s going to increase the cognitive load on your head and slow the entire process.”

That’s where Vani comes in. It gives small and midsize teams a shared visual space to brainstorm, plan, and execute — keeping everyone on the same page, literally. “Smaller companies, younger teams, they work well visually,” Aarthi said. “Teams move forward when ideas are visual.”

One Infinite Canvas for Everything

For small businesses that rely on multiple apps for meetings, email, and planning, Vani aims to become the one-stop visual workspace.

“With Vani, you don’t have to have five different applications,” Aarthi explained. “You bring everything onto an infinite canvas. Whether you’re putting together a product roadmap, planning a social media campaign, or diagramming network architecture — you can do it all in one place.”

Vani’s built-in video feature eliminates the need for third-party meeting tools. “You don’t need to integrate with Zoom or go out of the application,” Aarthi said. “You simply start a meeting, and everyone’s notified. They can decide if they want to jump on, and you can select exactly where you want them to join.”

The canvas also supports asynchronous communication — a major benefit for distributed or flexible teams. “You can leave comments for your team, add voice notes, and react to different elements,” she said. “It’s a fun way to work, and you can get things done faster.”

Templates and Kits: Ready-to-Use and Customizable

One of Vani’s most practical features for small businesses is its library of templates and kits — pre-built setups for common workflows like project planning, sales follow-ups, and marketing strategy.

“Vani has two things,” Aarthi said. “One is ready-to-use templates, and my favorite is being able to put together a social media post or brainstorming template where you can create a mind map and have different members of your team start working on it.”

AI also plays a role. “You can simply say, ‘Vani, create a flowchart with this, this, and this for me,’ and it’s going to create one for you,” she said.

For more specialized needs, kits help tailor the workspace. “Let’s say you’re a designer and you’re going to diagram a network architecture,” she explained. “You can add the AWS kit, and it’s going to have all these tools there. You just drag and drop and start building.”

This approach gives small teams both flexibility and structure — ready-made templates for quick starts, and customization for unique business processes.

Integrations for a Seamless Day

No modern tool stands alone, and Zoho knows small businesses live in multi-app worlds. Vani integrates with key Zoho products like WorkDrive, Mail, Projects, and Show, as well as external platforms such as Microsoft Teams.

“I think most small teams use Microsoft Teams,” Aarthi said. “You’re going to be able to pull up Vani from within Teams without leaving it and start having a discussion or draw a mind map. Having a centralized space for everyone to work on the same thing — that’s a big advantage.”

And that’s just the beginning. “This is first of many,” she added. “We’re going to be integrating with Google and all your communication apps because we want to be able to pull in the visual part of collaboration — across apps, across regions, across languages.”

Making Collaboration More Human

Beyond its technical capabilities, Vani brings personality to collaboration. The platform includes voice notes, comments, pins, mentions, live cursors, and reactions, making teamwork more interactive — even fun.

“With Vani, everyone looks at what everyone else is doing,” Aarthi said. “Of course, you have complete control — admins can set roles and permissions, deciding who can view, edit, or organize spaces.”

That balance of openness and control helps small teams stay transparent without chaos. “If you do want to monitor and have control, you can,” she explained. “But if you don’t and you want everyone to have equal space, you can too.”

These real-time reactions and live cursors give teams instant visual feedback. “Just before today, we tested out Vani with about 35 team members back in India,” Aarthi recalled. “Everyone was saying something or the other, and it was so much fun. No one was really moderating it. It was a good experience.”

For small businesses without a dedicated project manager, this kind of built-in visibility acts as a lightweight audit trail — showing who did what, when, and where — all within the same workspace.

Rethinking Meetings with Catchups

Vani also introduces a new type of meeting — or, more accurately, anti-meeting — called “Catchups.” Designed to reduce context switching and meeting overload, Catchups are short, flexible, and spontaneous.

“They’re not like your regular meetings,” Aarthi explained. “You don’t have to create an invite or a meeting link and have everyone come at a certain time. If you’re working on something and want someone’s opinion, you start a Catchup.”

Anyone can jump in or out as needed. “There’s no set meeting approach,” she added. “If you want to discuss something, you hop in; if you don’t, you hop out. It helps with asynchronous communication because not everyone has to be available at the same time.”

Catchups fit naturally into the way small businesses operate — fluid, fast-moving, and focused on results. “We are working on chat as part of Vani too,” Aarthi shared. “It’s in our roadmap.”

Designed for How Small Businesses Work Today

For many small teams, the biggest challenge isn’t the lack of tools — it’s too many tools. Between video calls, project trackers, email threads, and shared drives, information often ends up scattered.

Vani tackles that by offering one centralized visual hub where everything connects: brainstorming, task planning, documentation, and real-time conversation.

That holistic approach is what Aarthi calls “shared visual intelligence” — the idea that when teams think and see together, they work smarter. “We thought we should have a product like Vani,” she said. “We should use this concept of shared visual intelligence and put it in everything we do.”

For small business owners, that translates to fewer meetings, faster decisions, and a stronger sense of team alignment — all without needing to invest in complex or expensive project management tools.

From Early Access to Everyday Use

Vani is currently available in early access at vaniHQ.com. Small business owners can sign up to explore its infinite canvas, ready-to-use templates, and AI-powered tools firsthand.

“Vani is, we’re opening out early access,” Aarthi said. “You can simply sign up and start using the product and giving it a shot.”

As Zoho continues to expand its suite of AI-driven business applications, Vani adds a fresh, human-centered layer to the ecosystem — one focused not just on data or automation, but on how people actually work together.

Why Vani Matters for Small Businesses

In an age where small teams are spread across locations, devices, and schedules, the need for clear, connected collaboration has never been greater. Tools like Vani help bridge that gap by blending the visual flexibility of a whiteboard, the structure of a project planner, and the communication power of video and chat — all in one unified space.

For entrepreneurs and small business owners who want their teams to stay organized without getting bogged down in endless emails or meetings, Vani offers a refreshing, practical alternative.

As Aarthi put it: “It’s a fun way to work, and you can get things done faster.”

Key Takeaway:
For small business teams looking to streamline communication, brainstorming, and project management, Zoho’s Vani delivers an all-in-one visual collaboration platform that simplifies work — from the first idea to final handoff — and brings knowledge, creativity, and teamwork together on one infinite canvas.

This article, "Zoho’s New Collaboration Tool “Vani” Aims to Simplify Small Business Teamwork" was first published on Small Business Trends

At Zoho’s SMZ 2025 event, I sat down with Ashok Ramamoorthy to discuss Zoho’s newly launched Notebook AI. The service, unveiled at the conference, is designed to help small businesses simplify note-taking, improve productivity, and make collaboration easier through artificial intelligence.

For small business owners juggling countless meetings, calls, and customer interactions, staying organized often means wrestling with scattered notes across apps and devices. Notebook AI aims to change that by automating transcription, summarization, and even visualization of meeting content—all within Zoho’s ecosystem.

Why Notebook AI Matters for Small Businesses

As Ramamoorthy explained, Zoho built Notebook AI to directly address productivity challenges that small businesses face every day.

“The first set of problems in general small businesses faces they need a solution which can amplify their productivity as well as reduce their workload. They are kind of looking for one solution where it will probably help them to reduce or increase their productivity. So Notebook AI is designed in such a way to make use of the AI and LLMS to probably reduce the time. Where small businesses can use the time to focus on productivity.”

For entrepreneurs and lean teams, saving minutes on administrative work often translates into hours that can be redirected toward sales, customer service, or innovation. Notebook AI’s launch brings two standout features right away: AI Meeting Notes and AI Mind Maps.

AI Meeting Notes: Turning Conversations Into Action

Anyone who has scribbled half-legible notes during a client call knows the pain of missing details. Notebook AI automates this entire process.

“What AI meeting notes is going to do, it will automatically listen to the meeting. It gets a recording of the meeting and it gets the transcription out of the meeting and it neatly summarizes that particular meeting into a minutes of meeting note.”

These AI-powered notes go beyond basic transcripts. Notebook AI identifies the agenda, speakers, discussion points, and action items. Instead of scrolling through raw transcripts, small business owners can access a polished summary that makes follow-up clear and immediate.

This feature alone could save countless hours for owners who double as project managers, client liaisons, and team leads. More importantly, it reduces the risk of forgetting commitments or misinterpreting client requests.

AI Mind Maps: Visualizing Meetings at a Glance

Not everyone processes information well through text-heavy notes. That’s where Notebook AI’s second launch feature—AI Mind Maps—comes in.

“Some people may not be very good and viewing very long notes, right, so they’ll probably want to view the minutes of the meeting as a how they see it in their mind, so they provide a mind map view. So you tap on the mind map, view the minutes of meeting is neatly categorized into small topics, and if you just tap on the topics, it will automatically alert you to the next topic and the relative topics are linked together.”

For small business teams that thrive on brainstorming or need quick overviews of conversations, mind maps turn abstract discussions into visual connections. This can be particularly powerful for service businesses, creative agencies, or consultants who often rely on free-flowing discussions with clients.

Tackling Accuracy and Noise Reduction

One common concern with AI transcription is accuracy—especially in noisy environments or during overlapping conversations. I raised this directly, asking about transcript reliability and on-device processing.

Ramamoorthy acknowledged this is a priority:

“Right now we don’t do any on device processing for confidentiality, but we’ll definitely take that as one of the input and we’ll add it towards. And second thing is we do noise deduction at the back end and we’ll remove the noise so that the audio quality is much better when it’s given to the transcription service and we get the transcription and a good quality.”

For small businesses, this means clearer records of conversations without investing in high-end recording gear or transcription services.

CRM Integration: Notes That Live Where You Work

A major selling point of Notebook AI is how it fits into Zoho’s broader suite of apps, particularly Zoho CRM and Zoho Bigin. For businesses that already use these tools to manage leads and customers, Notebook AI adds another layer of efficiency.

“So what Notebook does is it gets the recording once the call is done, it gets the recording of that particular meeting and it automatically creates the minutes of meeting mind map and everything for you. And it attaches through that record inside the CRM itself.”

In practice, this means a small sales team doesn’t need to manually upload notes or recordings after each call. The CRM contact record will already hold the call audio, the AI-generated meeting notes, and even the mind map.

I pointed out another potential benefit—dispute resolution. With calls automatically logged and summarized, businesses can avoid “he said, she said” scenarios with clients. Everything is documented and tied directly to customer records.

Smart Tags and Templates: Faster Searches, Less Admin

Searching for old notes can be a major time drain. Notebook AI’s smart tags and AI-powered categorization help here.

“The smart tags and the smart mind map helps the users to reduce the search because these are generated based on the content which is there in the note… the AI will contextually get the tags from the content and add it to your note. And when you search for that particular term, it automatically pops up so thereby it reduces the search term a lot.”

Admins can also create standardized templates, making it easier for teams to keep records consistent. This is especially useful for growing small businesses that want to maintain professionalism as they scale.

Collaboration Through Notes and Whiteboards

Notebook AI isn’t just about capturing conversations—it also supports collaborative brainstorming.

“If you take that whiteboard, it is not just taking notes, you’re brainstorming the idea with your peers… The whiteboard also has an option to have a video call so you can place a video call and inside a whiteboard and you can start brainstorming.”

For small businesses that lack expensive collaboration platforms, having whiteboards, notes, and even video calls integrated into one tool reduces context switching and costs.

Privacy and Security: Keeping Data Inside Zoho

I raised an important question: how does Zoho handle transcript retention and privacy? For many small businesses, client confidentiality is non-negotiable.

Ramamoorthy was clear:

“The transcription service is built by Zoho, so we don’t give the audio data to any third party to do the transcription. It is done by the Zoho transcription service in itself.”

“Even the mind maps or the smart meeting notes everything is generated using Zoho’s LLM so once again the data is not given to any third party which means that the data is always within Zoho and within your container only you can access your data. Even Zoho cannot access your data.”

Notebook AI also gives businesses the option to delete transcriptions if they don’t want them stored, ensuring owners remain in control of their data.

Beyond Notes: Generative AI in Notebook

While meeting notes and mind maps were the focus of the launch, Ramamoorthy hinted at a broader roadmap.

“Notebook AI is not just about these two things. We have a lot of things in Notebook AI, like for example the generative AI part, which is kind of very important for note taking aspect because note taking is viewed in two concepts, one is creating content, the other is viewing content.”

Generative AI inside Notebook can help small businesses rewrite content, adjust tone, correct grammar, and even translate text. For owners who don’t have time to polish communications, these features could make day-to-day writing more professional and efficient.

A Day in the Life: Practical Scenarios

What does this look like in practice? Consider a small sales team of two. A rep calls a prospect directly from Zoho CRM. Once the call ends, Notebook AI automatically creates:

• A transcription of the conversation

• A summarized “minutes of meeting” note

• A visual mind map of key discussion points

• Smart tags for easier searching later

All of this is instantly attached to the customer’s record in CRM. When the rep follows up next week, they don’t need to re-listen to the call or shuffle through notes. The context is right there.

Multiply this across dozens of deals or service requests, and the time savings become clear.

Where to Learn More

For small businesses looking to try Notebook AI, Zoho offers more information at zoho.com/notebook and zoho.com/notebook/ai.

As Ramamoorthy emphasized:

“There is a huge amount of things are packed into the Notebook AI, so you can always visit zoho.com/notebookai or zoho.com/notebook to know more.”

Final Takeaway for Small Business Owners

Notebook AI is more than just another note-taking app. By automating meeting documentation, reducing search times, integrating directly into CRM, and ensuring data privacy, Zoho has built a tool that speaks directly to the needs of small businesses.

For owners managing sales, client relationships, and internal collaboration, Notebook AI could mean fewer missed details, faster follow-up, and more time spent on growth rather than admin.

This article, "Interview with Zoho’s Ashok Ramamoorthy: Inside Notebook AI at SMZ 2025" was first published on Small Business Trends

At Zoho’s SMZ 2025 event, Zoho announced significant updates to its Zoho Commerce platform. I sat down with Prashant Ganti, Zoho’s Head of Product Management for Finance and Operations Suite, to discuss what these new features mean for small business owners.

From loyalty points and cart recovery to omnichannel selling and digital downloads, the updates aim to help small businesses sell more efficiently while reducing operational burdens. For entrepreneurs balancing tight resources and steep competition, these changes could prove transformative.

Why Ecommerce Innovation Matters for Small Businesses

I began by asking Ganti to walk through the new features and their practical benefits. Ganti framed Zoho Commerce within the broader landscape of online buying and selling.

“So thank you for having me here. So Zoho Commerce is the latest offering from the Zoho Finance Suite, Finance and Operations suite. So commerce right, if you take we all buy something online today. It’s par for the course. A lot of people purchase things online. So we want to make that experience. As seamless as possible. So that’s a continuous innovation investment that we make here. So this is the latest avatar of our commerce product.”

For small businesses, seamlessness is more than just convenience. Every added click, confusing checkout screen, or delay in shipping can mean lost revenue. That’s why Zoho Commerce now includes features like loyalty points, request-for-quote tools, and cart abandonment recovery—all designed to build stronger customer relationships while minimizing sales friction.

Reducing Checkout Abandonment and Building Loyalty

Ganti explained one of the main pain points Zoho sought to address: cart abandonment.

“We want businesses to have a more beautiful store. We want to reduce the chances of customers abandoning at checkout. So that maximize the chances of more sales. They want to build more, stickier relationship with customers. We have introduced features related to loyalty points and all those things.”

For small businesses, customer loyalty programs are often seen as tools only larger retailers can afford. By embedding this capability into Zoho Commerce, small business owners can now incentivize repeat sales without hiring a marketing team or purchasing an additional tool.

The platform also makes it easy to support customers who prefer a consultative sales process. “And then for customers who want to bit little bit more inquiry, we have request for court kind of a feature,” Ganti added.

The Complexity Behind a Simple Order

One of the biggest advantages Zoho Commerce offers is abstracting the complexity of ecommerce operations.

“If you take something like executing a simple online order, right, I mean I purchase something shoes online now. It’s very easy from a user point of view, but under the hood, we have abstracted a lot of complexities. There are 20-25 different subsystems that need to work in tandem to ensure that the single online order is executed successfully.”

He described how an order touches multiple subsystems: warehouse availability, invoicing, payment, tax calculation, and returns management. Most small businesses rely on multiple apps that don’t always talk to each other. That can lead to errors, delays, or customer dissatisfaction.

Zoho’s advantage is its unified stack. “We arguably among the very few companies globally that have built the entire stack. Including the payments part to ensure this gets successful executed, yeah,” Ganti said.

Fast ROI for Small Business Owners

I pressed further: what kind of “lift” can a small business expect from features like digital downloads, loyalty points, and cart recovery—especially without a marketing team?

Ganti was clear: “So one is this primarily a self-service model. So I think I mean as a small business, right, you don’t have too many resources to get all these done right. So we want to reduce the entry barrier for businesses to get started, sell online, widen your reach. So that’s the goal.”

To support that goal, Zoho Commerce includes built-in SEO tools, helping merchants show up on search engines without expensive consultants.

“So I think those are the heavy investments that we have made. So that of course costs are low, we monitize that over a lot of customers. So that’s how that’s been our business model from a business, small business point of view. The upfront investment is. Absolutely. It’s very, very less. There’s nothing much to get started. It’s very, very easy. And you can see the results and ROI very quickly.”

The promise is clear: rapid setup, quick wins, and scalability as the business grows.

Cart Abandonment Recovery: Insights and Nudges

One of the most compelling updates is cart abandonment recovery. I asked if this feature required extra spend or messaging limits.

Ganti responded, “That’s more of it’s. It doesn’t require any investment, anything more you need to do. It’s kind of. Weaved into the product itself, it’s what we found, what was. How do you make the experience better so that we minimize the chances of customer abandoning the cart? So we want to provide more insights about that, so that if there is something that you could improve. We can nudge the businesses to do something better there.”

The feature works on two levels. At the customer-facing level, it nudges buyers to stay engaged. At the business-facing level, it delivers insights on why customers abandon carts.

Ganti explained: “It’s both actually, because at the point of decision making point I I decide to leave the cart I want decide to move away. Then there’s a way to we tried to nudge the user to figure out. To stick on more, to spend more time and then. Even despite our best efforts, the customer leaves the cart right then we try to provide more insights and over which the business owner can take better decisions to improve.”

Omnichannel Selling: From WhatsApp to the Warehouse

I shifted to omnichannel sales, asking how small businesses could synchronize inventory and pricing across WhatsApp, online stores, and in-person sales.

Ganti explained that Zoho’s integrated database enables this:

“So what you’re asking is Omni channel selling. So commerce is once it’s kind of one store I can sell in person. I can still through commerce. So I think the IT comes back to. The the the thing that I mentioned very early in the conversation about commerce is built on the same platform that serves other finance products like inventory, everything. So if you’re selling on Amazon, if you’re selling on, if you have some Shopify, this thing you’re selling on Amazon, you’re selling on Etsy and then you also have your commerce store, right? … everything synchronizes back to one platform and that gets reflected.”

That means a small business can confidently sell across multiple channels—social media, marketplaces, physical locations—without worrying about overselling or inventory mismatches.

Streamlined B2B Sales: Quotes, Credit, and Accounting

For B2B sellers, Zoho Commerce now supports quote requests, negotiations, and credit limits. I asked how these features tie into accounting systems like Zoho Books or QuickBooks.

Ganti replied: “So. I think the very first thing that I mentioned is the 25 different subsystems, right? I didn’t mention the accounting subsystem because that’s a key part of this. Ultimately, everything is ties up to that. Zoho books are accounting product powers, the accounting here. So it’s real time updates into that.”

Because Zoho Commerce shares a unified database with Zoho Books, transactions automatically flow into financial statements—no double data entry required.

“Now if you’re using any other accounting product, we can hook into that as well, yeah,” Ganti added.

Education and Support

Finally, I asked where business owners could go to learn more.

Ganti shared, “Yeah, we have a lot of educational materials. We have a team that can we continuously run educational sessions on the product. So zoho.com/commerce is the website and you can find enough resources there.”

Why These Updates Matter for Small Businesses

For small business owners, every hour saved and every customer retained matters. Zoho Commerce’s updates are designed around those realities:

• Lower entry barriers: Built-in SEO, loyalty points, and cart recovery remove the need for expensive add-ons.

• Scalable operations: A unified platform ensures businesses won’t outgrow their ecommerce solution.

• Customer-centric tools: From WhatsApp sales to B2B quotes, features are designed for modern buyers.

• Accounting integration: Real-time sync with Zoho Books eliminates duplicate work.

In short, Zoho is aiming to put enterprise-level ecommerce capabilities into the hands of small businesses—without the enterprise-level cost or complexity.

As Ganti summed it up: “It’s easier to set up, easier to realize the benefits and it scales as you grow because we have built a very scalable platform.”

This article, "Zoho Commerce Rolls Out New Features to Power Small Business Growth" was first published on Small Business Trends

At Zoho’s SMZ 2025 event, I sat down with Arjun Kesavan Balasubramanian from the Zoho Contracts team. Their conversation focused on how the platform’s newest features—including AI assistance and deeper CRM integration—are designed to save small businesses time, reduce risk, and improve transparency when handling contracts.

For small business owners, contracts are a constant part of operations. Every vendor agreement, client deal, or partnership relies on legal language that can be confusing and time-consuming. Traditionally, managing contracts requires a patchwork of tools, lawyers, and endless email threads. Zoho Contracts is aiming to change that by providing one unified platform for the entire contract lifecycle.

One Tool for the Entire Contract Lifecycle

Balasubramanian began by outlining what Zoho Contracts offers today:

“So Zoho Contracts is Zoho’s contract lifecycle management software. So, if you want to transform your entire contract lifecycle, if you want to have one tool to manage the contract requests, the collaboration, the approval negotiation signature and all of the post execution stages like amendments, renewals, extensions, termination and the contract analytics part. All of this is covered in one tool, which is Zoho Contracts.”

For small businesses, this means avoiding the chaos of juggling Word documents, email attachments, and multiple online tools. Instead, owners can initiate a contract request, collaborate internally, send it for approval, negotiate terms, and sign—all without leaving the platform. Post-execution tasks like renewals and amendments are tracked automatically.

AI Assistance for Contract Insights

One of the headline features from the 2025 update is the integration of large language models (LLMs) such as ChatGPT into the platform.

“The recent features that we launched with this update is basically our integration with LLMs like ChatGPT. So what that adds to the CLM system is it adds an additional layer of intelligence. So if you are working on a contract document, let’s say 50 pages long, it would be amazing to have an assistant that will tell you what are the key insights from this contract, right? Like it can summarize your contract. It can give you an update on what are the potential risks I have in this contract and it can extract what are the obligations you have in this particular contract so that AI assistant is a powerful feature.”

For small business owners who don’t have an in-house legal team, this is a big step forward. Instead of combing through dozens of pages, AI can highlight deadlines, risks, or unusual clauses in seconds.

Zoho also plans to introduce its own AI engine, Zia, to handle these tasks in a privacy-first way.

Where AI Fits—and Where Humans Still Matter

I asked the question many small business owners are thinking: Can AI really handle contract work without risk?

“That’s a good one. So if you think about it, you have an AI assistant that can summarize that can tell you what is the risk and what is not, but you still need a human judgment to validate whatever the AI is saying, because legal is this one sector where the nuances are a lot, right.”

Balasubramanian explained that while AI can suggest missing clauses, flag obligations, or summarize terms, humans remain essential for judgment. Industry regulations, company policies, and regional laws require context AI cannot fully capture.

In practice, AI reduces the time it takes for a business owner—or their lawyer—to make informed decisions. It speeds up drafting and reviewing but doesn’t eliminate the need for oversight.

Data Privacy and BYOK Integration

When it comes to AI, data privacy is always top of mind for small businesses. I pressed on this point, asking what data is shared with OpenAI when using the ChatGPT integration.

“Definitely. So this particular ChatGPT integration is covered as bring your own key integration. So if you already are using ChatGPT at your organization, you’re bringing that key and you’re enabling this integration with Zoho Contracts, right? So you’re already OK with ChatGPT processing that data to help you improve efficiency or make your contract management easier.”

This Bring Your Own Key (BYOK) approach means businesses maintain control. If they don’t want to use ChatGPT, they can opt out while still leveraging other features. Soon, Zoho’s own LLM will give businesses a private option that doesn’t use contract data for external training.

Balasubramanian emphasized:

“Exactly. Yeah. So what Zoho has achieved is trust, and that trust was built over 3 decades… when Zoho LLM is implemented into our system, the decision becomes very, very easy for our customers.”

CRM Integration for Sales and Legal Transparency

For many small businesses, contracts and customer relationships are tightly linked. Closing a deal often requires quick contract generation and approval. Zoho has deepened its integration with Zoho CRM to make this process seamless.

“So if you are a CRM user. And when you see that a deal is imminent, you can just create a record right from your deal, record in CRM and all of that information in CRM will be fetched. It will be automatically mapped into Zoho’s Contracts. A contract document will be generated and that document is also available as an attachment in Zoho CRM.”

This ensures sales teams don’t have to switch tools or chase down legal staff for paperwork. Contracts are automatically generated from CRM data, cutting down errors and improving speed.

Pre-Approved Templates and Clause Libraries

Another feature aimed at small businesses is the inclusion of templates and a clause library.

“We have 14 predefined templates and these templates are some of the commonly used contracts that any business would need, but actually we would still recommend the small businesses to actually do a check of whether these clauses are relevant for the industry that they are operating in.”

The benefit for small businesses is clear: rather than starting from scratch, they can use ready-made templates and adapt them for their industry. Balasubramanian noted that lawyers are still important but that Zoho Contracts can reduce legal dependencies by providing fallback clauses and pre-approved language.

I summarized it well:

“So more of a way to give a lawyer something that’s you know, 90% of the way there instead of starting from scratch.”

And Balasubramanian confirmed:

“Exactly. Exactly. It’s about reducing the dependency. It’s not about replacing lawyers.”

This approach cuts costs while ensuring negotiations move quickly. For example, if a customer requests a discount, fallback options are already documented. Sales staff don’t need to escalate every negotiation to managers or legal counsel.

Regional and Multi-Organization Support

Zoho Contracts has also expanded features to support businesses operating in multiple regions or managing different subsidiaries.

“We support multi organization. We have some regional settings covered now you can add files and URLs and attachments to your contract documents.”

For small businesses growing across borders—or simply managing multiple LLCs—this flexibility helps keep operations compliant without increasing complexity.

Practical Benefits for Small Businesses

Throughout the discussion, I pointed out how these updates can save business owners “a whole lot of time and effort.” That’s the central promise of Zoho Contracts: reduce headaches, speed up workflows, and improve legal preparedness without overwhelming owners or requiring full-time legal staff.

The combination of AI insights, CRM integration, and pre-approved templates provides a practical toolkit for:

• Freelancers negotiating service contracts

• Small retailers managing vendor agreements

• Agencies drafting client proposals

• Growing businesses dealing with renewals and amendments

By centralizing the contract process, Zoho Contracts helps ensure nothing slips through the cracks.

Trust as a Competitive Advantage

One theme that came up repeatedly was trust. Zoho has long emphasized privacy, and that principle is guiding its AI development. With many small businesses wary of where their data goes, Zoho’s commitment to in-house AI and transparent integrations is a differentiator.

Balasubramanian summed it up:

“Even though we have chat integration, people would still ask when is Zoho LLM coming? Because they would really want to switch. And yeah, that trust I think. Will definitely help the adoption of LLM as well.”

For small businesses, trust isn’t abstract—it directly impacts whether they feel safe using a platform for sensitive contracts.

Where to Learn More

As the interview wrapped up, Balasubramanian directed small businesses to explore the platform further:

“Yeah, people can learn more about Zoho Contracts at zoho.com/contracts.”

Final Takeaway for Small Business Owners

Zoho Contracts is positioning itself as more than just software—it’s a way for small businesses to work smarter with contracts. By combining AI, templates, CRM integration, and a privacy-focused approach, the platform provides a strong alternative to traditional, fragmented contract management.

Small business owners should see this as an opportunity to:

• Cut down on manual legal tasks

• Speed up deal closings

• Reduce dependency on external counsel for routine negotiations

• Improve compliance and risk awareness

• Build a scalable foundation for growth

In the end, Zoho Contracts doesn’t remove the need for lawyers, but it does ensure that small businesses come to the table prepared—with better insights, faster processes, and fewer headaches.

This article, "Zoho Contracts Brings AI and CRM Integration to Simplify Small Business Legal Workflows" was first published on Small Business Trends