From 30 companies to one: How SPG built a unified, data-driven organization with Zoho One

The challenge

With no CRM in place, SPG was "30 companies taped together," as described by Brett Calamari, Director, Sales Operations at SPG. Each acquired entity had its own way of managing customer data, tracking pipeline, and running its sales process—if it had a standardized process at all. Contact information lived in ERP systems designed for finance, pipeline visibility depended on individual Excel spreadsheets, and sales reps kept customer details in notebooks and rolodexes.

Each newly acquired manufacturing site was siloed and operating independently, rather than seeing the benefits of being part of an enterprise organization. With no centralized knowledge repository and no overarching visibility across locations, sharing previous packaging designs and best practices was cumbersome. As a result, unscalable manual processes were still in place at the facility level, and design work was being unnecessarily duplicated across locations. Sales processes and pipelines were also inconsistent, with no standardized set of pipeline stages, qualification criteria, or even terminology.

Without a consistent method of tracking opportunities, SPG lacked the ability to develop organization-level strategic intelligence. Management had limited insight into which industries were generating the most profit, or which products had the most opportunities, to draw on for resource prioritization. There was no real visibility into win-loss patterns and no ability to analyze why deals were failing or succeeding, resulting in decisions based more on gut-feeling than on data.

Already a few years into private equity ownership and still desperate for visibility and modern commercial data reporting at the organizational level, executive management at SPG recognized the unsustainability of this setup and the need to professionalize and standardize operations in order to support continued growth.

The solution

Zoho CRM came on SPG's radar after they acquired a company that was already using it for basic pipeline tracking. Seeing how well it was working for the acquired company, SPG decided to explore whether Zoho One could solve their broader operational challenges. SPG considered other CRM options, including Microsoft Dynamics, but Zoho CRM ultimately won out due to its advanced customizability and proven success in the acquired company.

SPG took a deliberately slow and iterative approach to implementation, intentionally "under-automating" the CRM to begin with in order to see what worked for their business processes, and add in automation later to ensure that it was providing real value rather than forcing users into unnecessarily rigid blueprints. The aim was to bring standardization while still allowing the facilities a certain amount of autonomy.

Taking a more gradual approach to automation also aligned with SPG's change management approach. Aware of the potential for pushback, Brett hoped to reduce the learning curve involved in getting 143 users across 30 different locations—that had previously operated as separate entities—to adopt a new CRM system and adapt to new, centrally determined processes.

Standardization of two core business models

To professionalize operations, SPG implemented a standardized sales methodology across all facilities, establishing consistent terminology and stages. They created a unified prospect-to-account conversion process where unqualified contacts start as "Prospects," then convert to "Accounts" once qualified, ensuring clean data and focused opportunity management.

However, SPG recognized that their fabrication (primarily direct) and extrusion (primarily indirect) divisions operated with fundamentally different business models, making a one-size-fits-all CRM approach ineffective. The indirect division, which sells through distribution as a foam producer, follows a straightforward process of pricing, sampling, and negotiation. The direct division handles custom projects requiring extensive work upfront through design engineering and costing before pricing can be submitted to customers.

Rather than forcing both divisions into the same workflow, SPG built separate division-specific layouts. This approach allowed each division to capture the precise information needed for their unique workflows while maintaining overall consistency in terminology, conversion criteria, and opportunity stages across the organization. SPG added granular fields for both divisions including product family, product group, estimated annual value and volume, and manufacturing site. This allows SPG to track which of their 30 facilities are receiving opportunities to manufacture specific products, providing visibility into site-specific pipelines.

Integration with Projects for cross-functional visibility

SPG created a seamless integration between Zoho CRM and Zoho Projects to manage their complex 90-day sales cycle from initial prospect through production. The process begins in CRM where sales teams manage prospecting and account qualification. When an opportunity reaches the stage requiring detailed work, sales creates an opportunity record and selects a project type (new customer, customer change request, or requote), which automatically pushes relevant information into Zoho Projects.

Within Projects, SPG tracks five distinct stages involving cross-functional collaboration. The full sales cycle incorporates around 30 tasks which are assigned across the sales, design engineering, costing, purchasing, quality assurance, and customer service teams. Sales manages the first few stages, then passes responsibilities to design engineering, who completes their work before handing off to costing and then back to sales. The final stages of receiving the purchase order, entering the PO, and providing confirmation mark the transition from "closed won" to production. As tasks close and projects progress through the timeline, data flows back to CRM, providing real-time visibility.

This integration brings cross-functional teams working across design, costing, QA, and customer service into one connected system for the first time. The real-time sync gives sales reps access to project details while keeping executive leadership informed on opportunity status, enabling complete end-to-end visibility from first prospect contact through manufacturing handoff.

Data-driven decision-making and actionable insights

SPG implemented comprehensive reporting and analytics to address their executive team's demand for commercial data visibility across their 30 consolidated facilities. Using Zoho One integrated with Power BI, SPG tracks performance across locations, industries, sales representatives, products, and manufacturing sites.

SPG built reporting to identify true new prospects and track both quantity and dollar value of opportunities for these "new logos" compared to new deals for existing customers. This revealed that while SPG excelled with current customers, new customer acquisition showed scope for improvement. They also distinguished between project-based business (won and shipped within six months) and repeat business (lasting at least a year), enabling better forecasting and resource allocation.

When opportunities are lost, SPG captures specific reasons and analyzes them across five factors: industry, product type, site, customer type, and sales rep. This granular analysis helps identify which facilities struggle with certain products or price points, allowing SPG to prescriptively route opportunities to the right locations.

The analytics revealed breakthrough market insights. While SPG had always been strong in the automotive industry, technology emerged as a major growth sector over 8–10 months, particularly in Mexico. This discovery enabled SPG to replicate successful approaches across other facilities, driving profitable expansion into new markets.

Building a Future-Proofed Solution

SPG's Zoho ecosystem was designed with scalability at its foundation. Moving to Zoho One has given SPG the flexibility to roll out apps across facilities as needed, and deploy pilots before implementing new systems across the whole organization. For example, Zoho Projects was rolled out gradually across the facilities, with each location determining which of its employees needed access.

Brett's future plans include implementing Zoho Desk to handle post-sale customer service activity. Currently, customer service teams use Projects to stay informed about pricing, specifications, and documentation sign-off, but this only allows for customer service to passively observe the process, not take an active part. Desk would formalize and systemize that handoff, connecting service data to the same platform driving sales and production, and automating customer-facing updates.

The results

After spending three-and-a-half years building out a unified Zoho ecosystem across all 30 of their manufacturing facilities, SPG has moved from a fragmented collection of independently-operating companies to a cohesive, data-driven organization. The transformation touches every layer of the business—from how sales reps manage prospects to how the executive team makes strategic decisions.

From 30 Disconnected Operations to One Cohesive Organization

The days of each facility operating as a silo are gone. Today, SPG's 143 Zoho users across all facilities operate within a single, standardized system. A qualified prospect follows the same journey from the Prospects module through to a closed-won deal whether the sale originates in Ohio, Guadalajara, or Chicago. Brett describes the key impacts of this transformation:

Where SPG's previous processes were "unreliable, inconsistent, a relic", and ultimately unsustainable, the organization now runs on shared language, shared stages, and shared data.

Accountability, Transparency, and a Culture of Professionalization

One of the biggest cultural shifts at SPG has been the introduction of genuine accountability into the sales process. Because Zoho timestamps records and logs activity, it is no longer possible for performance data to be manually adjusted to present a more favorable picture. As Brett noted, "when somebody can manipulate their own records to make themselves look good, you need to change".

Executive leadership can check in on specific opportunities, leave notes, and monitor progress without disrupting the sales team's workflow. The CCO regularly engages with the data, using it to challenge assumptions and identify opportunities for cross-facility leverage. This visibility from the top down has elevated the standard of performance expectation across the organization, replacing informal accountability with a transparent, documented record of activity.

Data-Driven Strategy: From Reactive to Proactive

Perhaps the most strategically significant outcome of SPG's Zoho implementation has been the ability to see patterns that were simply invisible before. By capturing granular data on industry, product type, site, estimated annual value, and deal outcome, SPG can now identify not just what is happening but also why.

The clearest example of this strategic shift is SPG's discovery that the technology sector in Mexico was a particularly successful market for their offerings, with significant untapped potential.

This kind of insight was impossible under the previous system, leading to reactive decision-making. Now, SPG can be take a winning approach from one region and deliberately apply it elsewhere, such as directing facilities in Juarez or Matamoros to incorporate technology-sector prospecting into their weekly activity, or shifting resources toward industries and product types where win rates are highest.

SPG also built out distinct configurations to reflect the reality of their two business models. By mapping the separate workflows for their direct and indirect divisions in Zoho, SPG gained clarity into which products were generating the most opportunity at which sites—enabling them to resource deals more effectively and avoid misaligned efforts.

Identifying Loss Patterns and Redirecting Resources

Closed-lost data has become one of SPG's most valuable analytical tools. Before Zoho, when a deal was lost, the reason generally stayed with the individual rep. Now, SPG can interrogate loss patterns across industry, product type, prospect category, site, and sales rep, and use those patterns to make structural improvements. Rather than repeatedly losing the same type of deal, SPG can now route opportunities to the sites best equipped to win them. And when specific facilities show patterns of slow cycle times or high deal abandonment, SPG can bring in other branches to offer support, leveraging the strengths of its full network rather than allowing underperforming sites to operate in isolation.

Scalability for Continued Growth

SPG's Zoho implementation was built from the start to grow with the organization. What began as a CRM deployment for a single acquired company has expanded into a unified ecosystem spanning 30 facilities and 143 users, with that number expected to reach approximately 200 as the Projects rollout continues across remaining sites.

The most significant expression of this scalability is the ability to identify what works in one location and deliberately replicate it elsewhere. SPG's CEO captured the principle directly:

In a business where speed of response is often the deciding factor the ability to draw on institutional knowledge across 30 facilities is a meaningful competitive advantage.

Quantifiable Outcomes

SPG's target is 8% year-over-year revenue growth, but Brett emphasized that the value of Zoho is not simply in hitting a number, but in how that growth is achieved: "With these tools, we will be able to grow more efficiently and effectively."

Even incremental improvements in conversion rates, deal routing, and resource allocation translate directly to material financial impact. The system tracks new logo acquisition, repeat business rates, site-level opportunity value, and win rates by industry—providing the analytical foundation to pursue growth systematically rather than opportunistically.

The operational gains extend beyond revenue. Projects has reduced ambiguity across the 30-task sales cycle by making ownership explicit at every stage. Customer service now enters the handoff process with full context on pricing, specifications, and documentation sign-off. And the upcoming Zoho Desk deployment will close the final gap in SPG's end-to-end customer lifecycle management, connecting post-sale service data to the same system that drives pipeline and production.

Conclusion

SPG's story demonstrates what is possible when a collection of independent operations starts functioning as a single, intelligent organization. The commercial data that executives were "begging for" when Brett Calamari joined now flows in real time across the organization, giving leadership the visibility to make prescriptive decisions rather than reactive ones. Deals are routed to the sites best equipped to win them. A packaging design proven in California can be replicated in Guadalajara. A technology sector boom in Mexico becomes a growth strategy for facilities in Juarez and Matamoros. None of that was possible when the business ran on Excel spreadsheets, rolodexes, and institutional knowledge stored only in the heads of individual reps. With the Projects rollout continuing across remaining facilities and the Zoho Desk implementation on the horizon, the system is not yet complete, but the operational foundation is in place for SPG to grow in both size and strategic sophistication.