7 Major Challenges for Small and Medium Businesses (SMBs) in Vietnam

Are SMBs facing difficulties? Join OMN1 Solution to explore the 7 most common challenges small and medium businesses encounter and how to address them effectively to sustain growth.

As a small business owner, you’ve likely asked yourself: What are the biggest challenges I’m facing, and how have I been coping with them? Understanding these challenges is the foundation for finding solutions and turning obstacles into opportunities.

To help provide clarity, we conducted in-depth research, consulted with experienced experts, analyzed data from the latest SMB trend reports, and learned from real-life stories of businesses like yours. The findings reveal several common and pressing challenges SMBs are navigating today.

In this article, OMN1 Solution will walk you through the 7 biggest challenges that directly impact growth, competitiveness, and customer engagement, including:

1. Building resilience amid economic volatility
2. Meeting ever-rising customer expectations
3. Leveraging Artificial Intelligence (AI) without losing human connection
4. Maintaining customer trust and data security
5. Managing growth with lean teams
6. Standing out in a crowded digital marketplace
7. Expanding multi-channel customer engagement

We’ll also share practical solutions, actionable strategies, and smart tools such as CRM to help businesses not only overcome obstacles but also grow sustainably in the long run.

Challenge 1: Building Resilience Amid Economic Volatility

Economic cycles constantly shift. Every few years, the market enters a new phase sometimes booming with growth, other times slowing down. For small businesses, these fluctuations can impact everything from inventory planning and cash flow adjustments to hiring decisions.

This requires leaders to be flexible and strategic, especially when budgets are tight or customer demands change suddenly. Understanding economic cycles allows you to build a business model that adapts and stays steady even when the market fluctuates.

Solution: Prioritize operational efficiency and long-term planning
Instead of hastily cutting costs, many SMBs are choosing smarter approaches:

• Simplifying complex processes and focusing on core priorities
  
• Planning long-term strategies rather than reacting only in the short term
  
• Reducing complexity, sharpening focus, and building a strong foundation for sustainable growth
  

The goal isn’t just cost-saving, but creating a flexible, transparent, and scalable system.

According to SMB trend reports:

• Teams are phasing out siloed tools and moving toward collaborative platforms
  
• Businesses are applying AI to reduce repetitive tasks and better understand customers
  
• CRM systems are being deployed to unify data, automate workflows, and give leaders holistic visibility into both business operations and customers
  
• 72% of SMBs are prioritizing sustainable growth strategies to remain resilient during market shifts
  

Challenge 2: Meeting Ever-Rising Customer Expectations

Today’s customers don’t just want good products or services. They expect to feel seen, understood, supported, and remembered throughout their journey with a brand. From placing an order, browsing a marketing campaign, to seeking support, they expect every interaction to be seamless and personalized.

Importantly, customers don’t compare you to other small businesses, they compare you to the best experience they’ve ever had with any brand. This could be a one-click checkout or not having to repeat personal details when switching from chat to email.

Maintaining such high standards requires tremendous effort, especially with limited staff. For SMB owners, this means offering personalized, around-the-clock support across multiple channels a significant challenge to meet.

Solution: Personalize every interaction with a unified CRM
Research shows:

• 83% of SMBs believe customer experience is the key differentiator in today’s market
  
• 92% of SMB marketing teams use CRM tools to centralize all customer data
  
• 65% of customers expect consistent, personalized experiences across all touchpoints email, websites, and post-sale support
  

By consolidating all customer data in a single CRM system, you not only build the foundation for personalization but also enable scalable customer experiences while preserving individuality.

When AI is integrated into CRM, businesses can:

• Recommend tailored products to individual customers
  
• Automate follow-ups and responses
  
• Save time and resources for their teams
  

This fosters long-term loyalty, as customers feel genuinely valued at every interaction.

Challenge 3: Leveraging AI Without Losing Human Connection

Artificial Intelligence (AI) has permeated nearly every aspect of business from emails and social media to customer data. It promises faster processes, smarter decisions, and higher productivity. However, real concerns arise:

• Will your brand remain authentic and personal if it over-relies on AI?
  
• Can customers tell when they’re speaking to a human versus a chatbot?
  
• Is sensitive customer data truly secure in AI-driven environments?
  

This balance is exactly what SMBs are grappling with. They want the speed and scalability of AI, but without sacrificing the trust and connections carefully built with customers. As customers become more aware of how businesses use AI, transparency and accountability become critical.

Solution: Use trustworthy AI to support teams, not replace humans
AI should not replace authentic conversations or thoughtful decision-making. Instead, it should help businesses do what they already do well, faster and with less pressure.

For example, Agentforce, an AI tool integrated within CRM, supports daily operations while enabling teams to respond more quickly and accurately, without losing the human touch in customer experience.

According to recent studies:

• 71% of SMBs have developed clear AI strategies to adopt technology responsibly and effectively, staying ahead of trends
  
• 58% of SMB marketing teams already use AI for personalized content and automated campaigns, saving significant time on outreach activities
  
• SMBs are prioritizing ethical AI usage, ensuring transparency, data integrity, and customer trust remain at the forefront
  

With this approach, AI becomes a powerful enabler helping SMBs grow faster while preserving customer trust and connection.

Challenge 4: Maintaining Customer Trust and Data Security

Customer trust is hard to earn and nearly impossible to regain once lost. In today’s world, where customer data is collected, stored, and shared across platforms, even a minor breach can undermine years of credibility.

Lack of transparency in data usage or a single security lapse can drive customers away. In fact, 78% of customers say they won’t engage with a brand they don’t trust. Trust today goes beyond quality service or ethics it lies in how businesses collect, manage, protect, and communicate about customer data.

Solution: Invest in secure and transparent data practices

The most successful and sustainable businesses treat data security as a core part of customer experience. This includes:

• Being transparent about what data is collected, why, and how customers benefit
  
• Using reliable systems such as CRM with first-party data capabilities, reducing risks and building transparency-driven relationships instead of hidden tracking
  

Research shows SMBs are building trust by:

• Using CRM to unify and secure customer data across teams and channels
  
• Prioritizing ethical, transparent AI with customer visibility and consent
  
• Giving customers greater control over their data, fostering loyalty and long-term relationships
  

Challenge 5: Managing Growth with Lean Teams

Growth is positive but it can become overwhelming when it outpaces your team’s current capacity. As customers, opportunities, markets, and sales channels expand simultaneously, small teams often find themselves stretched thin.

This often leads to work overload, missed opportunities, slower response times, and even burnout. If your team feels like they’re doing the work of five people in the time of one, you’re not alone. Many SMBs face this reality: needing to scale without proportionally increasing headcount.

Solution: Automate repetitive tasks to focus on core value

Instead of adding staff, forward-thinking SMBs integrate tools and automation systems to ease workloads. From sales to customer service, AI and automation eliminate repetitive tasks, allowing teams to focus on relationship-building.

Studies show SMBs are managing growth more effectively by:

• Automating lead routing, email tracking, scheduling, and data entry saving hours each month
  
• Using AI to identify hot leads, flag urgent issues, and deliver insights without manual searching saving hours each day
  
• Replacing spreadsheets and manual notes with CRMs offering real-time visibility, enabling global, cross-functional collaboration
  

Challenge 6: Standing Out in a Crowded Digital Marketplace

The digital space today is saturated with competition. For SMBs, being visible is just the beginning the real challenge is capturing attention and retaining customers.

Whether you run an e-commerce store, a retail business with online presence, or provide professional services, you’re competing with brands that often have bigger budgets, larger teams, more advanced tools, and wider reach.

On top of that, as digital channels like social media, email, and search engines grow increasingly crowded, cutting through the noise becomes even harder. Great products and services mean little if your target audience never discovers you.

Solution: Use AI-powered marketing to personalize, scale, and compete

The good news is you don’t need massive budgets or large teams to make a strong online impact. With AI-driven marketing tools, SMBs can reach the right customers, at the right time, with highly personalized messaging something big brands often struggle to deliver effectively.

In a survey of over 3,500 SMB leaders:

• AI helped personalize marketing campaigns across email, social, websites, and SMS while reducing workloads by up to one-third
  
• CRM platforms tracked entire customer journeys across channels, helping businesses optimize every touchpoint
  
• Real-time analytics supported better decisions, from refining ad campaigns to improving SEO strategies
  

Challenge 7: Expanding Multi-Channel Customer Engagement

Today’s customers interact across multiple channels simultaneously. Within hours, they may visit a website, message via social media, send an email, and expect a follow-up through SMS. This new behavior makes managing customer experience more complex than ever.

Research shows SMBs use at least 10 different sales and service channels on average. Each channel brings opportunities but also risks of fragmented, inconsistent experiences if data isn’t connected.

Solution: Build seamless omni-channel experiences

The SMBs that best retain customers are those that integrate all touchpoints into a single AI-enabled communication platform. This eliminates the need to constantly switch systems or re-enter data, while providing a complete view of the customer journey for more accurate responses.

Successful SMBs are:

• Unifying sales, service, and marketing tools in a single AI-powered CRM
  
• Using automation for personalized responses, appointment reminders, and real-time notifications
  
• Turning fragmented channels into seamless customer experiences, fostering trust and loyalty
  

Overcoming SMB Challenges with OMN1 Solution – Salesforce’s Leading Partner in Vietnam

SMBs constantly face challenges: economic volatility, rising customer expectations, the pressure to grow with lean teams, and the need to expand across multiple channels in an increasingly crowded digital market. But with the right strategies and tools, these challenges can become opportunities for growth.

The most successful teams don’t try to do everything. Instead, they focus on what truly makes a difference:

• Simplifying technology systems and eliminating complexity
  
• Unifying data with CRM for transparency and efficiency
  
• Automating workflows with trustworthy AI to save time and reduce pressure on teams
  
• Most importantly, delivering more human, sustainable customer experiences
  

This is the power of Salesforce Pro Suite: an all-in-one solution that helps SMBs manage customers, optimize operations, personalize experiences, and scale across channels.

In Vietnam, OMN1 Solution is proud to be Salesforce’s official authorized partner, specializing in providing and implementing Pro Suite. We go beyond delivering tools we accompany businesses through implementation, training, and optimization, helping you:

• Grow sustainably with a world-class CRM platform
  
• Leverage AI for productivity and personalized engagement
  
• Build seamless customer experiences that foster loyalty
  

Contact OMN1 Solution today to discover how Pro Suite can be the key to helping your SMB overcome challenges and thrive in Vietnam’s competitive market.