The Acumatica ERP Summit Podcast Recap: Industry Analysts Share Insights on How to Unlock ERP’s Full Potential

During Acumatica Summit 2026, I had an opportunity to sit down with two experts who really understand business technology — Robert Kramer, VP and Principal Analyst for Moor Insights & Strategy, and Mickey North Rizza, Group Vice-President at International Data Corporation (IDC) Enterprise Software. Between Robert and Mickey, they have been delivering insightful thought leadership and strategic solutions to organizations and professionals seeking operational transformation for 50+ years.

Our conversations are captured in Episode 7 of The Acumatica ERP Podcast, which provides deep insights into how ERP solutions—and Acumatica in particular—are driving innovative advancements. How do these innovations unlock ERP’s full potential and what does it mean for small and midsized businesses (SMBs) in today’s digital environment?

Here’s what they had to say.

Innovation Aptitude and Why ERP (and the Implementation) Are So Important

From informative keynotes and info-saturated breakouts to an exhibit-filled Acumatica Marketplace featuring hundreds of modern third-party applications and expert partners, Acumatica Summit 2026 was all about learning and discovering. When asked what impressed him the most at Summit, Robert gave Acumatica’s innovation-and-customer-first product roadmap the nod. “What I’m looking at is how your customers are actually using the system and what advances you’re doing with the technology to help those customers.”

Robert says every customer is at different levels in their technology journey. It’s what he calls “innovation aptitude,” and it’s impacted by the industry they’re in. Because their industry plays such an important part in this ongoing journey, Acumatica’s industry-specific capabilities are a “big deal.”

“The innovation that you’re putting forth and actually implementing into your releases, they might be at a different level. I’m impressed with your product team and how they’re advancing the technology. There’s a lot of technology in the world, and it’s super important for these customers to understand how they actually get there.”

He adds: “I think there’s a lot going on with your team that’s actually positioning the software for the future for the customers.”

That future, according to Robert, is going to be one where customers understand why they need a new system and how the new system will change their processes and their data needs. By modernizing with an ERP, they’ll become more efficient and can take advantage of the system to grow their business.

“The goal is everything has to be on the system. It has to be a differentiator. And the data has to be right,” he says. “These systems aren’t meant to be just systems of record—they’re meant to be systems of action. We call it intelligence, but it’s not there to just record and do your reporting and your taxes.”

Robert also noted that successfully implementing a modern ERP system requires momentum from the top down, every stakeholder giving 100%, and data readiness.

“You can have the best LLMs and the best systems to use AI, but if the data’s not right, it doesn’t matter,” he says. “And if you want to get where the systems are going, which is an event-driven system, data needs to be tight.”

Ultimately, Robert believes implementations are challenging, but if they’re done correctly, it will give businesses a competitive advantage. “The cost of doing nothing is going to cost more than modernizing.”

The Power of Modernization: Technology Trends Impacting SMBs Today

Mickey—who is VP of Enterprise Applications at IDC and covers enterprise applications and agents, enterprise apps, as well as ERP, ERM, and PSA applications—joined me for the second half of the podcast. During our conversation, Mickey explained that she and her team look at trends impacting different industries so her vendor and services, financial, and end-user clients can make strategic decisions about their technology adoption.

When asked about the trends for technology, she says the future is looking bright for ERP and AI.

“We do an awful lot of surveys and studies within IDC, and…what we found over this last year is 44% of organizations globally are investing in AI-powered ERP. In addition, we found that 22% of organizations said they’ll leave their enterprise apps provider if they did not have gen AI in the next release. That’s huge.”

It is huge, and so are some of the other statistics Mickey shared from IDC surveys, including the fact that 28% of organizations told IDC that they will invest in anything that has AI in it, and ERP is one of the top investment areas. She also says 52% of SMBs in 2025 (up from 20% in 2024) are going to invest in AI because they need it to scale faster.

AI isn’t going anywhere, and Acumatica is committed to being at the forefront of AI innovation. Mickey says, “[At Summit], you showed us where you’re going, the roadmap…explaining where you’re going in the short and the longer term into the agent world and how that’s going to change and help an organization evolve much faster. So, as far as I’m concerned, you’re spot on in hitting those numbers.”

Speaking of numbers, another IDC report found that between 80% and 83% of organizations are investing in AI to eliminate semi-manual and manual workflows. For Mickey, this looks like getting information at our fingertips and making it actionable. It also looks like using AI to eliminate unnecessary steps in business workflows.

“Instead of having these long workflows of 15 different steps in a process, bring AI in the data in the front,” she says. “Bring it all together and start reducing these workflows and making them short, simple, and eventually they’ll become a part of the technology where it’s doing a lot of the work for you and bringing you the information so you can navigate any sort of disruption and make a better decision for your business from an overall basis.”

Mickey says AI can help businesses and employees become more productive and efficient with faster outcomes, which ultimately helps them become more competitive. But it’s a change for customers, and it may take slow steps to get them where they can finally see how leveraging AI can help each team member “see the bigger picture” of how important their job is.

“It’s a whole new world. It’s not…I got visibility, or I got this or that. It’s like, ‘Wow, I really changed my business,’” she says. “And when you hear owners talking about reshaping their business and creating new operating models and doing something different, it’s…absolutely huge. It’s changing the industries.”

ERP, AI, and the Future

Episode 7 is filled with great insights from Robert and Mickey that SMBs can use to make wise, forward-looking decisions. According to Mickey, these decisions should include AI.

“By 2027, organizations are going to be using AI to really reshape their enterprise apps, and we believe it’s going to change in at least 40% of the apps that are out there in such a way that it creates an entire new operating model…reducing a third of business processes and workflow.”

Automated workflows are going to help take SMBs to the next level. “We’re going to automate those manual, semi-manual, and automated workflows and shorten them down even more. The more we do that, the more we’re not going to recognize the world in a few years because the pace of innovation is so fast.”

Before ending the podcast, Mickey had one more piece of advice: Businesses should give their employees the freedom to fail fast.

“Let them fail. Let them see it. Let them retest it. Let them start to believe in the science and the audit of it…and what really needs to happen. And when they do that, they sky’s the limit of where they’re going to go with it.”

If you’d like to hear everything Robert and Mickey had to say about Summit and the future of ERP and AI, listen to the full podcast and don’t forget to subscribe to The Acumatica ERP Podcast to learn even more about practical innovation for growing businesses.