Ep. 6 - From Data to Decisions: Key Takeaways from Acumatica Summit 2026

[00:00:00] Jaclyn: Welcome to the Acumatica ERP podcast, where we explore practical innovation for growing businesses. Today we're joined by Sanket Akerkar, Acumatica president and Chief Operating Officer, and also Jon Reed, co-founder of Diginomica. Thank you for joining us today.

[00:00:16] Jaclyn: All right, Jon. Thanks for being here and it's nice to see you at Summit here.

[00:00:21] Jon: Yeah.

[00:00:21] Jaclyn: Could you introduce yourself and what your role is?

[00:00:24] Jon: Sure. So my name's Jon Reed. I'm a co-founder of Diginomica tracking the ERP market for a long time. And at Diginomica we really look at the issue of real world transformation.

[00:00:34] Jaclyn: Mm-hmm.

[00:00:35] Jon: So we want to understand what separates the successful projects from the unsuccessful ones and try to do a better job of giving customers the guidance that they're looking for. And what we found is it's kind of a team sport. It involves vendors, partners, customers, people like us, media analyst types.

[00:00:51] Jon: It takes kind of everyone to try to get things right. And that's been a overriding passion for us. And that doesn't really change whether it's, you know, whether it's AI or, or blockchain or whatever. Like all technologies fit into that framework somehow.

[00:01:05] Jaclyn: Yeah, I agree. So what brings you here to Summit this year?

[00:01:09] Jon: Well, you know, Acumatica is a company that, that I regularly follow and have, you know, come to appreciate quite a bit in terms of what I hear from their customers. And I've been coming to the show for a long time and seen it evolve. I think I first came in 2014 maybe, and,


[00:01:23] Jon: And it's been really cool to kind of watch the growth of Acumatica and watch Acumatica face the challenges and the opportunities that like growing the way it has is brought, so.

[00:01:35] Jaclyn: Yeah, I, I'm pretty sure. Yeah, so I just joined like a year and a half ago. Yeah. So you probably know more than I do.

[00:01:42] Jon: Well, we'll see. Maybe we'll find out by the end of this discussion, but.

[00:01:45] Jaclyn: Yeah, that's true. Alright, so, and I know you attend a lot of industry events. What makes Acumatica Summit so unique? They're distinct.

[00:01:54] Jon: Okay. That's interesting. So one thing I should just say, full disclosure is I'm a little bit of a grouch, and so if I ever come off sounding like critical, it's just because I do that for all vendors because I feel like it's important for customers to get a truthful set of pros and cons. And, and, and honestly, no vendor is perfect and events first of all are really hard. There are so many moving parts and I actually put on some events in some of my younger years, not like of this scale, but I got a heaping helping and Humble Pie, so I know how hard events are.

[00:02:36] Jon: One thing that Acumatica has really, I think done well on its events from the beginning is really stayed focused on what the customer needs and wants. And so, for example, one of my biggest critiques of, of, enterprise events is the, the incredibly long keynotes.

[00:03:01] Jon: And so there was one event I, that was so ridiculous. I started calling it Keynote World, but there were like a three hour keynote, then later in the day, another two hour keynote. And it felt like, especially post pandemic. People come to conferences with a pretty serious agenda. They're trying to learn things they wanna bring back from their team.

[00:03:29] Jon: So one thing Acumatica does really well is they have these more concise keynotes and they really stay focused on your time is your time. And, and then the customers are really able to come out. And I also notice that the partners at Acumatica shows are generally a lot more enthusiastic and engaged. And so, off the top of my head, those are two things. That I think really help make Acumatica events successful.

[00:03:29] Jaclyn: Yeah, that's great. Yeah. And we saw on the keynote this morning, right, that, you know, if you wanna learn more, you can go to the sessions and we don't have to tell everybody everything, right?

[00:03:39] Jon: Absolutely. Yeah. And, and keynotes ending on time in our industry is actually, yeah, a shocker and a miracle. But the thing, but the thing is when they run long, it ends up wrecking the entire day and people have to rearrange times and sessions and stuff. And so I just think Acumatica is very respectful.

[00:04:01] Jon: Of why, why customers are here. And I think that that really times well with why we get on planes to go to shows now.

[00:04:01] Jaclyn: Mm-hmm. Yep. That's great. That's great to hear. What are the top two to three themes you're hearing most consistently from customers on the show floor so far?

[00:04:13] Jon: Wow, that's really interesting. I mean, I think, I think every Acumatica customer is, is different in like really fascinating ways, but there are certainly common themes that are emerging. I think one really big theme is, is kind of like the data thing. What do I, what do I do about data? How do I turn my data into things I can act on and use, I think that's a, a really, really big thing. Yep.

[00:04:38] Jon: There's a lot of curiosity and interest in AI and what that means. AI means a lot of different things, right? Because some of the things you might think about if AI are more like traditional automation, for example. Right.

[00:05:00] Jon: Um, and I think when you take a, a step back, I'm not, I'm not a real fan of the AI hype that's going on now. When you take a step back, what customers are really trying to do is they're trying to excel in their industries, in their own unique way. And they all have challenges with talent and they want to do more with automation. And some of that automation may or may not be AI at all.

[00:05:25] Jon: So for example, one of the first sessions I went to was a business automation session about basically event automation. And there was standing room only. I mean, there were, there were customers lining the walls and there wasn't anything about AI in that session. It was about configuring automations that really help solve a lot of problems for customers. Everyone's taking notes.

[00:05:41] Jon: So the point is, there's a lot of ways to solve these problems, right. And customers are trying to figure out as much as they can and, and with some of the new age agentic stuff and, and the new announcements Acumatica are making, customers are very interested, but they're still trying to learn. And they're not, I think a lot, in a lot of cases, not quite ready to go there yet.

[00:06:15] Jon: But one of the biggest things you see is customers just wanting to get more, more value out of Acumatica once they've gone live. And that could be everything from decision making to reporting to, to finding a partner on the show floor that can help them with an enhancement they need. But the good news is if the customers engage with that, they can derive a lot more value. And I've seen it again and again, but you do have to keep pushing. You can't just say, oh, we're live, so now we're good.

[00:06:25] Jaclyn: Yeah. Like, I mean, it's like humans, right? We learn as we, as we grow. And it's like businesses too. They, their systems, they grow with them.

[00:06:34] Jon: So I talk with a great customer. I'm gonna write about tech electronics. I talked to the CEO. he went full bang on Acumatica. They had so many legacy systems with disparate data and it was such a difficult environment and he, he said, we're moving all of it to Acumatica. Which they did, and it's a really great success story. And, and already that single source of truth is starting to reap some dividends.

[00:07:06] Jon: But he was also very honest with me, and I'll be honest as well, that he's just at the beginning stages of deriving all the value out of that. What I loved about his story is that he's determined and his company's determined to get that value now that they've got this all in place, and I told him, man, I really want to talk with you next year because your story's great now. Yep. But next year, honestly, maybe you should be on the keynote stage being interviewed, because I really like where you're headed.

[00:07:37] Jaclyn: Yeah, I bet. And I love hearing these stories. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. We have a lot of them too, which is great.

[00:07:44] Jaclyn: Um, so as someone who closely follows the ERP and the tech space how do you feel, how do you see the role of ERP evolving in the next couple years?

[00:07:54] Jon: You know, it's a great question and I actually just released a podcast that I did with Ali Jonny and MIT Meta Acumatica where that was really the theme of the podcast. And one of the reasons why I want to talk about it is that the ERP industry is under a little bit of a challenge to justify itself in the era of quote unquote ai.

[00:08:23] Jon: And a lot of this comes from the fact that there is so much kind of AI fever or fever dreams, I might say. That they, they want us. People who buy into that want to believe that business software will just get demolished and you'll just be interacting with these large language models and they will bill what you need and they'll know everything you need.

[00:08:39] Jon: And it might sound okay that that's crazy stuff you might see on LinkedIn. But actually Satya Nadella not too long ago said something fairly similar which honestly made me wonder how his own ERP customers felt hearing that. But that's a different point.

[00:08:58] Jon: But anyway, the point being that to some extent, I think it's healthy because it challenges ERP vendors to say, okay, well why are you valuable? Because in that vision, ERP, simply in, in the sort of vision of AI takes over everything. An ERP system at best would become like an API call for some kind of third party AI service that can just do automatically what you want.

[00:09:27] Jon: Whereas, actually, the data's coming out really different. And I just wrote this week about a, a major CEO study done by pwc. And what it found was that only one in 10 customers basically were achieving value out of AI at this point in time. But what was interesting was what that 10% were doing. Right.

[00:09:59] Jaclyn: Yep.

[00:09:59] Jon: And it had to do with getting your foundation, right? It had to do with getting your data right, getting your processes right. And I would also add, getting your culture and organizational sort of discipline in the right direction also. And as it turns out, it's when you add AI to those components that it starts to deliver real value.

[00:10:19] Jon: And so how that brings me back to Acumatica and ERP in general is that I view ERP as one very strong way of essentially building that foundation, right?

[00:10:19] Jaclyn: Yep.

[00:10:19] Jon: So when you think about a typical Acumatica new customer that might be upgrading from, you know, older accounting systems. You know, you might see QuickBooks or Great Plains sometimes. Or it could just be spreadsheets like a customer I talked to earlier when you see them migrating to Acumatica. They're also going through a, a process, a discipline process.

[00:10:19] Jon: Acumatica is not just ERP software, it's a platform. And so that's what I like about what Acumatica does. It puts people in a position where they can start thinking about consuming AI based on quality data and, and, and, yes, and, and good processes. Because if you don't have that, if you put AI on top of bad data and bad processes, you are gonna get a bad result.

[00:11:21] Jaclyn: Mm-hmm. Yeah. We heard in the keynote this week that, you know, garbage in, garbage out, right?

[00:11:26] Jon: Yeah, very much so. Yeah. Now that doesn't necessarily mean that quality data, you know, solves all of your problems. And you know, one of the differences I have with Acumatica, which. To be honest, it's just about every vendor. So it's not nothing personal to Acumatica is I don't consider these intelligent systems. I understand what Acumatica is trying to say because Acumatica is trying to say we're not just a transactional system anymore.

[00:11:55] Jon: And I do think these tools can help you generate insights to run your business better but I have a very high bar for what I consider intelligence. And intelligence involves a level of cognition that these, the current AI doesn't have. And you can say, well, who is this guy to say that? Well. I study this stuff. I've, I've got multiple AI certifications that I spent a lot of time geeking out on it, but I, I don't have a problem with the notion that these systems can really help us do our jobs better and help us, but a lot of it is how we enable the technology.

[00:12:27] Jon: And one thing that Acumatica gets totally right in their messaging is this is not about replacing humans for the most part. This is about helping our humans do their jobs better. And I, and I love that messaging on Acumatica's part.

[00:12:30] Jaclyn: That's great. And you actually touched on the next question I'm gonna ask you. Oh yeah. It's what do you think sets Acumatica apart in the ERP market today?

[00:12:39] Jon: You know, it's really funny because most ERP vendors really struggle with this question. And, and the reason, for example, is. If you say, for example I do AI in a responsible way that protects your privacy, that might be true, but it's everyone is saying it. And I think most vendors are trying to be pretty responsible.

[00:13:19] Jon: So that's an example of something that a lot of vendors say, and Acumatica does say that sometimes, but it's kind of hard to like prove it. What's really interesting about Acumatica is it has a number of things that aren't disputable that you don't really have to justify.

[00:13:35] Jon: Now, you know, one of the things Acumatica says a lot is I, we listen to our customers well. That one's tricky because every vendor, to some extent will tell you that some are doing a better job than others. That's a tough one, I think, to justify, but Acumatica has a ton that, that are clearly indisputable.

[00:13:54] Jon: For example, the consumption based pricing. It's not purely consumption based, but it's very close and that model has been in place for years. Customers have talked about the benefits of it. I've always told Acumatica, make a bigger deal out of it, and guess what, it's, it's a terrific model for AI pricing and a lot of vendors are back on their heels trying to figure out how to price ai.

[00:14:13] Jon: Well, there's a great example also. Acumatica has a customer bill of Rights. Yes. Which includes that you own your own data. And how, okay, how many vendors have a customer Bill of Rights? I'll give you the answer. Two that I know of. And Acumatica was first. And the ownership of data turns out to be critically important for ai.

[00:14:13] Jaclyn: Exactly, yep.

[00:14:13] Jon: Acumatica has an AI principles of innovation for, for development. So a lot of vendors could say we do responsible ai, but only a handful that I know of. There are some, mm-hmm. Have anything like a principles of innovation.

[00:15:03] Jon: So these are some of the examples, but I could honestly. We'd have to do a podcast for another 10 or 15 minutes for me to rattle off all the things that I think Acumatica has done a good job of.

[00:15:10] Jon: I would just say that I don't think Acumatica always emphasizes some of the things that I'm saying. Enough. Here's another one that I think Acumatica should emphasize more the hackathon. There's very, very few ERP business conferences that I know of that start with a hackathon.

[00:15:30] Jon: Why is that a big deal? Well, it's for a couple reasons. First of all. You need a robust developer community. If you really want to have a platform around your software, see Salesforce for example. They, they've done a brilliant job of that. But how many ERP vendors have not very many.

[00:15:39] Jon: Also, the hackathon brings the developers and the business community together and, and this year most of the hackathon participants didn't even code. They did most of it with AI and low code. And the winner didn't code at all. Yeah. Okay. That's really cool. There's very, so, so for people say, well, you're hyping Acumatica, perhaps I am. But those things, and those are just a handful of examples I could give you a lot more, are things that other vendors simply don't have.

[00:15:30] Jaclyn: Mm-hmm. Yep. I agree. Yeah, the hackathon is great, and I heard that Yeah, you're right. Like it's the, the winning team didn't do any coding, so, yeah.

[00:15:39] Jon: And yeah, it's really what a great idea that more vendors don't get in on this. I, I know a couple that abandoned that and I was like, like I said, with Acumatica, I, I could see them making even bigger deal out of that. They started to really mention the keynotes, but I'd like to see the hackathon winners present on stage at a keynote, for example. That's, that's a cool idea. And just, and say, here's what we built. So I think Acumatica in many ways could make even more noise about how they're different, but, but you know, they definitely have the chops there.

[00:16:06] Jaclyn: One of Acumatica strength, as you already know, is the ability to tailor our solutions to the unique needs of the customers. Uh, what stands out to you about this approach this customer? And, you know, you mentioned you touched on the customer driven approach.

[00:16:22] Jon: Yeah. What stands out to you?

[00:16:23] Jon: So, there's a couple things there. You know. A few minutes ago when I talked about how being customer driven is a little bit of a cliche, I think one of the prove it points that helps to back that up is is the Acumatica Labs exercise where Acumatica is working directly with customers on building AI functionality.

[00:16:47] Jon: Acumatica is not the only vendor that does customer co innovations, but I think they do it really well. Um, but, but in general, I think. Acumatica has done really well bringing customers along and making them feel engaged.

[00:17:04] Jon: And one of the things that I think is a really interesting preceptive Acumatica that I heard years ago in a keynote is while our customers might be. You know, small or medium sized. So not huge. That doesn't mean they're not complex. A lot of them have complex global requirements. A lot of them have complex offerings.

[00:17:30] Jon: I talked to a customer today who, even though they're small they're in the sort of automobile supply and services terrain, they have a number of different business models and different service models and it's, it's a pretty complex business even though it's not a ton of employees.

[00:17:30] Jaclyn: Right.

[00:17:30] Jon: And they've had a lot of success in Acumatica. Mm-hmm. And one of the interesting things is that they're always rolling out something new and getting a new type of client with different business needs. And so what generally happens when that comes up in ERP is you're kind of screwed 'cause you're like, the software doesn't do this. Mm-hmm. And so what do we do?

[00:18:00] Jon: And so you call your implementation partners, say, what do we do? And then you're faced with these dilemmas because in modern ERP, you really don't want to do a lot of custom code because it can really hurt you with upgrades and, and a lot of vendors don't even let you.

[00:18:24] Jon: So I ask this customer because I know that there's a lot. Really good. He had a really good partner. I said, did you have, you had to build anything yet? 'cause one thing that's great about Acumatica is you can build like really cool add-ons. You know, say, oh, okay, well Acumatica's not the only platform for that. Okay.


[00:18:44] Jon: But what I would say there is. How many, how many vendors have had an add-on that became a, a core part of the product. Manufacturing began as a third party build. That's huge. A whole vertical came out of a partner. Yep.

[00:18:56] Jon: Um, so I asked him, I said, have you had to build anything yet? He said, Nope. We've been able, Acumatica system was flexible enough. That we've been able to adapt it to everything that we've had to do to expand and grow our business. That's very strong. Like that doesn't happen that often.

[00:19:09] Jon: And so I think that's how I think about it is that it really within the industry's Acumatica service, and by the way, we haven't talked about the industry focus, which is a really, really important differentiator as well. I think something like 80% of. Um, have new Acumatica customers come into some kind of a Acumatica vertical solution.

[00:19:09] Jaclyn: A addition. Yep.

[00:19:19] Jon: Um, but that, that's really potent for a variety of reasons I could get into, but anyway, like to be able to do that without having to customize your software significantly that's really cool.

[00:19:19] Jaclyn: Yeah. And I mean, that's like future proof is not just a saying. It's not just a jargon. We're actually proving that we're, we're, we're future proofing. You are improving your, well.

[00:19:28] Jon: Yeah. And, and, and look, I mean, there's always testing that that is involved in, in these things, right? And things like that never go away, but you know, and future proofing is interesting because that's not one of my favorite buzzwords, and you've seen by now that I pick on certain buzzwords.


[00:19:43] Jon: So don't be mad at me. But what I think about it is more, I think the future is very hard to predict first. That's one reason why I pushed back on that term.


[00:19:51] Jon: I, we've seen so many events in the last five years that frankly no one predicted, including myself. In fact, every year me and my colleague Brian Summer put out predictions to kind of make fun of real predictions by just making wacky ones. And it's crazy 'cause some of them come true.

[00:20:13] Jon: Uh I'm not a fan of future proof, but I am a fan of like, however you wanna call it, being agile, being resilient. Being able to face different circumstances. Yep. And Acumatica, I think as well as any software, I think puts its customers in a position where as environment changed, there's a new tariff, there's a new tax, whatever you can adapt your business.

[00:20:35] Jaclyn: Yeah.

[00:20:36] Jon: Because of that. But sometimes they can capitalize on those changes and so

[00:20:39] Jaclyn: Right.

[00:20:39] Jon: Being able to move around and quickly go up and down in your Exactly. It's, I love that.

[00:20:44] Jaclyn: Yep. That's great. As you already mentioned, AI is transforming industries. And how do you see SMBs leveraging it to create real business value?

[00:20:56] Jon: So, yeah, like I think AI is transforming industries, but I think one of the things it's also doing. Is it's forcing conversations that we should have had a long time ago about data, culture and process for the reasons I talked about earlier.


[00:21:12] Jon: And I'm not going to give AI all the credit for that because I think ultimately some of the things we have to do AI can't help us with. It's just about, we have to really understand what our values are. For example, are we gonna replace people with machines are we gonna, you know, compliment them with machines? You know, are we gonna do headcount reductions? How are we gonna communicate that? What is our business philosophy like? You have to get out in front of all that stuff.


[00:21:37] Jon: Um, but one thing I, I really think is important around, like looking at the, the future of it all for small businesses is that. The AI architectures that work well involve a, what's called context engineering.


[00:21:52] Jon: Which is essentially feeding models specific information that's privacy protected that has to do with their business. So the model never gets trained on it. Right?


[00:22:03] Jon: And then a lot of vendors also, like Acumatica, which we discussed today, are starting to build some of their own smaller models as well.


[00:22:09] Jon: That are also protected and private and secure. The point is. Uh, that there's all kinds of elaborate things with these models. For example, there can be drift in the models. You have to retrain them. Can you imagine a typical small business dealing with that? No.


[00:22:25] Jon: They're not, they don't want the risk. They don't have the Correct, they don't have the internal resources. And so what I think is the future of SMBs is picking trusted partners that essentially embed that functionality and take all of the sophisticated nature of these AI architectures off of the plate of those businesses so they can focus on what they do best.


[00:22:45] Jon: And, and then it simply becomes how you do business. Right. And I think one of the things that Acumatica is doing very well, and I'm really looking forward to tracking their progress this year as the assistant gets released and all of that is seeing how they can really embed this in the workflows of the roles and the industries that Acumatica serves, and then the SMB person doesn't have to think about, oh, I'm getting left out of the AI revolution.


[00:23:10] Jon: They can just focus on just doing their jobs as best as they can.

[00:23:13] Jaclyn: Yep. Yeah, that, that'll be, I'm looking forward to seeing that too. Yeah. Yep. And to wrap up before we get to the lightning round Oh, the lightning round, right. What's one thing you expect mid-market businesses to focus on in the next six to 12 months, let's say?

[00:23:29] Jon: Well, I think I talked a lot about it, but I think, I think data is gonna be a really, really big one for them. Mm. And, and I think, I think just trying to also get a deeper understanding of how these tools are gonna impact their businesses. And like I said, starting to think about how it's gonna impact skills, labor training.


[00:24:03] Jon: Think there's a real urgency on the part of businesses to try to understand how all this automation talk impacts their talent and what kind of talent they're gonna need going forward and how they need to re-skill. My hope is that these businesses will also work on how they're gonna communicate that to their employees in an open and transparent way. But unfortunately, I don't get to force anyone to do anything. So that's just my plea. I hope they do, but we'll see how, what pans out there.

[00:24:28] Jaclyn: Yep. And it's good to know that we have online training available. Matic. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, one of the things that came out of our discussions was the work Acumatica is trying to do alongside as partners. 'Cause obviously we didn't talk that much about that, but we could have talked about the partner channel and how important that is to Acumatica.

[00:24:28] Jon: Mm-hmm.

[00:24:28] Jon: I told you that we don't have enough time to talk about everything, but, but anyhow, like the partners are also embarking upon their own educational processes as well. And I think that's gonna be hugely important. And I would just say to Acumatica customers be vocal about what you need as well, because this is not a time to just hope for the best you, you need to be vocal about what you need and, and get the responses from your Acumatica and its partners, right?

[00:24:52] Jaclyn: Yep. All right. Are you ready for the lightning round? Yes. Yes.

[00:24:55] Jaclyn: I'm gonna, there are two questions and they're gonna be really quick. Okay. Quick question, quick answers. Alright. Quick. Okay. Okay. What has been your favorite part of Summit so far?

[00:25:05] Jon: Uh, experiencing downtown Seattle. Yeah. And the, and the women in technology lunch. Oh, well actually it was post-lunch. It was such a beautiful and transparent sharing. I felt really lucky to be a part of it.

[00:25:16] Jaclyn: Okay. Awesome. Yeah, I was actually there too. It was great. Yeah, it was great.

[00:25:20] Jon: Yeah.

[00:25:20] Jaclyn: What is something that helps you feel grounded as you travel to so many industry events?

[00:25:26] Jon: That's a really good question. Um, a lot of times it's just finding a, a, a quiet space somewhere to introspect for a few minutes and not getting too caught up in, in the circus, but I also create a music playlist for every event. And I have my theme songs. And those are the songs. I'll put my headset on. I'll be walking through the airport and I've got my theme music for the show to try to get me psyched up. And, and that really helps me to stay focused so I can be on my game. So I, I, I recommend everyone create your show playlist.

[00:25:55] Jaclyn: Nice. Yeah. Maybe could you, because, oh, like you mentioned one of the songs that you've been listening.

[00:26:01] Jon: One of my songs. Well, okay, so I'm kind of old school. Okay. So MegaDeath just put out a cover Ride the Lightning by Metallica. And this is a big deal in the metal community, Uhhuh. So that I just got. Um, but but it depends. I, I, it depends on the show.

[00:26:18] Jon: Like I'm also listening to let's see, the other one was, uh. Uh, a, a a Tool song, which is called Descending, which is more of a meditative long song. And I really like longer songs because they get me into a flow. And that's so important. 'cause once you trust the flow, you realize don't be afraid, don't be shy. Just go with that flow. And that's the energy you need at an event.


[00:26:37] Jon: Because otherwise, you, the event passes you by and you're like, I wish I'd introduced myself to that person. I wish I'd had the courage to raise my hand and say this, and I can't afford to be like that, so I have to psych myself up.

[00:26:49] Jaclyn: Mm-hmm. Yeah. It's like what we learned from the women's in tech lunches, right? Yes. Like sell, don't self-doubt. Right?

[00:26:56] Jon: Yeah. And I wish I was like, I wish everyone could hear this discussion. Yes. Because it's like, it, you know, this matters for everyone. If we can be inclusive of people's various styles and give them the courage to, to, to air what they're feeling in, in a way that is constructive and build dialogue, that's so great for everyone. So I, I applaud Acumatica for doing that program and I, I encourage more people to check it out next year.

[00:27:17] Jaclyn: Awesome. Thanks for joining us today, Jon.

[00:27:20] Jon: Sure.

[00:27:20] Jaclyn: And it's been a great pleasure talking to you.

[00:27:22] Jon: Yeah, enjoyed it. Thank you.

[00:27:23] Jaclyn: Up next Sanket. Welcome to the show.

[00:27:26] Sanket: Welcome. Thank you.

[00:27:27] Jaclyn: From your conversations with customers this week what have you been hearing about, as in like what are their biggest priorities or challenges that you've been hearing?

[00:27:37] Sanket: The general things that I've been hearing is about growth and change.


[00:27:41] Sanket: I think, you know, the customers that come here are looking to learn and find out new things to make their businesses better, how they can be more competitive, what's the technology that's out there that can help them go forward, and they're leaning in on those different topics and using this as an opportunity to, one, be at the sessions and learn what's going on, but also spend time with other customers who are mm-hmm. Who are having those same sort of journey and that same sort of experience and being able to take those home back with them.

[00:28:19] Jaclyn: That's awesome. So it's more like that they're all coming here to learn from this awesome Acumatica community.

[00:28:25] Sanket: Yeah. They're learning from each other, right? They're learning from our partners, our ISVs. Um, and I think that's been, that's really fun to watch and see as, as they, they figure these things out for themselves. Yeah. That's great.

[00:28:36] Jaclyn: That's great. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, as an Acumatica employee, I feel like I'm learning as well, so.

[00:28:41] Sanket: Yeah. I saw a few things today where I'm like, oh, we do that.

[00:28:47] Jaclyn: Yeah, exactly. It sounded like That's so cool. Yeah. Agreed. Yep.

[00:28:47] Jaclyn: Yep. And what are the most common "aha" moments you've been hearing from the Acumatica com community on the show?

[00:28:54] Sanket: I think, I think really, and it was today, so I wanna give kudos out to the entire product team on what they shared with, from a technology standpoint. But I think that things that I've been hearing is a lot of positivity on not only just the industry features, but really the investment in artificial intelligence and ai.

[00:29:10] Sanket: And I think the places where we're headed, both with AI studio and AI assistant, were very, very compelling. Mm-hmm. And they did an awesome job yesterday in talk, talking about the different scenarios and how those can be for different users.

[00:29:22] Sanket: It was interesting just talk to a couple customers saying they're like, I can't wait to get on 2026 R one. So I think there's a lot of excitement about that. Mm-hmm. And being able to help their users be more productive on Acumatica.

[00:29:32] Jaclyn: Yes. And how, how easy it is now to get access to the information they need to make, you know, mission critical decisions.

[00:29:39] Sanket: Exactly. No, that's exactly right.

[00:29:40] Jaclyn: Yeah.

[00:29:41] Sanket: Yep.

[00:29:42] Jaclyn: I know Summit has been, you know, great access, like you just mentioned, for customers to access to Acumatica's product and also the leadership team. why do you think that's so important?

[00:29:53] Sanket: Yeah. So I, to me, oh, I'll say why it's important to me as being part of the leadership team. I think it is for the customers to have that experience too. So for me, I learn a ton from our customers. Um, I think the best way to learn is to go to the source of truth. and the customer's experience the truth.

[00:30:19] Sanket: And so having, making sure that there's no. Um, any middle, you know middle person in, in, in that process. To, to, to change what the real meaning is I think is, is important. So I, I find those experiences truly valuable for myself.

[00:30:38] Sanket: And I think on the other side customers want to be heard. They want to know that there's someone listening, someone understanding what they're going through and being able to connect those dots.

[00:30:54] Sanket: And I think at the end of the day, they want to know that they're being part of an ecosystem where change will happen aligned with their goals and priorities. And so a lot of this is figuring out how the Venn Diagrams overlap. And I think they expect, expect to hear that from the, from the leadership.

[00:31:00] Jaclyn: Right. What do you expect these customers to leave with today or this week?

[00:31:05] Sanket: Um, I think they're gonna leave with a, a number of things that they'll be able to implement immediately. Maybe some things that they didn't realize were in the product that they already have, that they can go do. Um, I think they'll also lead with lead with some ideas of where they want to go next and the things that they're gonna need to try out.

[00:31:35] Sanket: Um, and I think the third that they're gonna lead with is probably, and I hear this a lot, definitely at the marketplace solutions, that they weren't aware that were connected to Acumatica that could add value to their business. And I think they're gonna lead with you know, actions they need to do there and things they'll wanna explore.

[00:31:40] Jaclyn: Yeah. It's great to see what other customers are doing with the Acumatica solution. Yeah. And then actually, like you said, to find out, wow, what, you know, I can actually do this. I didn't know about it.

[00:31:49] Sanket: Yeah, totally.

[00:31:50] Jaclyn: Yeah, that's great. Um, what can listeners expect from Acumatica between now and Summit 2027?

[00:31:58] Sanket: Well, you know, the first thing is gonna be the release of 2026 R one. So I think that's gonna be a big deal. Um, and then, you know, we will continue to do all the things that we do regularly with our user groups and. Meeting with customers and spending time thinking about where we're gonna head and, and, and the investments ahead.

[00:32:10] Sanket: Um, I think there'll be a lot of stuff associated to prep for 2026, R two. and then the technology rollouts there. And I would say I'm, I'm particularly interested in a lot of the stuff that Doug and Aliyah showed this morning. Um, which will be being able to put the power of our education as well as support inside the product and allow for greater discoverability of, of the, of different features within the product too.

[00:32:46] Sanket: So I think those are gonna be some really exciting things that customers can expect over the next 12 months.

[00:32:46] Jaclyn: And I'm really happy to see all those changes too, or enhancements to the product because those are the enhancements that we've collected from Yeah. What we've been hearing from customers and partners.

[00:32:56] Sanket: Exactly. Yeah. That's right. Mm-hmm.

[00:32:57] Jaclyn: That's great. Thanks Sanket for joining us today. Thank you for your time.

[00:33:01] Sanket: Thank you. Glad to be here.

[00:33:02] Jaclyn: Thanks to both of our guests for joining us today, and thanks to you, our listeners for tuning in to the Acumatica ERP podcast. Be sure to subscribe so you don't miss more conversations on practical innovation for growing businesses.

From Data to Decisions: Key Takeaways from Acumatica Summit 2026

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Episode Description

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Jon Reed

Co-Founder | diginomica

Sanket Akerkar

President and COO | Acumatica

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Episode Transcript

The Acumatica ERP Podcast

Practical innovation for growing businesses