Here are some key takeaways from our first Acumatica Summit event:
- Over 800 attendees including 90 additional people who came for post-event training (including many from outside North America).
- Attendee mix was 23% customers, 52% VAR, 11% ISV, 4% OEM, 10% other (including 17 analysts). Not a bad ratio since this is only the second year that customers have been included.
- 50 ISV exhibitors.
- Acumatica added 30 new VAR Partners in 2016 (including CAL Business Solutions) for a total of 250 reselling partners.
- Acumatica added 20 new ISV partners in 2016 for a total of “about 100”.
- Acumatica added 3 International OEM partners.
- 20 people were awarded Acumatica MVP status.
- Acumatica is proud to be the “Fastest growing Cloud ERP in 2016”.
- Acumatica saw 84% revenue growth in 2016 (100% growth previous year)
- There was 20% growth in Cloud ERP market overall.
- Acumatica Version 6.1 was released and the new “continuous release cycle” was explained.
- It was announced that standard support now available to all clients for the first year for free.
- The new Commerce Edition, Field Service Edition, Small Business Edition were released.
- New features in 2017 include Order Management, Acumatica Device Ops and Advanced Fulfillment.
- The top industries served by Acumatica are Service (24%), Wholesale Distribution (18%), Manufacturing (16%), Retail (11%) and Other (3%).
- Included in the “Other” industry category are some usual ones such as the newly emerging Cannabis industry. This industry is brand new, highly regulated and growing quickly so they need technology systems.
- The Acumatica Marketing team has been hard at work and reported 390% increase in News Mentions, 90% increase in awards, 120% increase in number of blog posts, 98% increase in Social Impressions and 50% in leads generated.
- Top Acumatica competitors are NetSuite (in 32% of deals) then Microsoft Dynamics GP (in 13% of deals).
- Acumatica has 120 employees and says “we are a tech company at our core” as 74% of employees work in R&D. While they say their competitors are heavy in sales/marketing staff. Acumatica views the Partner channel as their sales force.
- Analysts at the event were happy to see the Payroll partnership with Infinity HR, Real time bidirectional SalesForce integration, Outlook add-in, additional mobile technology and a new user interface.
- My team was impressed with the main stage demo showing an order placed via an Amazon Echo device flowing through Acumatica all the way to fulfillment.
- Customer satisfaction with their partner is a requirement for partners to achieve Gold or Silver certification. I like that Acumatica tracks this and holds partners accountable.
- Acumatica hosted a “Hackathon” tournament for coders. Teams competed to come up with a customization project for Acumatica. I am proud to say that 2 people from CAL Business Solutions were on the winning team that built a customization to send text messages and automated phone calls to customers with a balance on an invoice.
- Executives from four companies were interviewed on the main stage as part of a customer panel. These companies had previously been using Dynamics GP, NetSuite, Quickbooks and Microsoft Excel as their financial systems. They mentioned ease of use, ease of management, price and on-premise option as their reasons for choosing Acumatica. I was impressed that one of them admitted their project had not been easy. It is nice to hear that level of honestly.
- Acumatica Summit 2018 was announced for Jan 28-Feb 3, 2018 in Nashville, TN
I think all of us on the CAL Business Solutions team were impressed by the energy and excitement at this event. I heard many people say it felt like “the old days” when Great Plains was an “up and coming” new software product. We had the feeling that as a company Acumatica really cares about the success of their customers and Partners. At this point it is still small enough to be personal. Jon Roskill, the CEO of Acumatica was talking to people in the general session audience by name. Acumatica is still a relatively new product but it is growing and improving quickly so we see great potential.
Overall, I feel the event really delivered on the theme “Collaborate.Innovate.Accelerate” and we are excited for our future with the Acumatica channel.
I am happy to say that we have officially been an Acumatica Partner for less than 60 days and we just closed our first Acumatica deal. We are on a roll so perhaps next year we will be on the main stage at Acumatica Summit 2018 as the “Fast Start” award winner. It is good to set goals.
If you are interested in learning more about Acumatica, contact CAL Business Solutions 860-485-0910 x102 or sales@calszone.com
CAL Business Solutions,
