After 30+ years in the ERP industry, it is easy to get a bit jaded. But I left Acumatica Summit feeling truly energized, and so did even the “toughest to impress” members of my team.
I know we are not the only ones to feel it because the Partners interviewed were literally gushing.
Everybody talked about the “energy” at Acumatica Summit. It sounds like just a buzzword, but it is true. In my opinion, there are a number of factors that contributed to that feeling. Let me try to capture them for you.
Number one…. I saw the size of Acumatica Summit literally double from 2017 to 2018. Then this year, I saw it double again. It’s hard to believe that any conference of this kind out there could have this level of growth.
Number two…. It is exciting to me that I am starting to see more and more familiar faces. People like Mark Rockwell from and the team from . People that we used to see at every Microsoft Dynamics GP event are now also migrating to the Acumatica channel. has always been one of the most vocal Dynamics GP supporters, and he agrees that the collaboration and excitement at the Acumatica event were impressive.
Number three…. The size and scope of the event and the number of customers that we saw, across many different industries, that are embracing the cloud and Acumatica is truly encouraging. Many of them were featured at Acumatica Summit, such as one of the largest kitchen cabinet manufacturers in the country. It was pretty impressive to me to hear how much that company has grown with Acumatica.
Also, the big New England based distributor, FW Webb, one of the largest dealers of heating equipment, was there. I believe they're a one-billion-dollar company with hundreds of locations. I know that they looked at a lot of systems before selecting Acumatica. Stories like Fabuwood and FW Webb are pretty compelling.
Number four…. I was happy to hear about all the innovations. A few that stick out in my mind are cross modules workflow connection, side panel feature expansion, color difference by company and branches and conditional formatting. Find out more about these in and .
Number five…I saw my team energized. I can honestly say that some went into the conference with a bit of apprehension. It has been a strenuous year; it is hard to learn a new product. At the end of the conference, my two senior consultants who attended had a completely different attitude. They felt excited about the things that they had seen.
Specifically, they were impressed that the instructors in the training classes often were the people that are actually developing the solutions. They said that they felt that the people behind the product weren't there just to train and say, "Hey, this is how it is." They consistently had the feeling that the instructors were there to ask, "What else can we do to make this better?"
I agree that Acumatica doesn't seem to be just saying, "Here is what we gave to you. Here is what we did this year. That’s it. Be happy with it.” They are genuinely interested and saying, “Help us make the project better. Tell us what we can do. We're looking for ideas." There was so much passion behind it and genuine concern for making sure this product will be the best that it can be.
Compared to when they arrived and when they left, my team was really excited about seeing all the things that are now available, the continued improvement of the Acumatica product, the growing number of ISV add-on products, and the areas that are covered.
Collaborate, Innovate, Accelerate
The theme of Acumatica Summit 2019 was Collaborate, Innovate, Accelerate. I do believe that that's where we are with Acumatica.
I think we're beginning to collaborate on levels at which we have never collaborated before.
For other products, they've got what they've got, and they're trying to create the acceleration, but they don't necessarily have the ability to innovate beyond where they are right now.
In the innovation of the platform, what Acumatica is doing is going to allow us as Partners in the Acumatica channel to accelerate.
The conference, the excitement, confirms to us that we made the right choice choosing to partner with Acumatica.
We look forward to a bright future with Acumatica and the continued energy of Acumatica Summit 2020 in Las Vegas!
Are you interested in sharing the energy of this exciting new Cloud ERP system – . Call 860-485-0910 x4 or sales@calszone.com.
By George Mackiewicz, CAL Business Solutions,
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