Acumatica Summit 2022: Expectations for my Sixth Summit

You can feel it the moment you set foot in the Wynn. Beyond the glittering, golden ambiance of the five-star casino resort, you will immediately see something that is often hard to find in the world of ERP software: smiling, excited customers and partners.

I had the ultimate pleasure of working for Acumatica Cloud ERP from 2016-2021. The majority of my time with Acumatica was spent as a Solution Consultant, working deep in the ERP product and helping companies (mainly distributors and manufacturers) to optimize their business processes on the Acumatica platform. During this time, I also had the chance to be heavily involved in Acumatica’s annual Summit. Acumatica Summit is a yearly conference (held the last few years at the Wynn Las Vegas) which is focused on celebrating new product features, education of the partner and customer community, and understanding the strides that Acumatica is taking to continue to deliver deep industry functionality year after year.

I have personally presented keynote demonstrations at the last four Acumatica Summit conferences. This has allowed me to have a vantage point (quite literally – see image below) of Summit that very few have had the incredible opportunity to experience. In my time representing new product releases on stage alongside Acumatica leadership such as Doug Johnson (VP of Acumatica Product) and Ali Jani (Acumatica Chief Product Officer) I have learned the ins and outs of this Summit event. I probably have some insider tips. And I definitely have a lot that I am looking forward to for my sixth Summit in a row!

This will be my first year attending as an Acumatica partner with Synergy Resources. Synergy is an Acumatica reseller with 30 years of industry experience and 1,200 ERP customers. I am currently the Acumatica Practice Director at Synergy Resources, focused on growing our Acumatica practice through new customer acquisition and business development.

In anticipation of this year’s event from January 23-28 2022, I have prepared a summary of the key pillars of the conference (Collaboration, Innovation, and Acceleration) and why I believe any person who is a member of the Acumatica community will greatly benefit from attending.

Collaboration

In the years that I spent with Acumatica, I can absolutely say that there is no other event that comes anywhere close to providing the quality of collaboration as Acumatica Summit. The Acumatica community has cultivated a truly unique environment in which, somehow, someway – partners want to help each other. Partners who are (by definition) in competition with one another, come together as one to collaborate. They share their experiences. They learn from each other. They HELP each other. And they do it all with integrity. Imagine that?

We live in a remote, digital world and most of us (partners and customers alike) do not get the opportunity to see each other face-to-face very often. But something beautiful happens every time we do get a chance to see each other. It’s the JFK adage of “rising tides lift all boats”. We all become better when we work together. And we have SO much fun while we do that at this Summit.

How exactly should you collaborate at Summit? Network, network, network. This is the place to have conversations with real end-users. To understand the triumphs and struggles of both these end-users and partners who support them. There are training courses available at the tail-end of the conference that I highly recommend. These are delivered by Acumatica experts and replace the online training that so many of us are sick of after two full years of taking meetings from home. Breakout sessions are another great opportunity for collaboration. These are shorter sessions that allow you to mix-and-match content such as marketing sessions, product sessions, and developer sessions. You don’t want to miss them.

Innovation

If you are in the category of those that have yet to attend an Acumatica Summit, then you haven’t had the opportunity to feel the explosive energy of a keynote demonstration. This is the peak of Acumatica Summit. This is where the company’s innovation is put on display, live-fire for all to see. There is no other ERP company in the world today that can tout a 75% revenue investment back into research and development of their software. Acumatica can. This is not a conference where you will hear about bug fixes for 2 full days. This is a conference where you will witness today’s leading technology being applied, in practical ways, to business operations. You will see artificial intelligence and machine learning tools automating financial processes within the software. You will see robotics and IoT creating unheard of efficiencies across warehouses and manufacturing floors. But you will see all of this within a frame of an ERP vendor that understands digital transformation is a journey. There is innovation for everyone here to get excited about – whether you are an analog business moving off of spreadsheets for the first time, or a 30-year ERP user who is ready for the next chapter.

Acceleration

A major highlight of the Acumatica Summit is the Partner ISV Expo. This is a true solution showcase of 100+ partners that have chosen Acumatica to integrate their technology with. Because Acumatica boasts a modern platform that was built with modern development tools like Microsoft .NET, C#, Visual Studio, and HTML 5, independent software vendors have the ability to speed to market with embedded Acumatica solutions, or those connected over Web APIs. The Partner Expo is an unapologetic example of the acceleration and innovation pouring from the core of Acumatica. Throw a dart in this room and you will hit a business who has accelerated an operation or automated a process for an Acumatica customer.

The Summit conference is also a chance to showcase how end-customers have accelerated their businesses with Acumatica. Beyond just the Partner Expo I mentioned above, there is also a Customer Showcase on-site each year. The customer showcase highlights real Acumatica customers and their products who have scaled their business models, achieved significant ROI on the platform, and are willing to highlight their success for the rest of the community.

The Acumatica Summit is, without question, a can’t-miss event for any member of the Acumatica community. This year will be a challenge for some of us to make it on-site to Las Vegas, that is for certain. But for those like me that will be making the trip – I cannot wait to see what Acumatica has in store for us this year. Here’s to Acumatica 2022 R1!

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