2026 ERP Trends & Predictions Part 2

Introduction: 

This is the ERP Advisor. Today's episode, 2026 ERP Trends and Predictions, Part 2.  

Rebekah McCabe: 

Hello, everyone. Thank you so much for joining us for today's webinar, 2026 ERP Trends and Predictions, Part 2. Shawn Windle is one of our speakers for today. Shawn is the founder and managing principal of ERP Advisors Group based in Denver, Colorado. Shawn has almost 30 years of experience in the enterprise software industry, helping hundreds of clients across many industries with selecting and implementing a wide variety of enterprise solutions. His podcast, The ERP Advisor, has dozens of episodes with 10s of thousands of downloads and is featured on prominent podcast platforms such as Apple and Spotify. Rebekah McCabe, myself, is also our other guest joining us for today. I'm the digital marketing manager at ERP Advisors Group and the host of the wildly successful ERP Minute, which will lend itself to this discussion today as we dive into the ERP market predictions for 2026 and what businesses can really expect from ERP and specifically the vendors, what they're innovating. Welcome, Shawn. Thank you so much for joining me today. 

Shawn Windle: 

Hey, Rebekah, thank you too. 

Rebekah McCabe: 

Of course. Just as a note for anybody on this call, we're going to only talk about a couple of the vendors just because that's all the time permits. But every single one of the vendors, even those not included in this discussion today, will be included on the vendor report, which you'll be able to get after this call. It'll be available on our website. But just because you don't hear about a vendor in this call does not mean they're not going to be on the report. So stay tuned and watch our channels for more information.  

So, Shawn, we covered a lot yesterday. There was lots of trends and things that we talked about with ERP in 2025. But now it's time for us to dive into the ERP vendors. But first, I would love to hear about some of the emerging ERP trends you're predicting we'll see in 2026 and how they're going to impact businesses. 

Shawn Windle: 

Yeah, I'm looking forward to the dialogue today, as always, too, Rebekah. I think you've got a lot of insight as well. So hopefully we'll track the conversation. And well, I'm going to do this vendor rundown later, which might take a lot, but I really want your feedback in here, too. So, thanks again. 

Rebekah McCabe: 

Yeah. 

Shawn Windle: 

Here's the bottom line. And I really mean this. And I've looked at this a little bit over the last couple of days. And I think that of all of the industries, ERP is ready for a renaissance. How's that for a strong word? I actually have to look up the actual definition and the derivation of where that word comes from, because it's such an interesting word. It's French. The derivation of where it comes from, the original imagination is from renaissance, from re, back again, and naissance, birth, from Latin, naciente, from naci, be born. I really believe that ERP is going to be reborn this year. We're going to see a renaissance, and we already are. It's not as if the ERP industry has sort of died and now is rebirthing, whatever that is. Anyway, I'll stop with all that analogy, but I do feel like ERP kind of got a little stale. We talked about this yesterday about, you know, kind of the lead up to 2025 and the impact of COVID on cloud-based systems. And everybody's like, oh my gosh, I got to get in the cloud and tons and tons of money going in and new licensing and subscription, NNN, new architecture. We've talked even, we had a great discussion with one of our Microsoft partners yesterday about ERP platforms and then the nine key aspects of that.  

But looking into 2026, we have all of this work that's occurred, and we have all these vendors that now are in great cash positions. Their earnings have been up. And now it's time to, what I call, show me the money, right? Like, what are you guys doing with all that capital? And they're pouring it into AI. And the good news is there are viable competitors coming onto the market. And I think that's honestly fueled by investors who have businesses that have used some of the ERP products. And those portfolio companies are fed up with some of the solutions that they've had, whether it's the pricing negotiations, the renewals, or the complexity of implementations or the lack of user experience, like, do you all just kind of look like grids? I think there's several factors that are coming in, as well as just there's a ton of money going back into the ERP industry, whether it's AI infrastructure and layering in AI tools and platforms or building it in or whatever, not to mention. the native AI solutions that are coming onto the market that are really becoming viable, like for real, real. Like we've been watching this for a long time, but things are definitely changing.  

So, you know, 2026 is the renaissance for ERP. I think that's good for what we do. It frankly gives our clients more options and it changes, I think, even our business and how we advise clients, which I'm really excited about. I think it shortens implementation times. Like I think it allows things the new platforms, especially, and even the incumbents, if you will, as they retool, I think the focus on simplicity, shortening, again, implementation time frames. We saw one solutions or implementation partner recently who's built out an AI tool that helps their internal people with getting implementations done faster, where they just know the requirements better and then can sort of map, these are the modules we turned on and the functionality we got to set up. So very real stuff. So very, very, very excited about that because we needed a bit of a renaissance in ERP. 

Rebekah McCabe: 

Yeah, there's lots of really exciting things going on for each of the vendors. There's going to, we're going to talk a lot about the emerging technology that's coming as well. And like you said, Shawn, we talked about this a little bit yesterday, not even just on the call, but you and I individually, that 2025 was a foundational year. There was a lot of things going on behind the scenes that companies didn't even realize were going on or things that you don't realize the vendors are investing in until all of a sudden they release a solution that's completely different from anything you were expecting. And AI is going to play a huge role in 2026 in fueling that growth and fueling the things that we're going to see from each of the vendors. They've all developed different AI strategies based on what their business is going for, the real, like realistic, what they want to deliver, as well as Based on location, like we were talking about yesterday, there's certain policies and things. They're going to have to adapt their databases in order to meet the needs of companies. And that's going to be really the catalyst, especially AI agents, that I think are going to start actually receiving adoption. And we're going to see companies benefiting from those kind of tools and being able to build them out on their own using natural language models without this crazy technical oversight that I think a lot of companies have come to expect. So I think that's really going to be the basis for the growth that we're going to see in 2026. 

Shawn Windle: 

Yeah, I was talking with somebody just yesterday about the AI, there's so many technical words, the nomenclature isn't quite simplified yet. But even the phrase AI is actually pretty simple, thankfully. I mean, well, what does that really mean? Oh, don't go there. It's still pretty complex when you just scratch the surface barely. But like this thing around agentic environments and agentic tools, I think that goes away in 2026. I don't think we have that same sort of nomenclature. I think as more companies, individuals, and organizations are using, say, pre-built 8, it's like saying bots also. Like, it just sounds bad. It just sounds weird. Again, might get replaced by the bots that I think SpaceX and Tesla are putting together. But we'll see. We're going to keep going. Until then, Rebekah, we got a job. We're breaking away. Optimus, those things are called. They're pretty amazing. Maybe we'll get one for the office. That'd be cool. 

Rebekah McCabe: 

Oh, yeah. 

Shawn Windle: 

I would love that. You're on. That's done. When they come out, we're going to figure it out. 

Rebekah McCabe: 

It’s making us coffee and everything. 

Shawn Windle: 

I don't know what it'll do. It'll be crazy. Anyway, that'd be really cool. But for real, I think the agentic thing or agents goes away, and we have more towards maybe there's people's names, or maybe there's just some kind of way to refer to this functionality that's just less technical, that's a little more personal. Again, I can't not think with names. Actually, actually, what? Funny enough, my dad, oh, I got to do a selfish plug for him. He wrote this science fiction book, Chris Windle. Yeah, super cool, right? And he talks about, it's very cool. It's a space opera. I love it. But he was in his book, he sort of talks about, anyway, these other races or whatever and how they have these numbers, but then the humans give them names. And I think that's what we're probably end up doing names for these agents. And then that way you're sort of like, okay, Jane Doe or whatever for this vendor does blah, and that's what it does. And it's like, oh, that's easy. OK, ask Jane. I don't know. That's just some silly example. Or ask Carlos or ask Chen. I don't know what it's going to be. But I think the humanization of this AI is going to happen in 2026, and it needs to. Then the adoption will start going up.  

Until then, I mean, we're concerned about, which large language model and platform and framework should our clients go with, because what if there's a major change? OpenAI, and Anthropic, and Gemini, and Grok, and Llama, and all this stuff, it really requires so much knowledge across all these platforms that to be that expert in those right now, it's crazy. You would actually go like bancos trying to track it. We have a tough time tracking all the different functionality differences in the ERPs, much less than these platforms. So again, I think we're going to see the humanization in 2026. And I do think there will be some very clear leaders, too. I think of those I mentioned, there's probably others that other people know about that are listening to this podcast. Put them in and tell us what they are. But those other platforms, I think, we'll start to see prevailing platforms, because it's not just about the capital. I mean, because all of these are extremely well-funded. So, I think there will be actual use cases in the market where people will start to realize this is the one that's going to win for whatever influences make that decision. So, I'm excited about that too. 

Rebekah McCabe: 

Definitely. And do you think, I know like agents are becoming... as that's kind of going away, they're becoming more and more popular in businesses, like building out their own to build their own processes. Do you think it's going to become an even more personalized experience in 2026? Or do you think we're a ways out from that? 

Shawn Windle: 

No, I really do. I think it kind of has to. Maybe I'm just hoping now that I say this, I hope it's more personal because it's just too complex. And the risk of AI, everybody's so aware of the risks. I think when we went to cloud, I don't think there was as much knowledge of the impact that cloud would have on our entire society. Thankfully, look at what we were able to do in 2020. We could work from home because that infrastructure for cloud was in place. We didn't contemplate that when cloud came out. What are the benefits and cons at a macro level, like in depth? AI has been discussed and reviewed, and there's posts, and probably just since we've talked, there's probably, I don't know, 5,000 different posts that have showed up across all the social media on literally just AI in the last 13 minutes, probably more. So I think people are digging in on it, really understanding it, and looking into the future and predicting what's going to happen. And they're afraid. Some people are very, very, very afraid. And so the only way that you can handle the fear is to, again, personalize the environment, personalize the solution, so it is more comfortable. And I was just reading something this morning, too, from somebody who's pretty prevalent. Oh, you know what? It was one of the world leaders. Oh, that was the president from one of the Latin American countries, and he was talking about how they're rolling out Grok across all their elementary schools. Basically building AI tutors. And I love that. And he was basically saying, like, we as a civilization have this responsibility to use these tools for the benefit of man, not against man. We are man. Why would we do that? And I think that's going to really come through in enterprise software where people finally see, I'm not worried about my job. I'm actually worried about doing what I can do better and not just get an image done faster, but do a whole process faster. So I think that happens in 2026. 

Rebekah McCabe: 

Right. And you're kind of starting to get lots of the things you were just saying. I already wanted to give vendor examples. So I think we're ready, Shawn, if you want to start going through so that we can dive into those and I can provide some of the insights just on the real world stuff that we're actually seeing from them and predictively. So to kick us off, Shawn, we're going to start at the top of the alphabet. That's what these are in order of. And we're just going to start with Acumatica. And I'd love to hear your predictions for Acumatica in 2026. 

Shawn Windle: 

Perfect. And before we jump into this, I want everybody on this podcast to understand something. We've done more with all of these vendors this year than I think we've done in any prior year past. So we've had some great collaborations with all these vendors we're going to talk about. Some of them we haven't done that much with. But our relationship, just to remind everybody, is truly independent, objective. We kind of get around if you want to say that with all of the vendors. That sounds kind of weird, but it's kind of true, right? Because one client may have, every individual client is literally like a child. They're all different. They're all unique. And so these solutions that we're going to talk about, I'm going to generalize what I'm going to say, but we've done business and evaluated all these apps. We're not into the boardroom to find out what the high-level strategy is, but we're able to give relevant sort of public information, but also observations based off of lots of deals. Those are all of my conditions. And if you're still interested in hearing it, then here we go. Okay, start over again and let's do it. 

Rebekah McCabe: 

Yes, we're going to kick it off with a vendor who had a very big year. So I'd love to hear your predictions for Acumatica 2026. 

Shawn Windle: 

Okay, so here's the deal with Acumatica. They are in a tricky position in that they're still relatively new to the market. And I'm thinking of our Acumatica people that we love working with saying, what are you talking about? But I was at an event last night and few people had heard of it. Still, believe it or not. So it's emerging, but it still has gotten, I mean, our customer base, we did more with Acumatica this year than we ever have. They have their positioning in the market is established, but there is still a significant amount of the mid-size business world that doesn't know, even nonprofit that doesn't know, although we've done some great mid-size and nonprofit work with Acumatica. So I think their investment from Vista is going to help in ways that Vista can open doors that Acumatica with EQT couldn't with their prior PE or private equity firm. And I think they're going to continue to grow great AI strategy, great partner strategy. So, I think it's going to be a very bullish year. I'm bullish on them for 2026. And they just, they've got to be aware of these up and coming ERP vendors that they don't get eclipsed by them. Acumatica has a bigger customer base. It has more partners and more defined. It's got a strong development platform so if they get the AI right, they'll continue to have a great year. 

Rebekah McCabe: 

Wonderful. That sounds great, Shawn. Yeah, they had a heavy industry focus this year, very specific industry products, things that they could actually like realistically apply to businesses. We saw a lot in manufacturing. They continue to build out their professional services solution, which was introduced, I believe, last year. So, lots of really good things coming from them. And I expect with that PE backing for things to just skyrocket for them so long as they're putting investments in the right places and the product that they're able to deliver. And then, Shawn, we're going to hop to the next one. And we're going to kick off with what are your predictions for Epicor in 2026? 

Shawn Windle: 

Yeah, Epicor has gone through their migration to the cloud for sure. And they have been through a little bit of transition on the PE side. I think we were just talking about that yesterday. And they have a great customer base and they've got some really great solid applications, even Profit 21 that we don't talk about much. We had a couple clients like that this year and they've done a good job of getting in that wholesale distribution and staying in wholesale distribution for a long time. So their customer base is extremely valuable and they need to protect that customer base. So you sort of have the major, major ERP vendors, then you have the teeny tiny ones, and you sort of have the ones in the middle, Epicor, at a billion in ARR, which is crazy that that's the middle. But they need to maintain their position in the market by protecting their share customers. They got to service their existing customers with solutions that enable the customers to migrate, because that customer base doesn't like to change. It just doesn't. And again, people from Epicor call us and tell us I'm wrong. I don't think I am. Because we've talked to those customers, like, I'm not doing it unless I absolutely have to. Well, preparing for AI solutions means they do have to upgrade to at least the solutions are in place now. So Epicor has to protect that market share now more than ever. And when you look at, like, we're implementing 2 Epicor clients right now on Kinetic. They're going, they've been challenging, they're tough projects. It's a very complex product for some organizations that are getting into more complex manufacturing capabilities. They're all very doable. But yeah, I think Epicor is going to do well, like incrementally. And their biggest opportunity is really around the AI messaging at the right level for their customers that don't really like to change technically. But those customers wake up one day and decide, oh my gosh, you know, I really need this. I'm just going to switch. So be careful, Epicor and Epicor customers for sure. 

Rebekah McCabe: 

Definitely. They did a lot with Prism, Epicor Prism, which is their like vertical or it's their AI product, but they did a lot with vertical agents, especially at the beginning of the year. So they're forming their strategy and they're trying to get, like you said, reach those frontline workers, especially. Those were what a lot of their announcements were, like revolutionizing the way that they do business so that they're not just completely out there on their own. But it is a different customer base for sure. And so the adoption is going to be a bit slower, which we see across various industries. That being said, another vendor that plays in an industry that's a little slower to adoption, what are your predictions for Infor in 2026? 

Shawn Windle: 

Yeah, we've had some great collaborations with Infor this year, and we really appreciate our relationship with them too, as well as Epicor and Acumatica. The thing about the Infor world is they are, they're like crown jewel in my mind are their partners. Their partners have so much industry micro-vertical experience, and not to say that the Epicor partners don't also, there's fewer Epicor partners. That's probably the big difference. So I think that partner-driven innovation from Infor needs to continue, and there's probably even some, how do I say it? Some probably generational transitions that are happening there too in the Infor partner channel, which I think is really good for everybody. So Infor, CloudSuite Industrial, CloudSuite Distribution, we've had some great collaborations this year with CloudSuite distribution partners like NSA. And again, it's really that partner channel. Now, Infor is also doing a lot of direct stuff too, so it's a little confusing, frankly. I think to customers like, well, who's selling this to me? Is it the partner? Is it Infor? I think they've worked that out. There's sort of lines of bifurcation between who's supposed to do what that they kind of follow. But, you know, at the end of the day, like we've talked about for like a gazillion years, I mean, one of my first posts I did 20 years ago on some strange board was like, choose an implementation partner that you would bet your job on because you are. That's the thing Infor continues to provide. They have an Infor consulting services, which is good too, especially for bigger deals, but for CloudSuite Distribution Enterprise, CloudSuite Industrial Enterprise, just really great partners. It's solid product. It's fleshed out through and through when it comes to like really hard manufacturing requirements, especially really hard distribution requirements. We had a great CSDE implementation and the product was perfect because they had been through so much, like through like multiple wars, it feels like. Whereas a lot of the newer vendors haven't been tested, tried and trued like that, Infor has. 

Rebekah McCabe: 

Yeah. And I think that shows just in the solutions that they were releasing this year, they had a very practical approach to AI and the agents that they're building out. I think they started from a place, and it does help that they've been doing so much with Amazon Web Services, just Amazon in general. But their solutions are very focused on how are we going to add value within this specific vertical? How are we going to make sure that our customers are actually getting what they need out of the AI? And they had fewer announcements. Their announcements were fewer, far between throughout the year. But when they made them, you could tell they had really practically thought through the solution and what they were going to be offering to customers. So, it'll be interesting to see how they evolve exactly like you said, Shawn, in the new year. 

Shawn Windle: 

Great insights, too. 

Rebekah McCabe: 

Yeah. Going on to a big, probably household name that everybody knows, what are your predictions for Microsoft in 2026? 

Shawn Windle: 

We, again, had a great call just this week with one of our most trusted Microsoft partners. We've done a great job working on very successful projects together. And hearing Andy Yemin's talk from HSO was super helpful, even for me. They're sort of like the ones that should win everything, but in their execution, they may not. Like, they have everything. It's got everything. It's got. It's got a hyperscaler, it's got its own data centers, it's got Fabric, it's got Azure, you know, you've got Business Central and FNSC, right? Finance and supply chain, the Dynamics 365 solutions. There's old workflow stuff that's in there. There's UX, there's Office, there's SharePoint, there's blah, blah, blah. There's Teams. It's got everything. Like, it literally has everything. Now, what do we do with all that? It's got Power BI. Like, what do you do with all that stuff? And again, it goes back to the partners. So the partners are the ones that sort of have the reality or the responsibility, pardon me, of bringing this whole new reality together in a way that benefits a client, almost like a custom solution. That's probably too strong, but tailoring all these pieces to meet the client's needs. We have a client right now that's implementing Business Central. And a big reason why we went that way wasn't necessarily just for the product of BC, but it was for all the other tools that go with it. So again, you have partners then that you're really relying on to bring it all together. And I love that strategy because here's the thing with a partner, you know, they could be 500 people, right? Or they could be smaller. We have some partners in like the Business Central, one of our top partners that we trust the most is like 15 people. But Don will do anything for his customers. We love that. But the thing is, that person has kids in college, or will be, or did, or whatever, that are depending upon your success in getting paid. Whereas Microsoft, it might be hard to have a little more influence with them, unless you're somebody really, really big. But so the partner channel in Microsoft, that's key is to find the right partner. And just because you call 1-800-Microsoft for ERP and they tell you, okay, you get a call from somebody here, I'm going to sell this to you, still have options and choices and should search online for great partners that are out there. But man, you'd think they won already. I remember actually a couple of years ago talking about AI with one of the industry groups that we're a part of with people similar to us. And it was like, Microsoft's going to win. Like, how can they not? They've got copilot. They've got everything I just said. I didn't even say copilot earlier. But the bottom line is that it's the execution and the simplicity and getting these products to market, getting solutions to market. The customers are like, wow, I can totally use this, right? I can do something with this. Now it's a little bit like, well, there's a lot of tools sitting on the table. I think I'm just going to go watch TV now, you know?  

Rebekah McCabe: 

Microsoft's interesting for sure, because they were one of the probably early adopters, early innovators alongside the other hyperscalers where they were releasing AI solutions left and right in 2024 and even the beginning of this year. But their strategy shifted this year in 2025, and I'm sure it'll continue into 2026, where they were very focused on partnerships and building out the foundation for Pearson. In the very beginning of the year, they partnered with them to create educational centers for, or not centers, but programs for AI and educating the masses. They had another partnership with a school and a corporation where they were building out AI labs so that they could innovate. And so I think they're, while it sounds like it's a lot of philanthropic news, they're investing very heavily in how can we educate the workforce that's coming up so that they're the next innovators, they're the ones that are adopting our technology, they're the ones that are going to be using things. And it's unique for them because they're not traditionally an ERP. They have ERPs and they have great products, but that's not the viewpoint that they come from, and that's not necessarily the strategy from the top down that, oh, we have to sell ERPs. It's really based in Azure. It's really based in those other products, the business productivity that gives them a unique perspective. And I think we're going to continue to see a lot of those kind of investments, that kind of innovation, partnerships with companies like Oracle even, where they're leaning on each other to develop better and better solutions, like the Oracle database at Azure or Oracle database at Google Cloud, where they're all the hyperscalers are working together to bring us new tools. 

Shawn Windle: 

Yep, love it. 

Rebekah McCabe: 

Wonderful. We're going to kind of lump these next two together, and we're going to do an Oracle NetSuite, NetSuite kind of review, Shawn. I'd love to hear your predictions for them in 2026. 

Shawn Windle: 

Oracle, it definitely has this unique positioning over the other ERP vendors in that I think their business operations across all of their units are probably more integrated than some of the others that are also in the hyperscaler business, meaning Microsoft. And their kind of core bread and butter has been enterprise apps. That's not true. It's sort of like their you know, they're saltine crackers for the for soup. Like, I mean, they've always been an infrastructure database administration, database tools and other infrastructure for sure. And then they had enterprise apps. But what I mean to say is, is they they're kind of like enterprise apps are kind of like first class at Oracle, whereas like you just said, Microsoft is a little bit different. Now, that being said, that full stack integration, we've talked about that for years now, all the way up from the user experience, from the screen you're entering, all the way down literally to the ground, to the mineral rights, to the water and the oil that's underneath the data center property, right? I don't know if they go that far down. I'm sure they do. Yeah, especially there in Denver, there's that big old campus. There's probably like dinosaur bones underneath that location. You dig them out, get them to the museum.  

Anyway, that offering is super strong. And in this age of the technology platform becoming even more important, whether it's security, like we've talked a lot about over the years, I think it's going to be more and more. So, I think Oracle probably has the most likelihood of success with that full stack solution. And you're already seeing it with the innovation. I mean, of course, they've purchased the EHR application, the electronic health record system a couple of years ago. So really bringing in life, not life sciences, but that side of healthcare, which was a little bit kind of like, oh, that's separate as a business app. Well, we've been selecting EHR patient care reporting systems forever. It's not different. Like it's all integrated so that you get, anyway, I could go on and on and on about it. But the enterprise apps at Oracle being integrated into and part of this whole infrastructure, nobody else has that. And I think that's really, really, really important going into AI. NetSuite, their AI strategy, I think, evolving with NetSuite Next this year. Yes. You know, partner tools coming out around AI solutions. One of the partners we've known for a long time is starting to write some stuff too that's, you know, it's relatively small organization, but he's making a big impact with that. You have just a great customer base there, 20,000 plus customers on NetSuite. Plus, the Oracle Cloud ERP equals this ecosystem that's gargantuan, that you could just make a ton of money just servicing that ecosystem, much less ensuring that you're not eroding and losing those customers. It's going to be important, too. So I think from an innovation perspective, we're going to see a lot of good stuff there, too. And it's time. Like, it's time. It's time for, you know, Oracle Cloud has, I think, been great, but we haven't been able I think the adoption that we've seen is a little less than I thought it would be by now. So, I'd love to see sort of that AI-driven projects with Oracle Cloud for sure. And I think NetSuite is-- they're kind of like the new SAP for mid-sized companies. They kind of just become so prevalent across so many different verticals that they sell into. That they could go on a defensive stance in 2026 very easily or continue to drive innovation. There's a ton of, again, free flow capital. You look at the balance sheets for Oracle, there's a lot of cash. So pouring that into the development, not just the marketing, which some of the AI ERP vendors are really, really good at, but like the actual product development and with that, again, that platform of customers and ecosystem that Oracle has, there can be some really exciting things there. 

Rebekah McCabe: 

Yeah, and NetSuite's heavily benefiting from that. I mean, NetSuite Next is an AI connector that they're able to benefit from OCI and the infrastructure that they have in place in order to create applications like that. And the two are just working so cohesively. I think more than they have in years to like bring some of those solutions and allow NetSuite to kind of flourish into new markets. So I'm excited to see too as their global expansion continues in 2026. Next one, Shawn, is going to be Sage. What are your predictions for Sage in 2026? 

Shawn Windle: 

Again, we appreciate Sage and the collaborations that we've been able to do this year a lot. We had a great conversation with our CTO earlier. And I think even from that discussion, as well as, you know, down at the project level, right, because we're not just the high-level people, we're like down in the guts of implementations. Sage has been through a lot and I think their messaging and going through their portfolio is changing, right? Like we even collaborate with some of the Sage partners on some of the, call them legacy products like 500. And that customer base is very staunch. Like they are like, they're like in it. They don't want to leave. But going to AI and the interesting things that Sage is starting to do around AI, copilot, I think is their solution name too, right, for AI. Yeah, and even being at their conference a couple of years ago and what they were talking about, very practical solutions that they're providing, but you have to be on their newer platforms for that. So if Sage can figure out how to upgrade their thousands, 10s of thousands of customers really around the world, right? There's Sage 100, there's 200, I think there's a 200. I'm thinking maybe Mass 200 now, but Sage 100, there's several Sage 300 products, including the construction application, the old ACKPAC stuff gets kind of lumped in there, 500, there's X3. There's their distribution and was it Sage distribution manufacturing solution that came out recently? 

Rebekah McCabe: 

Sage manufacturing and distribution operations, SDMO. SDMO. 

Shawn Windle: 

Newer platform. You know, we haven't heard as much, I think, about that. I think it's still evolving. You know, you hear a lot about Sage Intacct construction in some countries in Europe. And of course, Intacct, which is very prevalent. So you look at all these assets, you're like, wow, this is extremely valuable. And I do think that 2026 could be the year that we see like a bing, like a go-forward strategy, not just, hey, let's just, the customers that have been, or partners even, that have been Sage partners, let's make sure they got Intacct going. But how do you enable that market so that it's just getting stronger and stronger? And not just like an alternative to something else, but for real, no kidding. Like we've seen some healthcare solutions for Intacct, even some real estate hospitality. So, that product is super strong. But I think I would say in 2026, the Sage story has to and will crisp up, frankly, and I'm sure we'll hear from our Sage people. And I want that so that we can do some interviews and stuff and get the real data out there. My suggestion is just, you know, let's get a very clear message from Sage on exactly where things are going. because the AI thing is driving a lot more organizations that are on some of these legacy products to not just say, well, the person who customized it is retired, and we've been on this for 25 years, and it doesn't quite meet our business anymore. And now they're like, oh, my gosh, I got to do AI. So those customers, and Sage has a beautiful customer base. They've been able to service those customers for a long time with a lot of great partners. I think this is the year where something, boom, comes in for Sage that's like, bam, and then zing rolls. 

Rebekah McCabe: 

Yeah. And for the second-half of the year, they were doing more with Amazon as well. They're another big guy doing a lot with AWS and AI agents offering the, not AI agents, but yeah, AI agents and tools within the AWS marketplace and things that they're able to do. And I don't think people realize what a behemoth Sage really is sometimes just because they are up there with the SAPs and the Oracles. They're just, they're just more well known and like European settings, but they're doing a lot of innovative things as well that I think exactly, Shawn, they're going to propel themselves forward in 2026. 

Shawn Windle: 

Yeah, I mean, they're one of the top ERP vendors in the world. So exactly. 

Rebekah McCabe: 

And then just to wrap this up for the vendor reviews just for today, many more in the report. What are your predictions for Workday in 2026? 

Shawn Windle: 

Well, we do have to go to the one that I think you purposely just skipped because you're worried about time, but we have to address. 

Rebekah McCabe: 

That was an accident. Let's go SAP. 

Shawn Windle: 

Yeah. So SAP, SAP, SAP, SAP. I think it's going to be, I think it's going to be a great year for them because there's been a lot of like this SAP S4HANA cloud, private cloud, public cloud. You know, who can do public cloud? Do we have to do private cloud partners figuring out their implementations, bringing them down market? But lots of companies buying private cloud. I have several SAP salespeople's voices in my head right now telling me that. But I think it's like-- and I mean, you're going to be able to talk about their AI. You've done a great job of covering all of these vendors' news around their AI tools. But I think they're kind of at a-- I wouldn't know if I would call it a turning point. But there could be a watershed moment for SAP. That's what I'm going to say. There is so much more pressure by customers to change their ERP today than there was six months ago or 12 months ago. The real reasons why they should change are still prevalent. Again, I went through most of them earlier. Legacy solutions, nobody's around to support this. They went off the legacy, they went off the support stream because they customized. The tools they have and put in place even five to seven years ago don't even match the business models that a lot of organizations are following today. Older UX, hard to hire people that want something that's more useful to work with in terms of user experience, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. Those are all the really good reasons to change. And now we have AI. But the AI thing is so prevalent that we have business owners and boards and executives who know nothing about technology banging on people's heads saying, okay, how do we leverage AI in our business? And you're sort of like, why do you really care about that? What are you trying to do? Well, they just heard something from a competitor or from a colleague or a peer company where they're getting more benefits because of AI, which is kind of true, although it's a little hype still. But SAP has, there's like, there's like, God and then there's SAP somewhere around there in terms of resources in the ERP market. I'm not talking religion, I'm talking about just influence, right? I mean, SAP's been there for decades and decades and decades. Huge, great customer base. I think there was a lot of pressure on the customers to just move to cloud solutions from R3 and ECC over the last five years through COVID, certainly. But now, hopefully as those companies have upgraded cloud-based solutions, the AI is more real that they can actually benefit from the tools that are out there because they've gone through the heavy lifting of getting into cloud, because that's the other thing. I won't get into all the details. There's other conferences, calls that we have that cover that, you really can't go on-prem AI. Like there's this step in there called cloud that you have to get to because AI requires a lot of infrastructure to run. That's what the cloud offers. So I think SAP is really in a very, very unique position, especially with Joule. Their AI copilot, I think they call it, where now the customers are not just going to be looking at, okay, we just got to go up on-prem and into cloud and go through that pain and anguish, but now go to this next level. So I'm very excited for SAP. I would be very bullish on them. Again, we don't make a dime or invest or anything on these public or private companies, but I just think a lot of SAP customers that were still wary of going through that migration to S4, I think they're going to do it. 

Rebekah McCabe: 

Yeah. They were heavily, funny enough, SAP was actually heavily invested in like recruitment solutions in the middle of the year and employee empowerment solutions. Just kind of like in, I mean, even as early as September, they were focusing on a lot of those things. So it was interesting to see their shift even at the end of the year where again, we see more AWS can't have a conversation about a lot of these vendors without bringing up AWS. But they also are really focused on, they had one article like SAP's AI powered business suite ends the best of breed era. So they're gearing it towards just like, here's the simplicity of the use. Like, I know we're a big solution, but these are things you don't have to manage a million systems. You can be in one place using AI to do that.  

Shawn Windle: 

And you would think of all the vendors that SAP would be the one that could provide that, just given this like decades of like huge investment in technology that they've done. So I think you're right. Like those are very, very like discrete examples of SAP strategy that should pay off and it needs to in 2026. 

Rebekah McCabe: 

Yeah. And not just SAP, but a lot of these vendors, including the last one that we'll cover, like had very record, record years for financials. They were seeing a lot of growth, especially on the, from AI. I mean, some of them had as much as one vendor the other day reading about it, 114% AI growth in terms of revenue. So, it is really driving a lot of that innovation and hopefully they're pouring that back into the product. And I think there was, like you said, a stalemate there for a little bit in ERP where they were like, how are we going to charge this forward? How are we going to continue to build the market with the tools that we currently have? And AI was the solution for that. And then Shawn, just to round out the vendor review, what are your predictions for Workday in 2026? 

Shawn Windle: 

Yeah. I mean, if you think about it, Workday Illuminate, I think, is their platform, their AI platform, which is, I think, relatively new. I'd have to go back and see maybe 2024, right? And then a lot of vendors kind of came up with their names or solutions at 2024. And you look at the innovation that they've made since then to now, I think they're making some great headway. And Workday, from a more pragmatic perspective, has been putting a lot of time and effort into getting into sort of the SMB space with their financial solutions for sure. I think they've made some good headway. They've certainly invested a lot in their go-to-market around that, around sales teams that are focused on that. And even partners that are developing, more streamlined implementation approaches because they, smaller company doesn't want to pay X amount of, *** comma XXXX for huge implementations, maybe even another X in the front. So I think a lot of innovation coming there from the partners, but I think they're mid that process. I don't think they figured that out yet, to be totally honest with you. And again, the people listening from Workday tell us differently. We'd love to hear that. But that's been our viewpoint on it. And now with AI, you'd be very easy to chase that, rabbit. And I just hope they don't take their eye off of the mid-sized organizations with bringing their products down to their, the larger customers that are HCM customers, even financials, they're going to be clamoring for AI solutions for sure. So they have to answer that call. And I think already are, I think they're ingentic environment. sort of leads it, lends itself towards the humanistic side that I talked about earlier, especially just given their people soft roots where everything was people, people tools, people toys, people food. We used to eat people food at PeopleSoft. That's what we call. Actually, I just came up with that one, I think. People tools wasn't, that was their development environment. People toys is what they gave out during the PeopleSoft education courses to keep the people interested in their training. Anyway, long story there, but bottom line is that I think Workday needs to continue the strategy of really being able to service the adaptive insight customer base with financials and even HCM. And not just pursue like, hey, let's just have best in class AI solutions for the enterprise customers. There still is a huge opportunity in the mid-sized customers. And the other thing that's going to happen is the emerging AI ERP vendors are going to start going upstream very quickly. Yes, they're very much focused on sort of early stage startups, simpler, but still pretty complex financial requirements. They're going to go right up to that area that Workday is trying to get into. 

Rebekah McCabe: 

Yeah. And Workday, I would say I saw more acquisition activity from them than I have in the past. They were definitely acquiring more solutions, specifically AI-powered contract intelligence, some other things oriented towards the people, people using people tools to make people decisions like you were talking about. So I don't think any of their momentum in the mid-market is going to slow down in 2026. I expect to see a lot more from them and more investment in that space. And Shawn, there's actually a new category for us to kind of mention and cover in this call now that we've wrapped up on the core vendors that people are used to seeing. Let's quickly touch on the emerging AI-based ERPs. What are you expecting, not each of them individually necessarily, but what are you expecting from those in 2026? 

Shawn Windle: 

I mean, there's all the obvious stuff that there's definitely more pressure on these, again, sort of the incumbent ERPs by these emerging AI ERP customers or companies for sure. Like that's probably, it's already happening. It's probably not like taking over market share that's noticeable yet, but where you do see some changes are in the partner channels. Some of the incumbents, maybe all of them, they're a little tricky doing business with. And so now the partners are kind of like, whoa. Hey, there's some more options here. I'm interested in that. So that's going to drive partners then taking on these solutions and then driving those solutions into their customer base, especially trusted advisors, not like us. Again, we don't get paid by these guys, but a lot of partners do. Even some of the selection firms have partnerships. With some of these vendors. So, they're not really independent, like at all, but that's okay. That's up for you, prospect, to figure that out on your own. Call Rebekah, she'll tell you the truth. But I definitely think there will be, well, we were just at an event recently and one of the vendors talked about having 200 customers. Like that's a lot of companies. Now what's their size? How are they using the product? What are the use cases that they're solving? Is it like the next, is it like QuickBooks on steroids, right? Yes, but there's a lot more than that on that steroid side. There's a lot more AI that is serving as a platform that now they can start bringing in more things to do that the other vendors just can't contemplate yet because they weren't built for AI. There's truth in that for sure. Now, a lot of it's hype as we speak, but there's enough truth to where we're really digging in extremely deep with these vendors to understand what value they can bring to our clients, because they can bring value. That even some of the vendors, the other incumbents who have lots of money, I always have to do this on these calls, that building right there, that's Salesforce, they're doing a good job on AI. This is all ERP discussion, but there's tons of cash that these vendors can throw at the solution, but it's not just about cash. It's actually about a whole different viewpoint on how to build apps with the concept of a zero-day close right from the get-go. That's pretty cool. Like, that's exciting. That gets, you know, accountants kind of excited. Accountants don't get excited of very much stuff, Rebekah, you know that. But, you know, that concept of like, wow, this is kind of cool and it's interesting and I like this. It's very refreshing to see that. So, But the amount of capital, hundreds of millions, is that, again, an event last night, and somebody who kind of covers the space said there was like over a half a billion dollars of PE and VC money put into next generation ERPs. Like, wait, what? Like VC money, like early stage money. Like, investors don't care about ERP. What's going on here? Well, they do now. So, I think that's going to be great for everybody. 

Rebekah McCabe: 

Definitely. And Shawn, I think you answered some of the other questions I have, but let's leave everybody with this. Do you think any earth-shattering developments are going to happen in 2026? 

Shawn Windle: 

The speed of AI is going to make the cloud adoption look like a turtle. Like that, that's the there's no doubt that, I mean, AI is not just here, it's already making an impact. I do think, a couple of years ago we were talking about hyperscalers buying more ERP companies. We were watching one transaction in particular that didn't go through. So, I think now that the hyperscalers have more focus on their own AI tools and less on business apps. So that's not going to be as much of a deal here in 2026. Just kind of looking forward, I do think the middle, there's the big, big, big, big, big ones, and then there's the teeny tiny ones, and then there's these ERP vendors in the middle that's a plus or minus, you know, they're a billion ARR, maybe up to four, maybe down to half a billion. I think the pressure from these emerging AI ERP vendors will drive the owners and the equity groups and the boards of some of these other vendors to do some pretty drastic things in 2026 that maybe they had been thinking about doing before. I mean, it was a major change for Acumatica for one pre-E to sell to another. That was a big deal. Same thing in Epicor. I think there's going to be other transactions like that. There may even be some acquisitions of some of these emerging AI vendors just to get them out of the way. Because you can dangle 50 or $100 million in front of some founder and they're done, right? They're out. Now they're going to say, no, that means my company's worth even more, you know? Dollars are incredible in this AI space. But I think there could be some shakeups. And we even need to consider that in our selections on who we're putting our clients on. So, the vendors that appear to be stable, There's a lot of destabilization that's happening in the ERP industry. I didn't say that last year. I am definitely saying that this year. So, the guys in the apps that are out there that have been the strongest and just sort of get the business, they're not. It's changing, and it changed overnight. So, you have to be aware of that, especially on the purchasing side, where if you're looking at buying ERPs, you have to evaluate some of these other vendors. And even with some of the incumbent vendors and their changes in their pricing strategies and renewal strategies and everything else, like you didn't get fired for getting certain apps. Well, when the contract went up 300%, you might. I'm just being honest. And we've helped a lot of clients through that and have found really great mutually beneficial solutions with some of those vendors too. There's sanity still at the vendors. Don't forget that. And you do need to negotiate. You don't just have to get stuck with something. But The rug could get pulled out from underneath several ERP vendors this year if they are not listening to us, the market, et cetera. So just beware. 

Rebekah McCabe: 

Yeah. Thank you, Shawn. I think these were invaluable insights and you always leave us with a lot of really good information that I think people are going to be able to stew on and kind of decide it for themselves what they want to do with AI in 2026. So thank you again. And thank you everyone for joining us for today's call. Please let us know if you have any questions we can answer. We are always here, always available. You can e-mail Shawn at Shawn@erpadvisorsgroup.com. You can e-mail myself, Rebekah.McCabe@erpadvisorsgroup.com, or you can go to our website. Lots of resources, lots of ways to get in contact with us. Be sure to join us in 2026 for a whole new year of technology discussions. I know in January we will be discussing specifically AI agents and how they're going to be impacting businesses and some of Shawn's predictions for what that's going to look like in businesses in the new year. So please go to our website, erpadvisorsgroup.com for more details, more resources, and to look out for those events. ERP Advisors Group is one of the country's top independent enterprise software advisory firms. ERP Advisors Group advises mid- to large-sized businesses on selecting and implementing business applications from enterprise resource planning, customer relationship management, human capital management, business intelligence, and other enterprise applications, which equate to millions of dollars in software deals each year across many industries. This has been the ERP Advisor. Thank you again for joining us. 

Shawn Windle: 

Thanks, everybody.