Leaders in ERP: Sanket Akerkar, CRO, Acumatica

Introduction: 

This is the ERP Advisor.  

Shawn Windle: 

Hello, everyone. Thanks for tuning in today. On this special bonus episode of the ERP Advisor, we're joined by Acumatica's Chief Revenue Officer, Sanket Akerkar, to discuss the latest innovations coming from Acumatica and what we have to look forward to from the cloud, ERP, in 2025. Acumatica style. So with that, thank you for joining us today, Sanket. It's really a pleasure to have you. Thank you for coming on. 

Sanket Akerkar: 

Oh, thank you, Shawn, for inviting me. It's great to be here. I'm glad to help in any way and support the ecosystem broadly. So thank you so much. 

Shawn Windle: 

Yeah, you're definitely welcome. And we're doing a lot with you guys. So I'm excited to jump into some of these questions. And yeah, if there's other things that you want to add to as we go, please feel free to. But we got about 20 minutes. So let's rock'n'roll. 

Sanket Akerkar: 

Sounds good. 

Shawn Windle: 

So what are you most excited for this year for 2025, whether it's related to new releases or the Acumatica ecosystem that I think is evolving? We're seeing some really good things coming out of that, or maybe even just broadly ERP. What would you say? 

Sanket Akerkar: 

You know, I think it's a couple things. I know you said maybe the most, but maybe I have a couple, if that's okay. 

Shawn Windle: 

Please. 

Sanket Akerkar: 

You know, the first one to me, just a couple days ago was the Super Bowl. And there was a Coke ad, if you remember the Coke ad, where it was a guy walking into a store, like a convenience store, saying, hey, you know, AI is going to be the future, et cetera. And there was an owner of the store reflecting back to, I think it was her father who was talking about computers and said, we're all going to be fine. We're all going to be fine. And I think what's interesting is, we're at that very beginning of the hype cycle of artificial intelligence and what it can be. And I think for all of us, we're all, many people, I think are asking the question like, when does this thing get real? And to me, what I think is probably most interesting about 2025 is that these are the moments I think we're going to start to see things that are actually real. More real with what's happening with artificial intelligence and making it very useful and relevant to individuals who are working on a daily basis in their different systems. And so I'm... probably most excited about that. What I guess is really interesting is the broad innovation that's happening, not just at Acumatica, but more across the entire ecosystem, how people are bringing these tools and sort of having them democratized, and then seeing that sort of natural spark of innovation of individuals thinking about what that needs to look like and where they need to go. And I'm just really excited to hear the different ideas that people are bringing to it and what problems they're trying to solve. I think that's really cool. So I think we'll just hear more and more of this and I just keep my eyes and ears open. So that's sort of 1, I think is 1 for me that I think is probably most exciting for 2025. The other one from an Acumatica perspective that I'm really excited about is our relationships with some of our industry leading ISV partners and the things that they're doing and how we're working together with them in a very different way than we have in the past. And so, John at Summit talked about our relationships with ADP, Shopify, and Bill. And I think those are really interesting relationships. We're thinking about them differently than we have in the past. Each of them are industry leaders in their own right in the categories and the things that we can do together to bring true value to our customers because there's greater integration. There's more, what I would say, how the power of the two systems together gets more value to the end customer. How 1 + 1 = 3, and maybe a little bit of a old sort of statement, but I think it's real in terms of how we're approaching it. So to me, that's also the thing I'm most excited about, that roadmap for where that can go and how we can bring more value to our customers. 

Shawn Windle: 

Love it. Okay, I think we saw everything you talked about at Summit too. So I think not only from kind of your perspective, but I think that message is permeating out across your whole ecosystem, those messages. So that's awesome. 

Sanket Akerkar: 

Yeah, I think so. 

Shawn Windle: 

What do you think about Acumatica's kind of unique position against its competitors? Like, what are the things that make Acumatica different from the ecosystem or from the product technology platform? What would you say to that? 

Sanket Akerkar: 

So I go back, it's really interesting. Like, I've been at Acumatica for four years. And, I had always wanted to know what our origin story was. And so I went and I spent about an hour and a half, two hours with Mike C, our founder, and he gave me the whole history of Acumatica and the origin story of how we came to be. And one of the things that he sort of put forth, which I think resonates and makes us different and makes it really relevant to the question that you're asking, was a point of view that when Acumatica was started, was that the ERP system should be the digital backbone of the company. And those were sort of words that we've used along those lines. I actually take that a little bit further and say it's not just a digital backbone. Acumatica, your ERP system, or any of the business systems you have should be a digital replica of the physical substantiation of the business. And if you had a digital replica of your business, complete end-to-end with all the things that you're trying to do, whether it's your customers, your products, your vendors, your employees, whatever it is, you're going to have a lot more ability to optimize and grow and drive efficiencies when you have that sort of digital replica. And the thing that I really, that makes us different is that we took a very different approach on how we go to market with our product, right? So it shows up in our licensing, unlimited users being consumption-based. If you're trying to be the digital replica of a physical business, the thing that you don't want to do is put constraints on every employee getting access to the ERP. That's just like, just absolutely the antithesis of what you want the ERP to be. And so I just love that we take a very different view on that and lean in hard on unlimited user and consumption pace. The other thing that I think is really important is, you know, if you are going to be the digital replica of the physical business, then you want to make sure that all of those line of business apps have access and can share information easily and be in sync live. And our approach in terms of what we do with our APIs and being very open, documented, and the most, I would say the easiest ERP system to integrate to, makes it easier for customers to get value out of the system. Because if you're in one system and you go to the other system, you want everything to be synchronized. Otherwise, if you don't have that truth, you know, it's really hard to make the right business decision or make whatever you're trying to do or do your job right. And so I think those things plus other things, really set us up to be different, associated to how we think about our business being, the digital, how we help our customers have a digital replica of their business is then substantiated in our product, our architecture, and how we license and have our customers use the product. So I think that's what makes us very different. 

Shawn Windle: 

No, that's really awesome. If you think about, I mean, we've been in Europe for a long time. Probably our experience combined is several hundreds of years. I'm just kidding. I hope we're not that old. A lot of gray, but not that old. But seriously, I think that's been the goal, the digital twin, you know, these concepts, we've thought about these for a lot of years. But I do think you guys have a unique differentiator in that you sort of were able to take a lot of the lessons learned from the past, right? Implement them in a little bit newer of a way with that concept in the forefront versus some of the other problems that some of the other ERPs solved earlier. So it's sort of like, it's like a hierarchy of ERP civilization, right? That as we solve more and more problems as an industry, we get to these, you know, problems at the very top that customers really care about, like real-time analysis of their organizations. Everybody wants that, right? And there's lots of tools and ways to do it. But I think you guys have a, I think you have a unique head start on that for sure. And you know, as for the listeners, as you guys know, we're independent objective, you know, Sanket's not paying us a dime here. Like these are really what our view is from ERP Advisor's perspective. So I appreciate that viewpoint a lot. The other thing I would say too is it sort of relates to our next question specifically about 2025 AI benefits for customers. But don't you think that digital duplicate of the organization, it's actually possible now that we have the infrastructure, right? You think about the hyperscalers that you guys are working with and they're building data centers to handle performance that you guys are going to need well into the future combined with your consumption model equals like major AI innovations here. So tell us a little bit more about what we should specifically expect in the 2025 and beyond time. 

Sanket Akerkar: 

So I think, we came out with a vision and talked about where we're thinking about artificial intelligence and where it needs to go for 2025. And I think we're taking a really different view of it than I think many other people are. I think the anchor for us in terms of the view is that we want it to be practical and valuable to the end user so they can actually take advantage of artificial intelligence. That's sort of point one. Point 2, we understand our, we're understanding or the approach that we're taking is artificial intelligence as it relates to an ERP, right? So, and I'll let me just expand on that point for a second. If you're running an ERP, you want everything to be precise and accurate. right? An ERP is not meant to be an approximation. You want the invoice amount. You want the customer's address. You want to know if the product is in stock. You want to know what price you paid for it, right? All these, if there's a schedule, you need to know when it's going to happen. The field service rep needs to show up at the right place at the right time with the right tool. There's no approximations in the world of ERP. It has to be precise and accurate. So how do you apply AI in that framework? That's a good question. So that's the first piece, right? The second piece is then also saying, look, where AI will go and what it will look like will be different six months from now than it is now. So how do we architect a set of conceptual elements, but real practical things that allow the end user to take advantage of AI? And I think what we showed at Summit in terms of our investments in artificial, the AI studio, from Acumatica, which is giving our end users tools to design and do what they need to do in the context of artificial intelligence using what large language model you want to use, not the one we say that you have to use, using a service that might not be attached or hosted in the Acumatica environment, but it's the best thing for you, as the customer. We're enabling that capability to almost self-service and build AI tools that are relevant to individuals. I think that's a really important part, right? It's like not just being precise and accurate, but also giving the tools and giving those tools to the end users. And I think the third thing, which I think is... is super, super important is that AI and getting to precision accuracy is only there based on also what you said by having the data available, right? And I think it was a key message from us, we are not using any of our customers' data to train any other models. That's super, super critical, right? Your data, the data in the ERP is the crown jewels for every one of our customers. We take that responsibility very seriously. We want to make sure that how we're delivering that back has the trust that those customers have put in us and that we can make sure that we're giving them the right tools while also making sure they feel confident and secure about what's happening with the data. And that is, I think, a promise we can make. I just know that that's probably tougher. It's tougher than others that have done those kind of things. So we feel pretty good about that. 

Shawn Windle: 

It's really the truth. I mean, as we've looked at kind of the AI market, right? And we sort of segment it simply right into there's platform solutions, right? Whether it's the Llama, the Grok or whatever, right? Then we go to the other extreme, which is like super focused AI best of breed tools for FP&A or for purchasing, et cetera, et cetera. Right in the middle you have you, right, as Acumatica, the ERP vendors. And I think what you said, it just aligns with the confidence that you all have built with your customers by supporting, you know, their core business that if it doesn't work, things shut down. You've shown, hey, you can trust us. We understand what we're doing. We're going to handle all of the technical diligence. security infrastructure, all those things to enable you to run your business. So why wouldn't they look to you for that next level of, you know, AI innovation? Because in my opinion, like, you know, I love that we had cloud. That helped open up people's eyes because like, you know, I'd have like my, I love my dad. My dad is awesome. He was an attorney. He works for some nonprofits now. He took a Waymo. He lives in San Francisco. He was in one of the Waymos. He took a picture. He's like, look, there's no driver. And I'm like, dang, if my dad's doing it, I love that, right? He's a great guy. But like he understands cloud just enough to know it's important, right? Now we're getting into AI in the same thing. I had a really good friend of mine who was in his late 70s and he's like, I'm really worried about this AI thing. And I'm like, First off, that's cool. You've heard about it. Secondly, don't worry. It's fine. You can trust us. We're going to take good care of you. But I really that as we go into the hype curve, the Gartner's hype curve, and we get beyond that into real solutions or the trove of despair and all that stuff. But I really think you guys have-- and I appreciate being able to say this to you, Sanket. We've gotten to know each other over the years. You've sponsored a lot of our projects. You guys have a responsibility with your clients already. And you have not taken that lightly, especially your customer bill of rights and things like that, when we get into these new emerging technologies like AI and how do we apply this, there was a rumor, and I don't know if this is true, and I'm not going to say anybody who it was, but there was a rumor recently that one of the vendors did have an AI issue that occurred that they were starting to make these AI answers based off of other customers' data. 

Sanket Akerkar: 

Oh, wow. 

Shawn Windle: 

So the risk is there. It's definitely there. We all need to go into this with our eyes wide open. That's why I say that, especially for the listeners. So again, you've got to partner with vendors that you can trust more so now than ever. But that's also the benefit of the subscription model, right? We kind of went from on-prem, okay, here, buy the software, then we're going to give you a little updates to now it's like you're paying the same every year. So the innovation that comes with that, you know, that's again, it's something that I'm excited about for you guys that you've sort of been there, done that, worked through all of those models, and now it's like the level of value that customers can expect, I think, is just going more and more. So thank you. I really mean that on behalf of your customers, your partners, people like me, pass that back to the guys and tell them, keep going. But thank you. That's good. 

Sanket Akerkar: 

Yeah, I appreciate that. No, that's good. That means that we're we're we got to stick true and stay on those paths that we think are important. 

Shawn Windle: 

Exactly. I love that. So would you say that is there something that is maybe and a surprise. It's something that's maybe taken people by surprise about Acumatica, some things maybe they didn't expect to see from you guys that they are seeing from you. 

Sanket Akerkar: 

You know, it's interesting. I would probably answer that in a couple different ways. I would say there are, like I would say this, you know, we're 100% indirect. We work 100% with partners. I spend a lot of time talking to different partners that are out there explaining our principles and where we are. It's very interesting. I get surprised, it's almost refreshing when partners that haven't spent a lot of time with us, when we talk about some of the things that we stand for in terms of focusing on customers, having a product roadmap that's helped to be defined together with our customers, not absent from that. Having a partner ecosystem that's collaborative and works together and helps each other and isn't combative. positive relationship between our partners and the vendor, the OEM, right? Us in this case. I am, it's always refreshing when partners are like, wow, like, how did you guys figure this out? Like, how is this possible? Like, and it's interesting. And to me, it's always, you know, I don't ever want to take that for granted. It's super important. It's something that we want to preserve and protect. And we spend a lot of time working through what I think are customer-first, customer-friendly policies, but also working really closely to understand what's important to our partners so that we can support them. And they are essentially then also taking care of our customers. That's really, really got to be key. And so to me, It's like this source of energy when I hear new partners come to me and say, I'm really excited about this. You guys seem like you're so different. And I'm like, well, we've been this way for a while, but that's great. And I appreciate that. And they sort of remind me those sort of truths on the things that we've invested in and why those are beneficial to them and why that resonates to them about how they want to take care of their customers. I think what always makes it difficult for me is, What I hear is like, hey, I've been working with these other companies that are out there and they just really are doing things that are making their customers unhappy and that's making me unhappy and I got to move on. And I think when they talk to us and they see how we operate and what we invest in and what we try to do, they realize that it's not just words, but our actions are genuine and we're sincere about what are the things that we do. So I think that to me is always very refreshing. 

Shawn Windle: 

That came up quite a bit at this year's summit, even for me as we even talked to some of the newer partners and they talked about whatever channels they came from before. And I mean, frankly, like for our clients, right, like I look every single one of them in the eye, just like you have on our clients, which I appreciate and say, you're going to be a success. Whatever it takes, we're going to get you there. And you're right that there's this trifecta with the software vendor, the implementation partner, the VAR has to be committed to it. And I always put us in there too, because we help the client with things that they don't even know they need to do sometimes. But it is a surprise when even when we're talking to our clients about in selections about here's Acumatica's approach, they're like, Oh, that's kind of refreshing. And it's true because if you have, I like that truth because the partner, they're like the last mile people. They get the software to that last mile fit so that it's a good fit, and then you're ready to go. So that makes a ton of sense. So last question here in just our last few minutes. For anyone that might be waiting to see where things are heading over the next few years, Why should they invest now to make the leap in modern technology versus wait, because AI is not quite here or because there's going to be bigger stuff? Why do it now? 

Sanket Akerkar: 

Yeah, so my, the best way I can tell that story, I think, is in an analogy. You know, if you, if it was 2005 and you were thinking about, hey, maybe I should buy a plasma TV screen and you're like, I hear this new technology coming out that's LCD and it's 720p at that point, right? And then you said, okay, I'm not going to buy it. So you waited. And then you said, oh, now this next thing is going to come out. It's going to be the 1080p stuff. And then it was 4K and now it's 5K. I think they're up to 8K. I think you'd still be using a Sony Triniton, like tube-based TV, if you just kept waiting and you would have missed out all of those generations of improvements. And I think for those people who are watching these things, I would say the longer you wait, the farther you're going to be left behind. And the thing that's super important to understand about technology is that it's not a destination, that it's a journey. And that it's about a mindset of what do I need to do to take my business performance to the next level? And how am I always investing on staying at the right level of competitiveness? I don't think everyone needs to be on a cutting edge, but how do I stay on the right level of competitiveness so I can take advantage of what those new improvements and technologies and perspectives give me? And so if you're waiting, just realize you're the opportunity cost is you're being left behind. And that's real. That's not, that's not, you know, that's absolutely real. So you got to be really, it's right now, it's probably yesterday when you should have jumped in, and then continue to move forward. But do it at your pace, but know that you have to be intentional about that. 

Shawn Windle: 

Yeah. And it seems like there's little incremental steps that you have to take no matter what TV screen you go to, use that analogy. And the more you get those basic things out of the way, you're ready to do the next thing. 

Sanket Akerkar: 

Exactly. That's right. 

Shawn Windle: 

Well, great. Zanket, thank you so much for joining us. I mean, we're really excited to see what happens with Acumatica this year and going forward. We appreciate the partnership with you guys, and so thank you very much. 

Sanket Akerkar: 

Oh, you're welcome. It's great to be here, and it was a great conversation. Thanks, Shawn. 

Shawn Windle: 

Yep, you're welcome. And if any of our listeners are considering ERP migration, please don't hesitate to reach out to my team. There's a link to schedule a consultation in this episode's show notes, or you can scan the QR code on the screen. We're always here to help with any questions you may have, and please look forward to future presentations from us. Sankat, good luck this year. We'll be seeing you on the next executive sponsor meeting. 

Sanket Akerkar: 

Awesome, thanks. 

Shawn Windle: 

Okay, take care. Bye-bye.