(Note: This post is more about trying to get back in the habit of writing blog articles again!)
Today, I attended the first of 4 Acumatica UK Roadshow events. Something they've put together to help drive their customer uptake of the ERP system. The event was around 3 hours long in Stratford-Upon-Avon and has a mixture of Acumatica employees, a couple of Acumatica partners, a couple of current customers, and a couple of potential customers.
The group was small, but the content was great and I'm pleased to have made some more contacts during the networking opportunities (as an introvert, this was a big win!).
We:
- Discussed inter-company best practices, & regulatory compliance with international transactions
- The need for an Acumatica UK user group - let’s get one founded!
- Saw a great demo of the Advanced Manufacturing module by Matt from Cedar Bay
- Russell Slaymaker showcased the platform overall through customer testimonials, and presented Acumatica’s roadmap (I can’t wait for the AI Studio!)
Speaking of Acumatica AI Studio, it's no surprise that we're seeing AI development by Acumatica. It's difficult to get through a single day without hearing about AI development or it being referenced somewhere. Many were thinking that Acumatica were 'late to the party' in terms of AI + ERP, but we're now seeing that they've actually been hard at work in this area. One can say that the AP Document Recognition is their AI but I see that as a glorified OCR solution. It wasn't until the 2025 Summit in Las Vegas at the start of this year that we saw the AI Studio that's been in development. It was much more than an early primitive demo and seems to be pretty fleshed out already. I'm certainly looking forward to having a chance to play around with it and I don't think the wait will be too long (25 R2 maybe?). If we can choose which LLM model to use, that would be an incredibly flexible approach to AI development in this space. Not being locked into a particular LLM could be advantageous when you need to consider your use cases and what industry you serve. Certain models are better at creative writing, whereas others are better for code development, so what you want to use AI for can help steer you towards what model is best to use.
Acumatica UK User Group when?
I got the opportunity to mention to the guys from Acumatica my frustration at seeing all the cool activities and events that US-based official community groups are holding. One of the first things I looked for when I started on my journey was a UK-based group, but nothing exists. I can understand given that there's only around 200 to 250 companies using their ERP in the UK, but if Acumatica sees the UK as their next major growth area (and no doubt further into Europe in the coming years) then they should seriously consider a UK user group.
The summit in Las Vegas saw them heavily advertise they want to be seen as a "community lead" company that "really listens to what their end users want". If they want to tap in to this more, then a UK user group makes sense. At today's UK roadshow, they were very receptive to this and Russell Slaymaker mentioned to me that he was also thinking about it just this morning, so I'm hoping to see something set up once all 4 roadshows are complete.