Speaking and conversations

I've worked in manufacturing sales and now work hands-on with systems and data. I care about what the technology changes for a business, and the work people must do to make it useful.

Things we could talk about

Before AI answers, who defines the business?

An AI agent can produce an answer in seconds. Agreeing what "sales", "margin" or "downtime" means across a business takes longer. I gave a talk called "Why a Semantic Model is the LLM's Best Data Source" to a community of Power BI developers. I revisited that argument after building a semantic model for a production-shop-floor lakehouse.

What breaks when AI meets an ERP?

I built an MCP connector for Acumatica and tested it against a real tenant. Six tools that had passed unit tests failed on real calls. I'd rather talk about those failures and what they taught me about tool design than show another tidy AI demo. Read the build notes.

What does an ERP migration reveal about the business?

I've been through a Navision-to-Acumatica migration from inside the business. The difficult questions were not whether either system could post an invoice. They were about partial shipments, credit holds, shadow spreadsheets and reports people needed on day one. Here's how I think about those awkward transactions.

Hear me in conversation

I co-host The ABCs of ERP & Beyond. Nirav Shah and I also joined the hosts of a BROADcast for Manufacturers to talk about manufacturing, ERP, AI and what my years in sales brought to systems and data work.

I'd like to bring more data and AI voices into the "Beyond" part of our podcast. If you have a guest or a hard-won story in mind, send me the idea.

For hosts and organisers

Tell me who the audience is, the question you want to explore, the format and any likely dates. A rough idea is fine. I'm happy to shape the conversation with you.

Short introduction

Peter Nicholson writes about AI, ERP and data. He has spent years in manufacturing sales, works hands-on with systems and data, and co-hosts The ABCs of ERP & Beyond.

Get in touch about a talk, panel or podcast. If you'd rather connect first, find me on LinkedIn.