I recently returned from Nashville, where I attended the Epicor Insights conference. For those who are not familiar with it or who haven’t been before, it is a good size event as these conferences go. I believe about 3500 users, customers, and prospects attended the event. If memory serves, there were also about 450 people from Epicor on site as well. I thought that was a good ratio as far as accessibility to people goes.
This year, a couple of interesting things happened. First and foremost, I was so proud of our team for winning a CustomerExcellence award in the category of Business Transformation. So a big shout out for the crew at Birmingham Fastener. The project that this award was about was a far reaching one in the Distribution Center. There were many hard working folks involved who made it happen.
Epicor Executive Leadership Summit
The other thing that I experienced which I thought was definitely worth the time was the track I was invited to called the “Executive Leadership Summit”. This track was very different than anything I had previously experienced at an ERP conference. The content of the track centered on the 50,000 foot view of business and how it is being affected by digital transformation, up to and including narrowing down exactly what that turn of phrase means. There were several sessions that I really enjoyed, but the ones that stick out as particularly valuable were:
- Distribution Round-table where we had a chance to interface with Epicor marketing team members for some idea sharing and market type research. It was a small group of Prophet 21 and Eclipse users, so the setting lent itself to a very deep and far reaching discussion.
- An update on the economy from Brian Beaulieu, Chief Economist as ITR Economics. This was my second time to hear an ITR presentation live, and if you ever get the chance, don’t pass it up. These guys are the real deal, and I can just about guarantee you will learn something valuable.
- A distribution panel with 10 or so Epicor executives. It was an open panel, so the topics were all over the place, but again the audience seemed to be mostly Prophet 21 and Eclipse customers. The executive team was very accessible and very straightforward with their answers in my opinion. A majority of the response from the panel came from the CTO, Himanshu Palsule. He came off very well, and answered with as much specificity as I would have expected. I left with the impression was that there is a clarity of vision about the future of Epicor.
Final Words on Insights 2017
Overall, I would say that the ELS track was definitely worth the time. It was set up in such a way that the executive sessions did not take up the whole day. This left plenty of time to visit with others or attend some of the other sessions. If you are invited to attend this track at a future Insights conference, I highly recommend it. I think you’ll be pleased with the content.
AP
