Acumatica has been a influential vendor in the cloud ERP midmarket - but does AI change the equation? Were there surprises on the ground in Vegas? Time to make sense of an important Acumatica Summit, but with a plot twist: Jon Reed was home in his bat cave, slugging down Vitamin C, while Brian Sommer grabbed an outdoor chair prior to his takeoff from Vegas. Jon gets into why Acumatica matters and asks Brian: what stood out this year? Was the AI narrative convincing? What did Brian hear that we didn't pick up on via the news announcement? Brian reveals the pesky questions he asked Acumatica execs, and we discuss how Acumatica is contending with its growth - a good problem to have, but nonetheless something to be tackled.

From Jon: "At ASUG Tech Connect 2024, for the first time, I hosted a joint podcast collaboration with the ASUG Talks team - to be issued on both of our platforms. Joining me in for a live podcast taping were familiar suspects: ASUG CEO Geoff Scott and analyst Josh Greenbaum. But this time around, we had a live audience - and pulled them into the conversation. The audience had a choice of an Enterprise Architect or AI focus. They chose Enterprise Architects - and, I think, for good reason. Effective AI is probably not possible for enterprises without the right data platform and Enterprise Architect approach. I think you'll agree that hearing so many articulate real world questions from the audience made this podcast a standout, and I'll look to do that again this year where possible. And, of course, we covered AI also - that topic always finds its way in."

John is uniquely positioned to discuss SAP operations as one who grew up as a BASIS consultant, has worked in many areas of SAP apps and on the H|ANA system.

Phil took the opportunity to record a conversation with Rick while at a Slack event so this one has the added bonus of being set to music. 

There's plenty to like about this deal but we don't ignore the larger market impact, what it means for SAP and BOBJ or Microsoft Power BI and Google. 

As a teaser, Sarid had this to say last year:

An economic revolution occurs not when an innovation becomes possible, but when it becomes practical. We’re on the verge of a new economy.

 A conversation with Google Cloud CEO Thomas Kurian – solving the enterprise multi-cloud problem.

ASOS profit collapse highlights the importance of animal print skirts as well as working tech. 

Zoholics 2019 review – Zoho One customer Purolite shares lessons on cloud adoption and adapting to change. 

And here's Stuart's opinion about the person in question:

https://twitter.com/WhoStu/status/1116296826259476485

Better still: 

Well, I got a reply from our content thief. It's not an apology, Opens with "Hey Jackass", goes on to complain about "badgering" about "the stupid articles". Not a shred of repentance, just that he'll take the"stupid articles" down. @alexscroxton @bryanglick @ldignan @bobevansIT

How MercadoLibre built a learning culture to keep up with its growth – an SAP SuccessFactors story.

Blue Prism shows its colours around the rise of the ‘Digital Worker’

NetSuite opens up its Brainyard to share the knowledge

...and of course, Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg is never far from our thoughts:

Facebook wins on BS points as TV interview with “very idealistic” Zuckerberg fails to land a blow

Anyhoo - better late than never and here's what we have for you today:

Vendors aren’t helping us to build agile HR, says Deutsche Telekom exec

Adobe Summit 2019 – how Avianca Airlines is facing the transformation challenge

Regulate me! Does Mark Zuckerberg really want government to stage an intervention?

Oracle CEO Mark Hurd on moving NetSuite to the Oracle Cloud

Build diverse teams and show the benefits for your organization

Oktane19 - Okta sets out its stall as an identity platform

Real-time for the win – how Donnelly Custom Manufacturing excels at short-run manufacturing with IQMS.

You want AI with that? McDonald’s latest tech gambit gets highly personal

‘Streaming data, but screaming staff!’ – Ciena turns to Graph to solve customer issues

Adobe Summit 2019 analysis – CX hype is countered by Chegg’s digital turnaround story

Censorship or fair play? European Parliament takes step closer to controversial copyright regime, but will Big Tech fight back?

 How Graph offered a Eureka! moment for a UK SMB

Open source is free – yeah, right! 

Burgers, toothbrushes and flatpack furniture – Zuora CEO points to Subscription Economy transformation boom

 Regulation or hesitation – how to manage the internet? The story so far… 

Regulation or hesitation – how to manage the internet? Where we go next…

Why Sportable Scoreboards moved to cloud ERP, and what they’ve learned about change – Oracle MBX ’19.

the shocking state of Bank of England procurement in The Bank of England needs to modernise ASAP while we also have the UK Government gets tough on digital competition

On today's show, we have ECM revista, two important pieces about International Women's Day, apprenticeships, spend management and taxis. 

My favorite quote from one of the stories:

I hate the dogma behind modern methodologies. Of course we use Agile but we also use Waterfall. We are “experience led and product centric” with rapid feature iteration, but we also run traditional projects. The question is always, are we improving the customer (passenger and driver) experience and can we do it better and faster? And, by the way, Agile is not always about fast.

Amen brother, amen!

It is early days and the vendors are ahead of customers in understanding how XaaS works and what needs to be put in place but this conversation provides a good start to the topic.

How do you solve a problem like identity?

Government-as-a-Platform agenda

Going global with G-Cloud

We still don’t know how to effectively manage a contract and the Public Accounts Committee released a damning report

Elsewhere, Derek says: If you’re going to read a blog this week, read Richard Pope and James Darling’s Medium post about where we are at in terms of progressing digital government.

Delivering digital growth – how Target’s store-as-hub strategy paid off

Plus an upbeat Salesforce as it targets (sic) $28 billion in revenue.

Then we have the idea of 'gated offerings' as a way of personalizing for customers. Hmmm...I'm a tad skeptical as personalization is very tough to get right. 

As an added extra, I talk about this week's reorganization at SAP. The company seems to have taken a strange position on those who stay and those who leave. There is confusion and the picture is not entirely clear. However, I think SAP is making a mistake in some cases. Check my Tweetstream to find out more. 

• Old Navy widens the gap between its omni-channel future and The GAP’s legacy retail present
• Lowe’s and Home Depot – home improvement retailers in search of digital fixing up
• JC Penney CEO – we need to re-establish “the foundations of retail” despite years of digital transformation
• Macy’s – another year, another restructuring, but there are omni-channel retail successes

and our Breaking Bad just has to be seen to be believed

Included links are: 

XaaS virtuous cycle of engage-monitor-improve.

How Bosch has replaced its old 7-layer hierarchy with a matrix of 54 separate teams of less than a dozen people each and fintech startup Monzo is a showcase for rapid decision-making enabled by its use of Slack. Here too, cross-functional teams have become the norm.

It may be fashionable to demolish hierarchies, but the trend toward flat organizations already faces an academic backlash

Writing in Forbes, Unit4’s Claus Jepsen says Service organizations need to put their XaaS hats on and engage with their customer ecosystem.

If you’re attending UNLEASH19 in London later this month, catch Phil's session at 11:45am on the 20th, when I’ll be speaking on Frictionless Enterprise, Digital Teamwork and the Future of Work. It’s a perfect opportunity to talk XaaS in person!

Derek also shares a few tweets that come from alternative voices. Check this status update.

And...such important news...

Robert is a firm believer in what BYD offers but like others he wishes SAP did a better job of helping the partner ecosystem. 

Accuride is especially interesting as it plays off a podcast I recorded with CIO Paul Wright. We've been following this firm for 4 years and the story keeps improving, despite multiple technology providers plus M&A in the mix. 

There are tremendous lessons to be learned about how to establish a successful, mission-driven culture. 

Before we get to that though we're talking Avon, reproductive rights and a thumbs down for financial wellness in the context of HR issues. 

Pants off? Check this:

The story has important implications for those faced with disparate landscapes and where the prospect of getting to a 'one-size fits all' doesn't fit. 

In this story, Paul Wright, Accuride's CIO explains what is happening and why. 

For example, we easily forget that different geographies have different laws concerning the export of data, which, in turn, changes the technology decision dynamic. Similarly, some countries have poor internet connectivity making the choice of moving to the cloud much more complex, if not impossible. 

Then there's the question of reporting across multiple geos. Here, Paul has an interesting take on how Workday Prism is helping. 

Finally, we talk about IoT and other advanced technologies. You'll be in for a surprise if you think that this industry is going full speed on these topics. 

Check out diginomica.com for a write up that includes a bunch of links on the topics we discuss. 

He's coming up to a year as an 'evangelist' in the developer relations team at SAP. It's been a year of experimentation including the recent launch of his own live streaming show where he talks and writes code in real time. 

We talk about these issues and the many challenges involved in creating a podcast or live stream that people want to listen/view. 

We also talk (briefly) about beer, an understanding of which is a pre-requisite for being a modern-day coder. 

Enjoy.

In this discussion, Lora recaps the main points of her current thinking and offers a framework for the future that includes the use of advanced technologies including machine learning for essential tasks like data cleansing. 

She also has a warning for the usual suspects - the startup world is coming to get you. 

And because you can't make this stuff up - check out the image below:

In today's call we discussed the problems around non-GAAP reporting and how it is out of control yet no-one wants to address the fundamental issue of companies reporting whatever the heck they like ahead of filing the 10-K. 

There's a timebomb ticking here folks.

During our call she talked about a small number of companies that file and report at the same time. One of which is Amazon. That company doesn't always get the love it earns but it is doing the right thing.  

There will be a written version of this story in the next day that includes links to her latest story about the GAAP and non-GAAP issue. Enjoy. 

And for those who like a little imagery? We have Writer's Clock. Check it out - I am so getting one of these. 

BTW - this is called the Dyson sucks edition but you'll have to listen through to the end to get the context. 

Vijay provides us with plenty of examples around how things work, how he learns and what he sees going o win the marketplace. 

Towards the end we get into a discussion about the lessons that can be drawn from the world of Test Cricket, which is a passion for both of us. 

And right at the end, I get a couple of free minutes of consulting advice that will help me going forward. 

A great conversation from someone I've admired for many years. 

He mentions getting his face into a VR thing. Sheesh - the things we do for the benefit of those who consume our stuff.