Acumatica’s Partner Ecosystem: Driving Customer Success

[00:00:00] Lauren: music intro

[00:00:05] Lauren: Welcome to the Acumatica ERP podcast, where we explore practical innovation for growing businesses. I'm your host, Lauren O'Hara. The Acumatica channel can often be viewed as having many partners competing against each other. However, partners have a shared understanding and the same end goal, and there's much that they can learn from one another. And that's the thought behind bringing these three partners on the podcast to share their experiences. Today we're joined by Michael Pearson, Jason Sheaffer and Paul Tedford.

[00:00:36] Michael: Hey, Lauren,

[00:00:38] Jason: Thanks for having us.

[00:00:39] Lauren: Hi guys. Thanks for being here. Okay, so tell us who you are, your company, and how long you've been an Acumatica partner. Let's start with Jason.

[00:00:48] Jason: I'm Jason Sheaffer, the CEO of Crestwood Associates. We've been an Acumatica partner for almost 15 years. We have clients probably in every industry, but kind of focus on distribution, manufacturing, and construction.

[00:01:03] We do have a really unique aspect to our business, and that is we have our own in-house development. So many of our Acumatica clients need an integration or a customization. They can turn to Crestwood and we can do that all in house. So that's probably one of our most unique aspects, if that makes sense.

[00:01:20] And I think I'll kick it to you, Paul, I think you're next in terms of the tenure.

[00:01:24] Paul: Thanks, Jason, and thanks for having us on, Lauren. My name is Paul Tedford. I'm the CEO at Wm Synergy. We've helped 2000. Manufacturing companies implement ERP and improve their best business processes. with over about a hundred consultants on staff. About three years ago, we became an Acumatica partner.

[00:01:43] We work with the manufacturing, the distribution, and the construction edition. Our tagline is that we, you know, our customers manufacture parts and we manufacture references.

[00:01:56] Lauren: Nice.

[00:01:57] Michael: Hi Lauren. My name's Michael Pearson. I'm the president and founder of Contax and I'm sort of the new kid on the block. Um, although we've been selling and implementing and supporting ERP for almost about 30 years now. and over that time we've worked on many hundreds of ERP implementations. Um, but we only more recently became an Acumatica partner.

[00:02:18] In fact less than two years ago. We signed up as an Acumatica partner, so we're still relatively new to Acumatica and to the community.

[00:02:28] Lauren: Very nice. All right, thanks. I love it. Michael, you've been at Acumatica Summit in the audience as a new partner, and in 2024 you were on stage during the general part, the partner general session. So tell us a little bit about your experience. There, and as you ramped up your Acumatica practice during that first year.

[00:02:50] Michael: And what an amazing experience it has been. In the span of about 12 months, from being a brand new Acumatica partner, I was up there on stage with my colleagues Paul and Jason, telling our story in front of thousands of people. So it was just quite a remarkable experience and, and really an amazing journey in such a short period of time.

[00:03:11] What really helped us be successful was making sure that we were focusing the right resources and the right effort and making sure that we're doing everything to enable our team to be successful in our first year. And that required obviously, a lot of training and enablement, and then we had to focus on winning our first customer which is, which can be quite challenging if you're taking on a new ERP application. Um, but we had great support all through the process from Acumatica, and it really made it feel like it was quite easy compared to what we thought it would be. And it, and through the whole process, it felt like Acumatica was there with us at our side through every step of the process. And for at no point were we doing it on our own.

[00:03:55] Lauren: I love that. I love to hear that. So what did you guys do to celebrate your first customer, your first Acumatica win?

[00:04:02] Michael: We won another four after that.

[00:04:07] Lauren: Beautiful. That's a great way to drive it home, right?

[00:04:11] Michael: That's right.

[00:04:12] Lauren: Paul, you've been in Michael's shoes and you're now a rapidly growing partner, so what are some lessons that you've learned? Kind of similar to Michael's question, like what are some of the lessons that you've learned growing your business up to this point?

[00:04:27] Paul: Yeah, Michael, congrats on those wins. That's great. I think what Michael said is really where it starts is having a strong team. think it starts with the consultants. You have to have really good consultants to make sure your customers are happy and you can implement. Um, and they're really in demand because of Acumatica's popularity.

[00:04:43] So you certainly need to treat them well, and have a good culture and a good team. Um, you have to have a good pre-sales group and a good sales group, obviously too, to have those wins that Michael was talking about. Um, and I think when we started in the ERP space, maybe 20 years ago, it would take us two to four years to get a consultant that's billable. So what we've learned is that if you have somebody that's already trained on another ERP, Acumatica is so easy to use and, and friendly. Um, you can get them up to and running and billable and helping customers within two to four months. So it's not that two years. So that's one recommendation, you know, for,

[00:05:25] Michael: Some of the things that we've done is worked on internships with college programs and brought them into the company as customer success managers or business development reps, and they can take a career path into consulting or sales.

[00:05:39] Lauren: Hmm.

[00:05:39] I love the idea of the ease of use being also useful from a consultant's perspective too. You know, that's a really interesting way to, 'cause you know, I mean from a marketing perspective, we have customers that love to talk about Acumatica as ease of use, but I'd love for you to maybe expand a little, putting upon that advantage with the consultancy part.

[00:06:03] Paul: Yeah, so a lot of the ERPs that are out there that our consultants learned on, you know, years ago are not the modern interface that you have with, with Acumatica, right? So if you've gone to college or, you know, grown up in the last 20, 30 years and just entered the job market, you've been using an iPhone or something similar and Acumatica appeals like that.

[00:06:25] So. As long as you have your ERP understanding of, you know, MRP and work orders and the AR cycle, the AP cycle, et cetera, you can take those skills, move 'em over to Acumatica, learn some of the nice tools that are there but it just feels like something that you're, you're used to already. So that's really what makes the learning curve that much faster.

[00:06:46] Lauren: Love it.

[00:06:47] Jason: Well, and I love that the usability, you know, Acumatica always showed so well, right? And then they set out and said, Hey, we're gonna create the new ui. And, and, and that's one of the things that I've appreciated about Acumatica over the years, is they don't sit still. You know, they said, no, we're gonna update the framework, we're gonna improve the ui, we're gonna build AI into the foundation instead of just adding it as a little widget, which we see a lot of the competitors doing.

[00:07:15] So, you know, as a publisher, having that leadership makes our job a lot easier because we have a product that shows well, and it actually does what, what it says it's gonna do. So. Um, it's not perfect, but I think that's one thing. As I've looked at some of the publishers that I've worked with in the past Acumatica is still very, very concerned about the product and it's, you know, improving it.

[00:07:42] So we're relevant and, and I think others don't, so.

[00:07:47] Paul: Right.

[00:07:48] Lauren: Yeah. Thanks Jason. I think that's a great point. You know, we have those biannual releases and yeah, it not, it's not perfect, but nothing's perfect, right? And we're constantly working to iterate and make it better as to you know, and listen to our customers. Right? So I'm glad to, glad to hear that from you.

[00:08:05] Okay, Jason, back to you. . So how did you go from being new, the new Acumatica partner in the ecosystem to building and maintaining a substantial client base as a larger partner? Tell us a little bit more about that.

[00:08:18] Jason: For us it's, it's consistency. You know, the larger you get as a company. You know, more consultants, more project managers, developers, salespeople it's harder to have like, quality, consistent delivery. And so we, we look at that internally to make sure our processes are tight. I jokingly say you can't delegate thinking, you know, we, we have to think, we have to be entrepreneurial, and make sure that from marketing to support, you know, things are working well and that we're collaborating and not sitting still. So there's this consistency factor. And then, you know, Acumatica, it's a subscription based service, and so we have to add customers and get that first sale and then, you know, move to a year where we're selling five or six, or then we're selling 20.

[00:09:06] Right? We have to keep those customers and make sure that they're happy. Um, if a customer is growing, so are we, because they're coming to Crestwood and saying, Hey, we we need to add a new business we just bought, or we just opened a new location, help us out. We have a very large client in the lighting industry and they're, you know, the industry's consolidating and, and so there's so much work that we get because they're leveraging Acumatica to, to grow their business, and that's super exciting.

[00:09:37] You know, those are the stories that are most exciting to us and, and I think help us with, with the growth. But we look at the clients we look at our NPS score, you know, and, and making sure that we're always improving in that, in that regard. And Acumatica measures us that way too. So we really set out a few years ago to intentionally build out our customer success team.

[00:10:01] If we ever have a mistake, we have a real conversation about it and make sure we're improving off of that. And then I guess finally I'll say, being curious. You know, we already talked about it a little bit, but if you sit still with Acumatica, you aren't relevant, you know, with those two major releases that are coming out, um.

[00:10:21] Those features and those capabilities need to be translated to the clients, you know, and ultimately proving benefit. So you know, we've gotta lean into what Acumatica is doing in the software and what they're doing with ai. And, and that's been a huge, you know, priority for me as a leader of Crest will to ensure that we're, we're doing that as an organization.

[00:10:42] Um, I don't normally do demos anymore. But randomly we had a, a, an event where our solution architects weren't available. I'm getting ready for this all day demo, and I, I they have a lot of distribution this prospect. So I'm learning DRP, you know, and this is something I've never demoed, and I'm like, wow, like Acumatica has added things that I've wanted so badly, like 10 years ago with like forecasts. Seasonality that that works better. And, and so it, yeah, it's exciting from that perspective to, to kind of learn about what Acumatica is doing and then applying it in, in the businesses of, of our, our client.

[00:11:20] Lauren: Oh, I love it. I love it. Hey Jason when you were talking earlier, it made me think, I was wanting you to say a little bit more about how easy it is for a customer and for you guys to, and any, any of you guys can chime in, like to add. An entity or add, you know, to add on to, you know, to the software as needed.

[00:11:39] Like that. I, I know that that happens a lot and that's a really great opportunity from a partner's perspective, but also a really great advantage from the customers too. Right.

[00:11:48] Jason: Yeah. Sure. I, I can start or and then Michael Paul, please kind of fill in the gaps. Yeah. It, what's great about Acumatica and the this tenant company branch structure that, that Acumatica offers is I've had a a, a client say, Hey, how, how hard is it to add a company? I'm like, it takes 20 minutes. It's one screen, right?

[00:12:09] It, you know, put, put in the name, the address. You know, the, the base currency and, and you're off and running. And then when you go up into the, the, the navigation bar, you'll see that new company. And if you have intercompany and that's set up, those do, to do froms, those will happen. So yeah, adding a company is simple.

[00:12:28] Um, it's not like you have to log in and out of a different tenant. You could do that if you had, you know, a scenario where that was warranted. But it is very seamless and very quick to add companies. Which of course nowadays with, with private equity and a lot of people investing into businesses, there's this kind of roll up or this portfolio concept, and I think Acumatica handles that really well.

[00:12:49] Lauren: Very.

[00:12:50] Paul: Yeah, we, we had one aerospace and defense manufacturer that started with us with one site. now they have six or seven sites, I think exactly how it is. But one of the things they love too, is the unlimited user concept where they can, even if they're across multiple companies, multiple entities, multiple sites. Getting unlimited users, so, and everybody can use the software and all the new features that we've been talking about.

[00:13:12] Lauren: Yeah, absolutely.

[00:13:13] Michael: And with an another OEM that we've worked with certainly the, the software is capable of multi-company multicurrency, multi everything, but the overhead is, is significant and the amount of time to set it up, you're talking weeks or months in some cases to do things that we can do in, in literally minutes and hours in Acumatica.

[00:13:35] So we really appreciate that.

[00:13:39] Lauren: That's amazing. I love to hear that. That's I mean, it's, it's so cool to hear, you know. We from marketing, I, I focus so much. I mean, obviously on the partners, but I'm on what the customers and the prospects are seeing, so I love hearing you all say similar things that are, that are so enthusiastic, so awesome.

[00:13:59] What are some of the growing pains that you've experienced and how would you advise other partners um, who are looking at or are in an Acumatica practice already, to kind of overcome those growing pains. Like I know, I think some of you have already touched a little bit on those, but maybe kind of flesh those out a little bit for me.

[00:14:19] Paul: Well, one of the things that Jason mentioned was customer success manager. Um, and we never had one before. We were with Acumatica, and Acumatica did the right thing and said, you really need to have one, because they have a great customer Bill of Rights that allows for, you know, one year contracts. And if you're on a one year contract, you need to make your customers very happy.

[00:14:38] Um, gotta make sure they renew. I think Jason said the same thing. And, and Michael, we, we have a, a terminology that says we not only want you to go live on the ERP, we want you not to go dead, means we want you to keep improving. So, you know, every quarter maybe keep that key stakeholder team. And recommend your clients.

[00:14:58] Keep that key stakeholders that help with the original implementation to keep doing continuous improvement sprints once a quarter, and that allows you to use all some of the new features, the new ai, you know, DRP if you need to add that, that Jason mentioned. So that's one big thing is having that customer success manager that allows you to make sure the company's happy they're getting what they need and when they wanna do those sprints, that you have a team ready for them and help them with whatever they need to do to get there.

[00:15:25] Jason: You said something there too, Paul, that that struck me. Um. With our clients. This, you know, this kind of gets back to the previous question, but it is, it is a part of our growing pains. Um, these, our clients are growing and changing, right? We, if we implemented somebody five years ago, like that worked, you know, and generally if you do implementation right, you have a little bit of a runway, right?

[00:15:51] But we have, we have really had to challenge our employees and our consultants and our CSMs to, to say like, let's meet with our clients and understand their business objectives. Where are they going? Like, do they pla plan to acquire companies? 'cause that that should factor into how they're planning their year with, with Crestwood.

[00:16:09] There were times where we weren't doing that all that well. And, and so we, we said, no, we, we now our CSMs typically hold a QBR or quarterly business review with the client. You know, and then that gives us a chance to step out of the day to day to say, okay, like. As, as leaders here, like, what, where are you going, you know, from a, a, a business perspective and we can talk about some of the great things that, that Acumatica is doing and what we're doing at Crestwood. So that was one thing that about a, about a year and a half ago we started doing, and it has been helpful because yeah, these clients are growing and changing and, and we have to be on the pulse of that.

[00:16:44] Paul: Right.

[00:16:45] Michael: One of the challenges with being an ERP var is you need to be good at many different things all at the same time. you need to be able to find prospects, you need to be able to engage with customers, develop relationships, do presales, do implementations, manage customer success all the way through. And I think the challenge sometimes is you tend to focus all of your efforts on the area that needs the most attention. So, you know, we don't have enough leads in our funnel, so we divert attention to marketing. You can't take your eye off the ball on the other things. So you've gotta be focused on all of these things at the same time.

[00:17:20] And if you don't do that, you, you get into a situation where I, where I call it a lumpy business. So one area of the business is performing well, but the others are not. And I think the sign of a mature business and, and that's a huge amount of respect to, to you guys, Paul and Jason, because you've obviously conquered this, getting to the stage you are at with with your businesses. You need to be good to all of these things all the time, and always be focusing on all of them rather than just diverting all of your attention to where needed most at one specific point in time.

[00:17:54] Paul: Mm-hmm. Agreed.

[00:17:56] Jason: Well, it's a compliment, but we're not perfect. Or I'm not perfect, that's for sure. So we have, we

[00:18:00] Paul: at all.

[00:18:01] Jason: We have some lumps in in the dough.

[00:18:06] Lauren: Well, but it's a very valid point that Michael makes, right? Like being able to truly keep your eye on all of the balls and make sure everything's moving forward. You know, just because a customer's live doesn't mean you're done Right.

[00:18:22] Jason: Right.

[00:18:23] Lauren: Very, very far from that. Correct?

[00:18:25] Jason: Mm-hmm.

[00:18:26] Lauren: I know we've kind of touched on this a little bit, so within the SaaS ecosystem that we're all in we not only have to sell more software, but you have to keep your client base happy.

[00:18:37] So and this is very, very much part of what. Michael just alluded to or talked about with the lumpiness, right? So how, can you speak a little bit more about how you balance those out, how you balance out all of the needs and all the lumps?

[00:18:57] Paul: I think it starts with having a good team with the on, on your company, right? So something that's really focused on, you know, sales and marketing and making sure sales and marketing are aligned. So you're focusing on the prospects, the marketing, the leads as Michael and Jason mentioned. Then you have a good delivery leader that's focusing on making sure we're training up really good consultants.

[00:19:18] Um, we also, outside of consultants, you have developers, technical consultants, people that are learning those new AI tools. So those new things that happen to happen. So you have that and um, and then you have the custom success managers that are checking in pre-sales folks as well. So I think it really all starts with, you know, really good people and making sure you have the direction of where you want to go.

[00:19:39] What's our goal? Um, which is, you know, either references or growth or what have, what have you.

[00:19:44] Lauren: Mm-hmm.

[00:19:45] Michael: And clear delineation of responsibilities as well. Knowing who's accountable for which area. It's, it's great if your president can deliver an awesome sales demo. Um, but you know, maybe that's not the president's primary focus and so sole responsibility for managing that, there's somebody else in charge of it.

[00:20:02] Jason: And, and I, I would, I would echo what Paul said as well. It's, it's about the people. Um, and you know, when, when we hire somebody at Crestwood, we run through this, get it wants it, capacity to do it. And essentially that is do they fit our culture? Do they, they kind of come from the same mindset. Do they have the skills and, and the capacity to, to deliver?

[00:20:23] You know, when we start looking through that lens, we find, you know, that we're, we're more successful. And to Michael's point, the CSM, like their job is to, to ensure that that customer is getting what they need from Crestwood and from Acumatica. And if they're not, then we, we need to have that relationship and that communication, so we actually understand that. then if the functional consultant doesn't know if it, if they don't know the product and they're not current with the release. Then they're not gonna be able to deliver. So, you know, we, we do look at it, you know, within the, the various teams that we have to make sure that, you know, we, we have somebody who has a metric and they're accountable to it.

[00:21:07] And, and that if something isn't performing, we know, you know, we identify that and then we know how to fix it through, you know, solving those issues. So, yeah, I mean, it is a form of investment. Um, certainly, you know, and, and that I think for a smaller partner maybe who has come out of maybe the perpetual world, if I can say it that way.

[00:21:29] It is a little bit of a, an investment, but if you do it right, the payoff is there. Look no further than Acumatica and in what they've done with, with Vista. I mean, it's so exciting to see the, the energy and, and the, the idea that Vista wants to keep Acumatica growing and taking it to the next level, which is, which is awesome.

[00:21:49] Lauren: That's awesome. I love to hear that, Jason. My we internally feel the same way, so it's, it's super exciting. Um, so this is a great segue to my question about the support that Acumatica provides to you all. Acumatica provides different opportunities for partners, right?

[00:22:08] We've got the marketing automation platform. PAMs or partner account managers. Of course there's the Acumatica community and those are only just three of the many. Right? So what advice would you give to other partners and even customers for how to make the most of those resources? With your different departments, you know, they're all going to utilize those resources in different ways, so I kind of wanted to hear a little bit more about that.

[00:22:35] Jason: I can boil it down to two words. Use them.

[00:22:39] Paul: that's yes.

[00:22:41] Jason: that's that joke a little bit, but it's, it's, there's so much truth to it. At Crestwood we, we, we have other publishers as well, so, you know, there's a lot of balls we're keeping in the air. Um, and Acumatica is investing in the, the partner channel. We need to take advantage of those tools, whether it's MAP or, you know, you, you, when you first ask a question, I'm like, well, the support, you know, we, we go to Acumatica when we have. a question or an issue and, and you know, there's the whole support portal, right? And so there, there's so much that we get from Acumatica, but it only comes to us if we use it.

[00:23:12] You know, the education that when the new UI came out, they, Acumatica launched a, this sort of new program from an education perspective and we had three developers in it. And that was super helpful because we were able to. You know, kind of see around the corner, if you will. So yeah, you've, you've gotta be there and you've gotta actually be available to use and consume the, the, the resources that Acumatica provides.

[00:23:33] Michael: and Acumatica makes it easy because the resources that provided that to us for free. We're accustomed to dealing with software publishers who charge us for access to training. Um, which, which, which kind of seems a little bit illogical in a way, shouldn't they want us to know the pro product better.

[00:23:50] We love the Acumatica training the education and we encourage everybody to sign up for it, get their certifications, and use it as much as possible.

[00:24:00] Lauren: Mm-hmm.

[00:24:02] Paul: Yeah, and even in the sales cycle, you know, we'll use our PAM Andrew Barkin as our. PAM he'll jump on, help us close a deal and help a customer see the value or prospect, prospect see the value. Um, but even Acumatic execs, you know, John k San Ket, Sean, others will, will jump on a call with us, help us close those deals.

[00:24:21] And there's other resources outside, you know, training. I think both Michael and Jason talked about in the badging, but there's other resources available like service partners. That if you need more help there as well as pre-sales partners that are available if you need, you know, a leg up on getting a pre-sales resource trained.

[00:24:38] Lauren: All right. So what Jason said, use it right? Use them.

[00:24:42] Jason: Use it or lose it.

[00:24:45] Lauren: I love it. so I'm gonna wrap up with a lightning round and I'm going to ask each of you a quick question and ask you to give me a quick as, as quick as possible answer. Jason, what are the two trends that you see shaping the future of the ERP industry?

[00:25:02] Jason: The two trends that are shaping the ERP industry, I would say, well, number one it's, it is gotta be a AI. we see it in our personal lives. We see it within our own businesses. You know, AI is, is changing, you know, the, the way the world is working. And I, I have appreciated Acumatica's approach.

[00:25:22] You know, I think San Ket, the, the CRO of Acumatica said this really well. When people go out to buy an ERP number one, they need to know that the data is accurate, right? And that the system is gonna be accurate and that the data is gonna be secure. Um, right. That's, that's like if you look at the hierarchy of needs, that's the foundation, right?

[00:25:44] And so I think as Acumatica built their AI first approach, they said, number one, we've gotta accomplish these two things. And then from there, they, they said, well, there's these LLMs that are out there that people are using, and, you know, we are going to embed those into Acumatica and allow people to, to continue to use those.

[00:26:06] And, and so I think that approach is much better than what we see with others. They're just like bolting something on like a, an agent here, you know, Acumatica has said, you know, we're gonna allow you to have an advisor. We're gonna allow you to have an assistant or, or provide AI through automation.

[00:26:24] And it's, it's, it is much more comprehensive. Um, and even give us, like the, the AI studio. And so Crestwood can build our own AI modules, which were. We're launching here by the summit. So I think ai especially with ERP and, and the way that data is structured is, is, is, is shaping the industry today and into the future.

[00:26:46] Um, and I, I'm very happy with Acumatica and their position you know, knowing that the data will be secure and that people can build things that actually work and matter versus just marketing speak. No offense, Lauren.

[00:27:01] Lauren: None taken, un.

[00:27:02] Jason: Yeah. And I'd say the second trend I is is industry trends. And I, I actually think Acumatica was way ahead here. You, you we're seeing, seeing other publishers offer industry editions. Right? And some of it is, is pure marketing. But Acumatica, if you look at their industry additions like construction. You know, they work, you know, you look at, you know, you can talk about Procore or Stack or you know, some of the ISVs that they've aligned with, but the functionality that they built into the product.

[00:27:34] So it's not just smoke and mirrors, but it's actually whether you're a general contractor or you know, somebody who's, you know, finishing out a house and you're, you're, you're doing the countertops and the, the appliances and, and the flooring. Like there's capabilities in each of the industry additions, and I think.

[00:27:53] Other publishers are seeing that and kind of following. Um, but whether it's like the manufacturing edition or Commerce, commerce retail or the Professional services edition, Acumatica you know, I think identified that trend pretty early and, and is is ahead of that, but it, it is certainly gonna keep going forward.

[00:28:11] 'cause, you know, businesses are specializing now to differentiate and, and having like that industry capability is really important.

[00:28:18] Lauren: Yeah, and, and just being able to make sure that you. Make it clear that these additions are built for them. Correct. Like that's so big.

[00:28:27] Jason: Yeah. And it's not also separate software, which I think I've seen with others. It's this idea that, you know, you a business as they're, you know, really leaning into an industry and, and differentiating they need the, the software to kind of speak their language. And I think Acumatica has done a good job with that in, in the industry edition.

[00:28:45] Lauren: Cool. Yeah, that's awesome. Thanks Jason. All right, Paul, what is the most common advice that you give a prospect or a customer on how they can stay agile as the, you know, technology landscape evolve?

[00:29:01] Paul: The biggest piece of advice I'd give is, it sounds like an old piece of advice nowadays because it's been 30 years, is I don't think the cloud is optional anymore. I think you, you have to move from perpetual or on-premise to the cloud. I'll just give you one example. About three years ago or two years ago now, I was sitting with a FDA biotech company and they got malware right, or ransomware.

[00:29:24] And I was sitting side by side with the FBI agents for, I don't think it was like, two weeks in a row. And we tried to, you know, get the logs and the backups of the on-premise on, but we couldn't do it. So. Um, the FBI and we just said, Hey, pay it. 'cause you need to get that data back. And they ended up paying like close to $500,000 to get that data back.

[00:29:43] That that stuff doesn't happen in the cloud. So if you wanna be agile, you need to have your data, you need to be able to use those AI tools. You need to be able to use bi and you, you can't be concerned about that and take that worry off your plate, get the people managing your server room to manage things like.

[00:29:59] Using that AI studio or building new, more powerful bi or building automated workflows, things of that nature. So I think that's the best way to, to be agile, is not to have a a, a roadblock in front of you. Right. So,

[00:30:12] Lauren: Absolutely. And to, to know that the cloud is secure, right? Isn simply kind of like what Jason was mentioning earlier.

[00:30:18] Jason: Mm-hmm. Well, and these attacks are getting so much more sophisticated. You know, and this is why you can't have your server in the closet anymore. because you know, as Paul referenced, like if they get your data and they lock you out, you, you're either paying them or you're, you're, or they're selling your data on the, you know, on the black web. And, and yeah. I think that's a good example, Paul, of like why it matters to be in the cloud. 'cause it's, it's not stopping.

[00:30:47] Paul: Yeah, there was a recent CSA report from the government that said. That the biggest area, that biggest industries that people get targeted are distribution and manufacturing because usually they're still more likely to be on-prem. Um, they're not spending all the money on cybersecurity. And 80% of small to medium sized manufacturing distributors were attempted to be hacked last year in 2024. 40% of those were effective and 50% of those 40% had ransomware over a hundred K. That was the last study I read on from the ciso. This is crazy.

[00:31:21] Jason: And you think about it, once they get your data, they can go to your customers and your vendors next. 'cause like, it, it's like it starts this chain and, and there's this element of responsibility too. So I, I had not heard those stats though. That's, that's,

[00:31:35] Paul: It's crazy.

[00:31:36] Jason: yeah. It's too bad that there's so many bad actors like that.

[00:31:39] Paul: All right.

[00:31:40] Lauren: yeah, that's a good point too. Okay, Michael, what is one strategy that you've, you used to foster collaboration with your team?

[00:31:50] Michael: I could probably give you several, several Lauren, but you just asked for so I'll, I'll, I'll give you one. Um,

[00:31:58] Lauren: Can you do it?

[00:32:00] Michael: if I had to boil it down to one I think alignment. We want everybody to be working together towards a common goal and, and our common goal is to make sure that our customers are successful.

[00:32:12] So from the very first conversations we have with a, with a prospect through to implementation of their ERP and beyond. Through the whole life cycle, we need to be focused on everything we do is with the goal of helping our customers become more successful. And I really do believe that if we all work together towards that common goal, we'll achieve all of the outcomes that we set out to achieve.

[00:32:40] So it all comes down to alignment.

[00:32:44] Lauren: I love it. I love it. Nice job. We found one.

[00:32:49] MUSIC BREAK

[00:32:49] Thank you, Jason, Paul, and Michael for joining us and sharing your insights and experiences and advice and what it takes to really grow and thrive as an Acumatica partner. Really appreciate your time.

[00:33:02] Michael: Thank you, Lauren.

[00:33:02] Jason: Awesome. Thank you.

[00:33:03] Paul: Yeah. Thanks Lauren.

[00:33:04] Jason: It was a lot of fun.

[00:33:05] Lauren: It was a lot of fun. You guys are awesome. And thank you to our listeners for tuning into the Acumatica ERP podcast. Be sure to subscribe so you don't miss future conversations on practical innovation for growing businesses.