The Rise of Intelligent ERP

About this issue

The Rise of Intelligent ERP: From Customer Records to Operational Intelligence

What changes when enterprise software begins to help guide business decisions as well as record them? ERP News Magazine Issue 58, March 2026, examines this question through its cover theme, The Rise of Intelligent ERP, and its monthly focus, The New Face of CRM: From Contacts to Intelligence. Across executive interviews, practical analysis, industry announcements, and customer stories, the issue connects customer experience with the data, processes, and people behind reliable execution.

The central concern is how intelligence becomes useful within everyday work. Real-time inventory, connected financial workflows, dependable service information, and clear accountability determine whether AI can support meaningful action. The issue examines these foundations across manufacturing, commerce, professional services, telecommunications, logistics, and aviation.

Executive Perspectives: Making AI Practical Inside Enterprise Workflows

Riikka Söderlund, COO of Katana, explains why agentic commerce makes inventory accuracy a customer-facing capability. AI shopping agents need dependable, machine-readable availability and fulfillment information. Her interview explores event-driven architecture, consistent product identifiers, available-to-promise calculations, and a composable inventory layer that can improve visibility without requiring a complete ERP replacement.

Dean Forbes, CEO of Forterro, discusses industrial ERP modernization through cloud adoption and pragmatic AI. He connects customer confidence with migration support, predictable upgrades, specialist workflows, and stronger data foundations. His perspective emphasizes starting with operational outcomes and introducing automation where it reduces friction for industrial businesses.

Daniel Chilton, Chief Experience Officer at Embridge Consulting, presents Elastic Change as an approach to ERP transformation that adapts within defined governance. Leadership behavior, emotional intelligence, adoption, and change fatigue receive attention alongside delivery milestones. His argument reframes ERP as an evolving operating capability whose value depends on sustainable organizational change after go-live.

John Case, CEO of Acumatica, reflects on Acumatica Summit 2026 and the case for embedding practical AI directly into industry ERP. He discusses anomaly detection, AI-assisted reporting, customer-informed development, and integrated accounts receivable and payable. The conversation also examines CoreChain and payments partnerships as part of a broader effort to connect financial operations and improve visibility for growing businesses.

Srikrishnan Ganesan, CEO of Rocketlane, explores agentic execution through Nitro. He describes how agents can undertake repeatable configuration, documentation, testing, and migration tasks within delivery plans. The interview considers governance, customer alignment, and a shift toward measuring time-to-value and effort per outcome. Potential efficiency gains are presented as Rocketlane's claims, with human judgment retained for complex decisions.

Ohad Idan, Vice President of Product at Rootstock Software, distinguishes widespread AI adoption from operational maturity. He argues that meaningful progress requires connected ERP workflows, a unified data foundation, measurable outcomes, and explicit boundaries for automation. The discussion links manufacturing AI with planning, purchasing, inventory, workforce constraints, and resilience under cost volatility.

Practical Analysis: Procurement, Costing, Observability, CRM, and Logistics

Jason Didday, Head of Strategic Partnerships & Alliances at Vroozi, examines platform migration as a reason to reassess procure-to-pay strategy. His contribution considers transition costs, user adoption, integration stability, and the practical value of AI when evaluating Next-Gen Ariba and alternative approaches.

Epicor's partner ecosystem article highlights the role of industry expertise, implementation support, and long-term optimization in ERP outcomes. Rhonda Gieza, Team Lead and Operations/Financial Consultant at Global Shop Solutions, explains how integrated job costing connects labor, materials, overhead, and production data to quoting and margin decisions.

Ritu Joshi, Product Manager for Dynamics 365, examines expanded batch telemetry and Azure Application Insights. Execution signals, queue depth, thread availability, and failure context support better diagnosis and capacity planning. Lisa Schwarz, Senior Director of Global Product Marketing at Oracle NetSuite, explains ISP-specific CRM through subscriber records, billing, technical support, and field service coordination.

Laura Rich, Senior Editor at Freshworks, considers how AI changes customer experience team structures, human responsibilities, and management metrics. Brent Dawkins, Director of Product Marketing at QAD, sets out a manufacturing ERP selection approach grounded in measurable requirements, scripted demonstrations, integration checks, and total cost of ownership. Kris Pazhayanoor, Senior Product Manager at Aptean, examines logistics priorities spanning AI-enabled planning, sustainability, end-to-end visibility, and workforce development.

Industry Developments: Connected Platforms and Sector-Specific AI

The news section covers Salesforce's announcement of Agentforce for Communications, IFS's Principal Partner agreement with Chelsea Football Club, and Rootstock's comparison of manufacturing technology survey findings. It also examines Aptean Fashion & Apparel, built on Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central and AppCentral, and Cox Automotive's VinSolutions integration with Toyota SmartPath and Lexus MONOGRAM. These announcements describe vendor strategies, product capabilities, and reported customer experiences rather than universal guarantees of performance.

Customer Stories: Service, Traceability, and Operational Control

Finnair's Salesforce story describes connecting customer, loyalty, booking, and knowledge information through Agentforce, Service Cloud, and Data 360. The case reports an 80% customer enquiry resolution rate and a 25% reduction in employee onboarding time. Automated booking actions and refunds are described as future capabilities rather than completed results.

The McLaren Mastercard Formula 1 Team uses Freshservice from Freshworks to support documented race-weekend checks, service requests, and employee lifecycle workflows across global operations. The story emphasizes consistent readiness and cross-functional visibility. Full Workday integration remains a plan, and the case does not establish a quantified racing-performance improvement attributable to ITSM.

Colombian meat producer Vilaseca implemented Odoo with partner Pragmatic to connect sales, purchasing, accounting, inventory, and manufacturing. The story describes moving batch traceability out of spreadsheets and into integrated workflows. It reports a 28% increase in product volume; General Manager Martín Vilaseca estimates an efficiency improvement of nearly 30%. Further barcode and production capabilities remain part of its development plans.

China Airlines' IFS story focuses on integrated maintenance, engineering, planning, materials, and compliance. The case reports a US$3.5 million reduction in Engineering & Maintenance Organization operating costs within two years of site activation, alongside maintenance-process improvements. These are historical customer-reported outcomes, illustrating how connected operational information can support a continuing safety and reliability strategy.

Together, these perspectives frame intelligent ERP and CRM as a combination of usable data, industry depth, accountable automation, and organizational capability. The issue offers enterprise leaders a practical basis for evaluating where AI can strengthen execution and what must be in place before greater autonomy becomes dependable.