Epicor is a software company that provides industry-specific enterprise resource planning (ERP) solutions for manufacturers, distributors, retailers, and other supply chain businesses, helping them manage operations and improve decision-making.
Epicor has more than 50 years of ERP expertise. One year after launching your AI offering, Epicor Prism, in the U.S., where are customers seeing the greatest value from it?
Epicor has spent decades serving manufacturers, distributors, and retailers, so our focus has always been the supply chain. We see AI as a way to accelerate time to insight and help customers make better supply chain decisions faster. Today, companies are thinking not only about their direct suppliers but also their suppliers' suppliers. While most businesses have visibility into tier-one suppliers, far fewer have visibility beyond that. AI helps organizations understand their wider supply chain community and respond more effectively to disruptions.
Just as importantly, AI should empower people rather than replace them. That's one of the biggest misconceptions in the market. Manufacturers are trying to attract and retain talent, and AI should help employees become productive faster and make better decisions. We've also significantly reduced time to value. Customers moving from spreadsheets or legacy systems to modern ERP can now get up and running in as little as 90 days instead of years, allowing them to make better supply chain decisions much sooner.
Can you share some customer examples and measurable ROI from Epicor Prism?
We've seen some exceptional customer outcomes. Cornell Pump, a precision manufacturing company, migrated from a competing ERP platform to Epicor in just two weeks using AI-powered data mapping. That included data migration, modernization, and change management, which is an extraordinary implementation timeline.
We've also seen strong operational improvements. TASI Measurement reduced inventory by 40%, shortened its accounts receivable cycle from 22 days to just two days, and generated more than $300,000 in savings through standardized processes and improved data governance. Tilton Group, a Canadian packaging manufacturer, achieved 99% forecast accuracy while maintaining a 99.5% customer service level. They also reduced inventory discrepancies to only ten boxes across millions of transactions. Those results demonstrate how AI delivers measurable business outcomes by improving planning, inventory optimization, and decision-making rather than simply automating tasks.
Many experts hold that data quality determines whether AI succeeds or fails in real-world settings. In that respect, has Epicor's ERP heritage given you an advantage?
Absolutely. ERP has evolved from being a system of record to a system of action, and now it's becoming a system of outcome. The reason is trust. ERP systems contain millions of real business transactions and first-party operational data, which provides a far stronger foundation for AI than relying on information gathered from the public internet.
Our data is also highly specialized. Rather than building one generic AI model across dozens of industries, we build industry-specific models based on the unique data structures of individual verticals and sub-verticals. Strong governance, role-based access, and trusted data models allow us to bring AI into highly regulated manufacturing and distribution environments while maintaining the safeguards customers expect.
How widely has Epicor Prism been adopted by your existing customers?
Our starting point was making ERP conversational. Instead of asking users to navigate hundreds of screens or learn complicated syntax, they can simply ask questions such as which suppliers are running late or request supplier scorecards. We also introduced a Knowledge Agent that teaches users how to perform tasks conversationally rather than relying on support teams or partners.
That capability has now been adopted by thousands of customers and has saved an estimated 800,000 hours in just the last few months. As one of our newest AI offerings, Prism is currently available for manufacturers and distributors, and we've recently expanded availability into Europe. More broadly, over 40% of our Kinetic Cloud customers are already using one or more AI-enabled capabilities. We don't think about AI as a premium add-on. It should simply be built into ERP so customers can reduce friction immediately and expand their use naturally over time.
Do these capabilities enable Epicor to expand into new industries or to target larger enterprises?
Epicor was built as a mid-market ERP company, particularly for manufacturers, distributors, retailers, and automotive businesses. Our strength has always been deep specialization. We don't simply serve distribution or manufacturing in general. We focus on specific sub-verticals because each has unique workflows, data models, and supply chain challenges.
That specialization has also allowed us to move steadily upmarket. Larger enterprises increasingly recognize the value of our expertise because we've built capabilities specifically for their industries. Rather than expanding into unrelated sectors such as finance or entertainment, we want to strengthen our leadership in supply chain ERP by creating stronger communities of manufacturers, distributors, and retailers that benefit from shared insights.
You’ve completed several acquisitions in recent years. How do acquisitions fit into your long-term strategy?
We think about growth through three approaches: make, buy, and partner. AI requires significant internal development, but acquisitions have also played an important role in expanding our capabilities. More importantly, we've evaluated acquisitions based on the value of the first-party data they bring to our customer community.
Our acquisitions have extended Epicor beyond traditional ERP by adding capabilities such as shipping, factory-floor machine data, external data platforms, and workforce training. The goal isn't simply revenue growth. It's expanding the amount of trusted first-party data available to help customers make better decisions. As AI continues to evolve, that proprietary data becomes one of the most valuable assets any software company can have.
Trust is becoming increasingly important as AI becomes more capable. How does Epicor build trust with customers around their data?
Trust starts with governance. We provide role-based access controls, encryption, and strict policies around who can access data and how it can be used. Those technical capabilities are essential, but our philosophy goes further than security alone.
We firmly believe the data belongs to our customers, not to Epicor. Our responsibility is to safeguard it and help customers decide how they want to use or even monetize their own information. They choose who belongs in their business community and who has access to those insights. Starting from that principle—that customer data remains customer data—is the foundation of how we build trust and why we believe customers are increasingly confident adopting AI within Epicor.
Where do you see Epicor positioning itself over the next few years?
Our mission remains very clear: helping companies make better supply chain decisions through trusted data and strong governance. Where we believe we can truly differentiate ourselves is by connecting information across the broader supply chain rather than helping companies optimize only what happens within their own four walls.
If manufacturers can benefit from insights generated by distributors, retailers, suppliers, or even external events such as weather disruptions, they'll make significantly better decisions. We believe the future is about community-based intelligence. At the same time, we don't believe factories should become fully autonomous. AI should remove repetitive work while keeping people at the center of decision-making. Our role is to empower people with insights they wouldn't otherwise have, enabling them to run smarter, more connected businesses.
