Epicor has spent more than 50 years building software for enterprise resource planning (ERP) and related operations in the make, move, and sell industries, a customer base that includes manufacturers, distributors, building supply companies, automotive businesses and retailers. Headquartered in Austin, Texas, the company’s product portfolio includes Kinetic, Prophet 21, Eclipse, BisTrack, Propello and Vision, and more.
Over the past two years, Epicor has centered its product strategy on what it calls Cognitive ERP. Arturo Buzzalino, the company's Chief Product Officer and Chief Innovation Officer, describes the concept as a change in how ERP contributes to business operations.
“Our vision is for ERP to move from a system of record to a system of action—and ultimately, a system of outcomes,” he said.
The company’s industry focus is also part of the buying decision. Customers choose Epicor “for our industry depth, practical business outcomes, and ability to evolve with their organization,” Buzzalino said.
The operational requirements behind those purchases have not changed as much as the conditions around them. Customers still need visibility and control across their operations, supply chains and finances, as well as software that reflects industry-specific processes. What has changed, according to Buzzalino, is the pressure to respond to market conditions.
“What has changed is the urgency,” he said. “Customers now face greater volatility, tighter labor markets, and more pressure to improve productivity and respond quickly to supply and demand changes.”
That pressure is shaping where Epicor sees room to grow in the US ERP market. Instead of replacing every existing system, companies are also modernizing legacy platforms, moving to the cloud and looking for ways to apply automation, analytics and AI to data they already have.
“Many organizations are modernizing legacy systems, moving to the cloud, and seeking deeper value from their operational data through automation, analytics, and AI,” Buzzalino said. “The opportunity is especially strong to create faster time to value.”
The reasons for replacing a legacy ERP are often more specific. Buzzalino points to limitations in the existing system, difficulty supporting growth, fragmented data, aging technology and inadequate supply-chain visibility as common triggers for a replacement project.
That also affects how companies evaluate vendors. Buyers now spend less time on feature lists and more time asking whether the system can be implemented and what results they can measure once it is running.
“Evaluations have become more outcome-focused, with customers asking about data quality, governance, integration, and how quickly new capabilities can be put into production,” he said.
Epicor’s Cognitive ERP approach is the company’s response to that shift. Rather than positioning AI as a separate layer, Epicor is putting intelligence and automation inside the workflows already used to run the business.
“At Epicor, we are advancing that evolution through Cognitive ERP by embedding intelligence, automation, and human-guided decision support directly into the workflows where work gets done.”
The same principle shapes Epicor’s approach to AI architecture. As ERP vendors add AI features to established products, Buzzalino said the important distinction is how closely those capabilities are connected to the business context inside the ERP.
“The difference is context and integration,” he said. “AI should be developed around a specific business problem, using the ERP's industry data, business rules, permissions, and workflows—not added as a generic layer looking for somewhere to fit.”
The use cases attracting customer interest are concentrated in areas where employees deal with operational information or repetitive processes. Buzzalino cited conversational access to ERP data, supply-chain analysis, planning and scheduling, document-intensive work and employee onboarding.
“Adoption typically starts with a narrow, high-friction workflow where the value can be measured clearly,” he said.
That narrow starting point also matters when AI moves into mission-critical operations. The technology may have access to business data and the ability to trigger actions, which makes control over those interactions part of the deployment decision.
“Before deploying AI in mission-critical workflows, customers need confidence that the underlying data is accurate, secure, and governed,” Buzzalino said. “They want clear visibility into what data the AI can use, what actions it can take, and how those actions are monitored and audited. That is why trusted operational data, role-based permissions, and human oversight are essential prerequisites.”
In US manufacturing, the same pressures are being reinforced by reshoring, factory automation and productivity demands. Epicor sees these conditions contributing to demand for ERP systems that provide visibility into operations and support planning when companies have limited resources.
“Macro pressures are driving demand for ERP systems that provide real-time visibility, stronger planning, and more efficient ways to support complex operations with limited resources,” Buzzalino said. The company is “embedding industry-specific AI and automation into workflows through solutions such as Epicor Prism, helping customers identify risks, reduce manual effort, and act faster.”
Epicor Prism is a network of vertical AI agents designed for supply-chain industries. Epicor introduced the technology in European markets earlier this year and expanded it into Latin America in August.
The shift from system of record to system of outcomes also changes how ERP projects are judged after deployment. Going live remains a milestone, but customers are looking at what the software changes in the operation.
Buzzalino said customers are focused on time to value, employee productivity, reduced manual work, operational visibility, throughput, on-time delivery, inventory and working capital.
“Ultimately, success means the ERP is improving business performance—not simply that the software went live.”
That definition gives a more concrete meaning to the “system of outcomes” idea. The ERP is expected to show its impact in operating and financial measures rather than only in the completion of the implementation.
Looking ahead, Buzzalino expects some capabilities that are now used to differentiate ERP products to become standard across the market.
“Looking ahead, capabilities such as cloud deployment, real-time analytics, embedded AI, intelligent automation, and conversational access to ERP data will become table stakes,” he said. “The differentiator will be how effectively those capabilities work together in real operating environments.”
