At Epicor, we're always excited to celebrate the success of our customers and highlight the innovative ways they are leveraging technology to drive operational excellence. Our recent Middle East Customer Connect Summit was a testament to this spirit of innovation, bringing together a considerable number of CIOs and IT decision-makers from some of the region's leading manufacturing organizations. This year's event underscored our ongoing commitment to advancing the industry with AI-powered solutions and Cognitive ERP.
In his keynote, Vibhu Kapoor, our Regional Vice President for the Middle East, Africa, and India, shared insights on how Epicor is transforming traditional ERP systems. "ERP sits at the heart of an organization, managing core business processes across various departments," Kapoor explained. "By infusing ERP with AI—what we at Epicor call Cognitive AI—industries are not just automating tasks but are enabling these systems to think, learn, and make decisions in ways that were previously the sole domain of human intelligence. This isn't just about enhancing existing processes; it's about redefining what's possible in industrial operations."
Our AI strategy focuses on shifting ERP from a mere system of record to a people-centric system of action. This change empowers teams to focus less on routine tasks and more on strategic activities that drive growth and innovation.
Building on our established journey in the cloud, we continue to enhance our technological infrastructure in the Middle East, further strengthening our commitment to cloud technology. At the summit, we showcased some of our flagship solutions, such as Epicor Grow, Financial Planning & Analysis (FP&A) and Configure, Price, Quote (CPQ) and IP&O. Among these, Epicor Grow BI emerged as the biggest hit, offering powerful business intelligence capabilities that empower companies to make data-driven decisions faster and more effectively. These tools are designed to help businesses optimize their budgets and seize every opportunity in an increasingly competitive marketplace, enabling finance and sales teams to work more effectively and deliver better outcomes.
The highlight of the event was recognizing some of our most innovative customers who have set new benchmarks in the industry. We were thrilled to honor the Alshaya Group with the Manufacturing Champion award for their implementation of Epicor Kinetic and Epicor ECM (Enterprise Content Management). Alshaya Group has transformed its demand planning for raw materials and components, successfully preventing shortages across over 1,000 stores in the region. Their move towards automation and data digitization has significantly reduced manual processing time and error rates, resulting in better supplier fulfillment outcomes.
We also celebrated Eurotech FZCO with the Executive Champion award. Their migration to Epicor Kinetic deployed in the cloud has enabled them to streamline business processes and gain greater control over operations. By adopting standard processes and utilizing Kinetic's enhanced usability features, Eurotech FZCO has minimized customizations and improved the user experience. Their use of MES (Manufacturing Execution System) to capture real-time data on the shop floor has helped them gain both visibility and increased operational control.
As we celebrated these achievements, we were reminded of the incredible potential for innovation in the manufacturing sector. "We honor these organizations for pioneering the future of manufacturing in the Middle East," said Kapoor. "Their deployments set new benchmarks and will serve to inspire their peers to advance toward a future, where workers who are no longer focusing on tasks like getting access to the right data, machine, or supply chain insight, are instead empowered to perform higher-value functions—innovating new products, creating new business models, and re-architecting processes to become more efficient."
At Epicor, we remain committed to supporting our customers as they innovate, thrive, and grow. We look forward to hosting more events like this in the future, where we can celebrate their achievements and learn from their experiences.
