CEOInterviews.AIKerrie Jordan | Redefining Orchestration in Manufacturing | The New Automation Mindset Ep. 07

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Marcus Zierer0:01

Welcome to The New Automation Mindset, where AI, automation, and integration come together. I'm your host, Marcus Zierer, Chief Strategy Officer at Workato. All right, so for today's episode, I welcome Kerry Jordan, Group Vice President of Product Management at Epicor and a fellow podcaster. Let's start with that.

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Kerrie Jordan2:03

Yeah, thanks Marcus. Epicor is a billion-dollar software provider for the make-move-sell economy, serving manufacturers, distributors, building supply, retail, and automotive aftermarket. We offer ERP, e-commerce, business intelligence, and configure price quote solutions. We're located in Austin, Texas, with over 4,000 employees globally. A key part of our value is an open, connected product portfolio, using connectors like Workato to enable automated workflows.

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Marcus Zierer3:51

And I heard you're a leader in the Gartner Magic Quadrant for cloud ERP for product-centric enterprises, providing a full end-to-end suite including ERP, CRM, e-commerce, HR, and supply chain.

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Kerrie Jordan4:22

That's right, an end-to-end portfolio. We are proud to have been recognized as a leader by Gartner. Our solutions span quote-to-cash business processes.

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Marcus Zierer4:51

Awesome. Today we're focusing on automation in manufacturing and distribution. Tell me about typical scenarios your customers face and what makes automation meaningful.

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Kerrie Jordan6:25

We work with customers to solve acute business pain, like automating foreign exchange rate updates or syncing accounts and contacts across systems. The goal is to eliminate manual work so they can focus on manufacturing or distribution.

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Marcus Zierer8:23

No, this is great. Workato extends automation across gaps where data doesn't reside in Epicor, via the Epicor Automation Studio powered by Workato. Without it, what choices do customers have?

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Kerrie Jordan10:13

We wanted to give customers options, but we encourage using the integrated platform as a service for resilient, secure integrations. We embedded it within the application for a seamless, drag-and-drop recipe-based experience. This democratizes access to automation, and we provide industry templates for quick plug-and-play.

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Marcus Zierer12:38

There's a spectrum: some give inflexible pre-built connectors, others just offer APIs. You're in the middle, allowing configurability. Is that right?

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Kerrie Jordan14:06

Absolutely. As organizations move to the cloud, they want to move faster. Standardizing with reusable templates allows them to move quickly, which is critical in manufacturing.

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Marcus Zierer15:05

Traditional integration required specialists. Workato's vision was to expand who can do automation, targeting application administrators. Do you see that?

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Kerrie Jordan17:10

Yes, we call them citizen integrators. It's open to application administrators, marketing directors, and others. They can connect e-commerce platforms or transportation management systems, enabling the whole organization to create competitive advantages.

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Marcus Zierer18:56

In our book, we say limiting automation to IT coders limits benefits. The e-commerce example shows it's about extending the business model. How does manufacturing respond to the word automation?

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Kerrie Jordan21:19

Automation means many things. It's important for talent and health and safety. It allows focusing talent on strategic problems and automating repetitive, dangerous tasks.

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Marcus Zierer23:01

End-to-end automation cuts across IT and the real world, like the product highway from PLM through manufacturing to field service. Does that resonate?

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Kerrie Jordan24:54

Yes, it's about orchestration—stitching together a golden thread of product data from conception to end-of-life. PLM has strong implications for workflow automation.

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Marcus Zierer25:45

I like orchestration. On consultants like Thierry, they play a big role in configuring Epicor. How do they benefit from Automation Studio?

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Kerrie Jordan27:15

Consultants bring deep expertise and can now quickly build integrations to create competitive advantages for customers, using low-code no-code recipes.

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Marcus Zierer28:34

App admins can cut time from months to weeks, as in the Steven Gold example. For consultants, they can now do the whole job without bringing in a developer. Democratizing innovation.

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Kerrie Jordan30:19

I agree. We're excited about incorporating generative AI to have conversations with systems, lowering barriers further.

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Marcus Zierer30:44

Yes, generative AI is important. What are you thinking at Epicor regarding infusion of gen AI?

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Kerrie Jordan31:34

We're excited. We partnered with Microsoft and quickly started with ChatGPT. We focus on industry-specific value, co-creating with customers. Use cases include product recommendations with accuracy for regulated industries, a knowledge assistant for training, and a personal data analyst via our BI platform Grow for predictive analytics and natural language queries.

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Marcus Zierer36:24

Great. Workato believes the combination of automation and AI is powerful. Thierry built a recipe to analyze emails with ChatGPT and act in Epicor. Image recognition for inventory management is exciting. AI will take it to another level.

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Kerrie Jordan39:32

Totally. Image recognition for inventory counting saves time. My favorite use case is AI summarizing long email threads.

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Marcus Zierer41:59

It's funny. We had a workshop and people thought AI would replace their jobs. My co-founder said AI could replace me sending follow-up emails, but I think human perspective still matters.

Well, listen, this was a lot of fun. I think it's important for people to understand the power of automation and AI for manufacturing. It's a bright future.

Well, thank you so much for joining us today, Carrie.

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Kerrie Jordan45:45

Thank you so much for having me. I really appreciate the opportunity.

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Marcus Zierer45:50

Thank you all for tuning into The New Automation Mindset. See you next time.