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0:00 Introduction
1:52 David Dozer Background
5:51 Dave Dozer first introduction to Macola
7:03 Benefit of Liberal Arts when working with ERP
9:47 History of Macola
13:14 ERP acquisitions in early 2000s
16:27 Dave Dozer first experience working for Macola
19:09 Learning as a new Acumatica Consultant
21:19 Who is most capable to work in ERP?
26:21 Dave Dozer beginnings in management and rise to product manager at Macola
31:29 Acumatica vs. Macola
34:29 Dave Dozer on starting a business
38:21 Acumatica vs. NetSuite
42:35 Blaze IT nominated for Fast Start Partner Award
44:34 Acumatica Manufacturing Edition
47:39 Acumatica Summit 2022
49:33 Wrapping Up
David Dozer
Location: Houston, Texas
Transcript
Tim 1:30
Today is Monday, January 17th, 2022, and this is episode number 61. Dave Dozer, a Fast Start Acumatica partner. Dave, thanks for coming on the show today.
David Dozer 1:45
I appreciate it, Tim. I’m excited to be on here, and I’m always glad to sit down and chat with you.
Tim 1:52
So hey, before we get into what is a Fast Start Acumatica partner, I always like getting the background of people who are brave enough to be a victim – I mean, a guest on this podcast. Give us a background; where did you start off? We can go back to where you were born. Where’d you go to college? You know, how’d you get your start?
David Dozer 2:12
Oh, man, I can take up your whole episode just with that. Yeah, I’ll tell you, it’s kind of a winding road to end up here. I’d say, probably like most people in the ERP industry, I wasn’t a six year old sitting at home dreaming of selling software for a living. But, you know, here we are.
David Dozer 2:33
I actually was born and raised in Ohio, kind of in a small rural town a little bit south of Columbus, and I went to a high school kind of literally out in the middle of a cornfield. So, during high school I really was very into the arts and music and writing and those sorts of things. But kind of coming from that area, I said, “Well, I’ve got to do something to get a real job someday.”
David Dozer 3:04
So, some college recruiters came in, I think my junior or senior year, and kind of sold me on accounting. You know, I said, “Well, people always need accountants, regardless of what business they’re in or what they’re doing,” so it kind of seemed like a good good plan.
David Dozer 3:25
I actually went to DeVry; I kind of picked that because it was a technical school, and I was looking to kind of be more technical focused and sort of get in and get out, so to speak, and they had a good accelerated program. So I went and right out of high school started to get my accounting degree. And, honestly, I realized probably about halfway through that I wasn’t necessarily in love with accounting and doing debits and credits and bank reconciliations and all that good stuff.
David Dozer 4:00
But, you know, I was that far in, and I kind of said, “Well, let’s see where this ends up. I’m gonna see this thing through.” And I had the opportunity to get a lot of great experience; I got to intern at a tier two auto manufacturer, so I got to really learn a lot about raw materials, and I kind of started getting into manufacturing or realizing at that point that I liked the manufacturing aspect and things like that a lot better.
Tim 4:32
When you interned, did you intern in the accounting area?
David Dozer 4:35
I did, yeah. I’ll be honest, my job mainly consisted of taking big piles of Purchase Orders and big piles of paper receivers and matching those up and stapling them together and then putting them in a filing cabinet.
Tim 4:51
Hey, that’s more sophisticated than my first accounting job; mine was entering AP bills. That’s it, all day every day.
David Dozer 4:58
Yeah, so those can be fun jobs, great ways to learn, but I was like, “You know, I don’t know if I have this in me to do all day every day.” Because, you know, a lot of folks, they go accounting and kind of go more the CPA route and kind of double down on the accounting side, but I kind of learned through that experience and just through school that I really like the technical side.
David Dozer 5:23
I liked the manufacturing side of things and kind of said, “Well, I’d rather go in that direction.” Nevertheless, I powered through, got my accounting degree and LGs. At that time, I was, maybe, 21, had really never heard the word ERP. It wasn’t exactly something that even in school, they really talked about a whole lot.
David Dozer 5:51
So I basically settled into to kind of more of an IT job; I wasn’t using my degree whatsoever, and kind of, I guess dumb luck wise, one of the guys I worked with was like, “Hey, my wife’s company is looking for people, and it’s sort of accounting related; would you be interested?”
David Dozer 6:16
And I said, “Well, yeah, I’ll check it out, see what it is,” and it was for a quality assurance tester job at a software company called Macola. And for folks that know me, I’ve inadvertently spent the last 15-20 years of my life doing a lot of Macola stuff. But that was sort of my entry into ERP.
David Dozer 6:42
Again, I’ll be honest, I really didn’t know what the acronyms meant; I didn’t really even totally know what the job entailed. I was basically a kid and they said, “Hey, you know, here’s a bunch of bug reports. Use your accounting skills and figure out if these bugs are corrected or not.”
Tim 7:03
I hear two things in that story so far that I’ve heard multiple times. One is, it was totally accidental. You were not setting out to get into ERP, but then, two – you didn’t actually say this, but you mentioned the art background. And, in my opinion, when I met people with more of the art, non-science background, they’re actually the ones who are the best at ERP. I mean, I consider you one of the good ones in the ERP.
Tim 7:29
And I think it’s interesting that it’s almost more of an art than a technical skill. And I find that people who were liberal arts backgrounds, a lot of times, they’re better at implementing ERP. I don’t know why, but it’s kind of interesting.
David Dozer 7:45
It’s definitely a merging of skills, I think. And hey, I really appreciate the sentiment. I think very highly of you and what you’ve accomplished over the years, too, so that coming from you, I really appreciate that quite a lot.
David Dozer 7:59
But, yeah, I think you’re spot on with that. I mean, in high school, and even in college, I was into music and bands, and we played crappy dive bars and wrote terrible music and did all that, and I really found as I got more into ERP, and really liked it, that you’ve got to have the technical understanding of things and understanding of accounting and distribution and those pieces, but I think having that creative side helps you really think about the best way to solve problems and, it sounds dumb to say, think outside the box. But, you know, apply those technical pieces and solve issues and solve problems and kind of humanize it in a way.
Tim 8:47
Also, your writing crappy music comment makes me think, maybe an important skill is not being afraid to fail. Because you’re gonna break stuff, and not being afraid to break stuff and knowing that you’re gonna be able to fix it when you do – maybe that’s also a trait that’s important when you’re implementing ERP.
David Dozer 9:04
It probably doesn’t hurt. Especially having that ability to get up in front of a room full of drunk strangers that have no interest in hearing what you’re doing.
Tim 9:19
Yeah, maybe it’s kind of similar to getting up and giving a training class. Use Acumatica, for example.
David Dozer 9:24
Maybe. I think, probably if everybody did some shots before the training class they might be a little smoother.
Tim 9:31
Especially if you’re going to be at the summit next week and doing like a Tuesday morning session, you know. You could be in that same situation.
David Dozer 9:39
Yeah, man, those are always the the rough ones. Everybody’s dragging a little bit on those for sure.
Tim 9:47
Macola. I’ve never understood this exactly. So, you got Exact and Macola. Maybe you give a little like, what is Macola – and did it start in Columbus or . . . ? I don’t really know that story.
David Dozer 10:00
Yeah, so when when I came on board, it was sort of right after the transition from Macola to Exact. When I started, I was technically an Exact employee. But Macola as a product actually started in Marion, Ohio, which is a kind of smallish town, a little bit north of Columbus.
David Dozer 10:25
And it started out as Macola, and really through the 80s and into the 90s, they were really big. It got to a point where they occupied multiple buildings in Marion. I don’t know the exact count, but I want to say they had between two- and three-hundred employees. If anybody fact checks me on that, it’s probably wrong. But just kind of off the cuff. And they really were kind of the go-to ERP as far as accounting and distribution and manufacturing and MRP and all of that.
David Dozer 11:00
And kind of in the early 2000s, they were acquired by Exact Software, which was a very large ERP company out of the Netherlands. And over in the Netherlands, in that area, they had an ERP product – well, they still do – called Exact Globe, and they were kind of the Microsoft of the Netherlands. Everybody in the Netherlands runs Exact products, basically. And, obviously, I don’t know the insider pieces of it, but when they bought Macola, I think it was probably to kind of try to get a foothold and get into the US market.
David Dozer 11:45
So there was kind of that transition period, right in the early 2000s, where Macola – their product was called Progression. And then when Exact bought Macola, they sort of merged the accounting and banking side of functions from the Exact Globe product with the manufacturing and distribution from the Progression product and came out with Macola Enterprise Suite. And that’s the version that I really got introduced to and started working with when I first joined Macola.
David Dozer 12:21
So, I was testing all of the financials and banking and AR and AP sort of things in the Exact Macola – ES for short – version. So, there was a little confusion just in how products were positioned, what version people should be on, and all of that, but then the ES version kind of got more traction as you go through the 2000s.
David Dozer 12:51
And the 2010s was really kind of the version that people started to get on until there was a Macola 10 version, and I’ll save that for a little bit later in the conversation as it’s kind of pertinent to my background. But Macola kind of then switched from being the company to the product, if that makes sense.
Tim 13:14
I think it’s interesting that it’s pretty much guaranteed to happen at some point. But so far, here we are in 2022. Welcome to 2022, by the way. Acumatica starts right around 2008. So, here we are, 14 years in, and we are still in a situation where the company is called Acumatica, and the product is called Acumatica. And just that fact right there is huge.
Tim 13:44
You know, you’re not dealing with multiple products under the hood, and they’re getting renamed all the time. I mean, I’ve heard that story that you’re telling multiple times with other products, and boy, what a big deal with Acumatica to just have one company, one product. It’s so clean; it really allows a lot of clarity and communication.
David Dozer 14:03
Yeah, it does. Because really, that’s a big important thing, especially as you’re talking about selling software and implementing software. There’s a lot of software out there, and you know that, and I know that, and a lot of people know that. But having that consistent message, kind of consistent leadership; those things honestly are more important, I think, than features and functions.
David Dozer 14:28
Because those things come; sort of like talking about the liberal arts side of things or the more abstract side of things earlier, there’s certain blocking and tackling that you expect from every system, but then having that clarity of vision, that stability; those things are so important when looking at products.
Tim 14:51
I totally agree with you. Before we go further, I want to ask another question back on the original acquisition there. Throw out an employee guess; let’s see if you can guess on the date – the year. Because I’m looking at your LinkedIn. It looks like you came on board there around 2004. Do you think it was around 2000 or just after that that Exact acquired Macola?
David Dozer 15:15
Oh, gosh, if I had to pick an exact year, I would say 2002, maybe. I’m probably wrong.
Tim 15:24
But somewhere in that neighborhood of around the 2000 mark. I think it’s interesting because Great Plains and Solomon Software – Solomon, which has some history shared with Acumatica – that happened right around that same timeframe. There were these acquisitions going on. Microsoft eventually acquired both of those products. That’s interesting. I didn’t know that about Exact. It was kind of in the same time period.
David Dozer 15:48
Yeah, so I think, maybe there were some things that us normal people aren’t privy to now, but there was kind of a lot of shaking up in that time period, and sort of, you know, some of the seeds were sown for where we’re at today in the ERP market.
Tim 16:05
Yeah, I’ve heard there was a lot that happened in the late 90s related to y2k in the sense that a ton of companies implemented new ERP systems because they were all terrified of y2k. It was like boom time for ERP implementations, and maybe that surge of customers made them acquisition targets or something. I don’t know. Yeah, us normal, people don’t know what was going on there.
David Dozer 16:27
Yeah, we weren’t in those conference rooms, that’s for sure. But yeah, so Macola was really my entry into the space, into this business. And I showed up and I did my testing, and I did that for a couple years and got got pretty good at it. But I then was actually looking to make a move from Columbus to St. Louis for personal reasons. And it just so happened everything fell into place, and the stars aligned; the office at the time for Exact that was out in St. Louis was looking for a consultant.
David Dozer 17:11
And that’s another thing at the time; I’ll be very honest, at that point, I was probably 24, maybe. I had no idea what a consultant actually did. I just knew they did stuff with the software. I went and I interviewed for the job, and the folks in charge gave me a shot, and I did pretty okay with it.
David Dozer 17:36
I ended up being one of the higher performing consultants at the organization and did that for, I think, four years or so – consulting directly for Macola. And then I actually got a little burnout with it. I had small kids at home, and, you know, I was traveling 75-80% of the time, and it can be a little rough.
David Dozer 18:02
When my son who’s almost 18 now – he was real little – was looking at a toy catalog and had circled an airplane in the catalog and was like, “I want a plane for Christmas,” and I was like, “Why? Why do you want an airplane?” and he said, “Well, if I have an airplane, then you won’t have to go to the airport all the time to get on a plane,” so I kind of said, “Well, you know, maybe I need to be home a little bit more.”
David Dozer 18:32
So, I kind of took a step back and I left Macola, but I kind of stayed in the Macola family, so to speak. And I actually went and got a position as a business analyst, again, in the auto industry for a tier two auto manufacturer that used Macola. So it was kind of a – I don’t want to say easy, but it was a ‘get up, go to the office, nine to five’ type of job, so it afforded me the opportunity to be home and with my kids a lot more.
David Dozer 19:09
So, it was good. It was a great experience, and I really enjoyed working there. And Intuit gave me some insight, more insight into that industry. When I interned in college, like I said, I was stapling papers together, but here I had a lot more responsibility with the ERP system and with day to day operations and things like that. So it was a great learning experience and opportunity, really getting deep into things and into the weeds. And so it was a really good experience there.
Tim 19:43
I’m curious on that experience. For me, I also kind of entered ERP on the consulting side, and then I went in-house for about four and a half years, and I felt like it was there that I really learned the ERP system especially from a ‘what does a consultant do?’ side of thing.
Tim 20:02
Because as a consultant, I always felt like an imposter. It’s like, what am I really doing for you? You could do this yourself. But then after working in-house, it kind of gave me an idea of what a consultant really does. I’m curious: was that your experience with that in-house job?
David Dozer 20:15
It was. I had a very similar experience with that. Just because, yeah, the same way, you know, I kind of saw everything through a consulting lens. And, also, one day you’re working with one type of customer and one industry, and the next day, you’re doing something wildly different. So, from a consulting standpoint, you’re not always necessarily super laser-focused on a particular industry.
David Dozer 20:43
And I learned a lot, again, between, you know, what a consultant does versus kind of an in-house person; the strategic versus the technical or the tactical things that that need to be done. It was really kind of eye opening. And honestly, having that experience really helped me later on when I got back into consulting to really understand what it’s like to be the person on the other side, you know.
Tim 21:15
That’s interesting. Yeah, I had the same experience. That’s cool.
David Dozer 21:19
Yeah, and I kind of carried that out. I left that company, and I ended up kind of freelance. I guess, nowadays, you would call it Fractional CTO or something to that effect, but I left that company, and I went and split my time between two other companies that were both running Macola as well.
David Dozer 21:45
And in that, I kind of got to grow a little bit because I was responsible for their ERP systems, but I was also responsible for anything that plugged into the wall; you know, the servers, infrastructure, websites, everything. So that was a great opportunity to kind of start to learn and understand outside of just ERP; here’s all the other sort of pieces and parts that are really necessary to run a business from an infrastructure standpoint.
Tim 22:17
Do you feel like that made you like ERP more or less? Did you like the variety of doing the other IT stuff? How’d that impact the ERP side of things?
David Dozer 22:26
I did like the variety. As an individual person, I always like to kind of find and take on new challenges and new things. But it gave me almost more respect for the ERP side of things, because all of those things are critical to a business, but the the ERP side – I mean, that’s really the lifeblood of the organization. And I found that out of all those things, I enjoy that a lot more than trying to trying to update an Exchange server or something like that.
Tim 23:04
Sure. Yeah. A lot of that stuff that’s got pushed to the cloud nowadays. Right.
David Dozer 23:08
Right. And, you know, that’s kind of part of the transition, too. Even back then most everything was still in-house and just through the way IT systems are distributed and deployed now, it’s really a lot different and in a positive way. You’re not having to try to patch a server at 2am on a Saturday night or something. It still maybe has to happen, but it’s somebody else’s job.
Tim 23:36
And being in the IT department, I’m curious – here’s another thing; I’ve found that it’s almost like IT is the least qualified to run the ERP system, because the ERP is like – it’s the business side. It’s the least IT thing about IT, but it usually lands in the IT department. Did you feel like, in an IT role, that you were positioned to own the ERP system well? Or do you feel like it might have belonged better more on the business side, like the operation side or even the accounting side, not the IT area?
David Dozer 24:07
I’ll say, in those particular instances, with the companies I was working with, I think I was pretty well positioned to own it, just because they were smaller companies. And you know, with my background, at that point I had a very good understanding of the business side of things and was able to apply that to the ERP system and software.
David Dozer 24:29
But even now, from a consultative standpoint, when when we go and talk to an organization, kind of like you were saying there, we really tried to sort of hammer home that IT needs to be involved in any sort of ERP project, but they’re really not the best folks to own it.
David Dozer 24:47
And you know, nothing against IT folks; I’ve been one for a lot of years. But they’ve got a lot of other things that they have to worry about and look at and think of, whereas generally, you really need someone, whether it’s a business analyst or someone to kind of act as that conduit, to really, accurately implement and roll out new things and manage the ERP system. Because, yeah, it’s a piece of software. But it’s really not when it comes down to it, you know?
Tim 25:22
Yeah, I feel the same way. I mean, especially on the implementation side, when you’re talking about getting through that, getting off the old system, on to the new system, talking about how you’re going to potentially change business processes, IT is just typically not suited for that. They could maybe own it to upgrade it on an ongoing basis down the line, but, yeah, getting you through that implementation, I feel the same way. You need someone on the business side to lead it, somebody who understands how the business works.
David Dozer 25:52
Right, exactly, and that’s one of the things that we really always drive home when we’re working with new clients. And when we get into that kickoff meeting, we tell them, “Hey, from a business standpoint, you’re going to have to own this, you’re going to have to be the ones to drive this and really be responsible for pushing this out through the whole organization.” It’s not IT person’s job, frankly, to do that.
Tim 26:21
So that gets you through around 2012, then.
David Dozer 26:25
We got 10 years to go, man?
Tim 26:28
It looks like you go back to Exact after that?
David Dozer 26:31
I did. So, this is probably getting into the good part of it. The rest is all the boring stuff. But one of the companies I was working for, they actually, unfortunately, had to shut down and kind of went under. So I was doing some independent consulting and things like that.
David Dozer 26:49
And then there was a guy that I had worked with previously at Exact, and he had moved into more of a leadership role within the organization, and him and I lived in same area, and we went out and had a drink one night, and, you know, I’ll keep it short. But he basically talked me into coming back to Exact and rejoining the consulting organization.
David Dozer 27:15
So he sold me on it, and I said, “Yeah, that sounds like a great idea.” So I came back, kind of in more of a managerial role. I was still doing functional day-to-day consulting, working on some of the larger, higher profile projects that they had.
David Dozer 27:36
And then I had a team of, I want to say, like seven people that I was kind of responsible for, as well. So, this is an opportunity to learn more about kind of the management side of consulting and, you know, a little bit higher than just in the weeds, even though I was still down in the weeds a lot of days.
David Dozer 27:57
So, I did that for two years, I want to say, when I went back, and then an opportunity arose where Macola was kind of restructuring what the development team and the product team looked like. And they really had never had for a lot of years, probably since going back all the way to the Macola days, a true product manager.
David Dozer 28:27
So I said, “That looks fantastic.” It’s an opportunity to get in and really help shape the direction of the product and have a say in what the next version of Macola is gonna be, and it was a pretty exciting thing.
David Dozer 28:45
So, I interviewed for that position and got the job and spent my last two years there as part of the product team, and that was kind of a do everything type of job in that I was responsible for setting the direction of the product. But then I worked a lot with our partner channel that Macola had at the time in kind of helping with enablement and just kind of, for lack of a better word, sort of being the Swiss Army knife, so to speak, and just kind of helping out wherever I could there.
David Dozer 29:21
And myself and the other product folks and the director of development, we had kind of really started to put together a plan for what the future of Macola was going to look like. And, you know, things don’t always shake out in real life how they shake out on on paper, and the company in the business kind of took a little different direction. And I said, “It’s time to look for other other things.”
Tim 29:52
Quickly, before you get there, I’ve heard that, like, product manager roles, I’ve heard people describe it as a very entrepreneurial role. It’s almost like running a business because you have so many priorities that you’re trying to keep track of. And was that your case? Would you describe it that way?
David Dozer 30:10
I would agree with that. And in a way too, it’s kind of funny, you’ve got a lot of responsibility, a lot of priorities to make sure that you’re keeping aligned in the proper order. But then no one in the organization actually reports directly to you. So you’ve got to ask everybody very nicely to do the things that you want to try to get done.
Tim 30:32
Sounds like financial auditing; you got to get people to give you stuff, but you can’t make them.
David Dozer 30:37
Right. Yeah. So, you know, it was a great experience. I wouldn’t trade it for anything. And it taught me a huge amount about what goes into even building an ERP product. You know, prior to that the development team there kind of worked in more of a traditional waterfall methodology.
David Dozer 31:00
And myself and some of the other folks on the management team, we moved over into an agile development methodology. So, you know, it was just a great experience all around. And I wouldn’t trade it for anything, really. Obviously, in hindsight, it would have been great if we could’ve collectively done a little more for the product, but sometimes there’s things outside of your control that happen.
Tim 31:29
So that gets you through 2017. And where’d you go from there?
David Dozer 31:37
At that point, I left Exact and I actually joined a Macola VAR. And this is kind of getting into my first exposure to Acumatica. So, at that point, the Macola channel was kind of seeing some of the writing on the wall and seeing that, you know, maybe things weren’t gonna shake out rosy for everyone. And a lot of them were kind of starting to look at other ERP products to at least bring into their portfolio.
David Dozer 32:09
So the particular VAR I worked for, they decided to go with Acumatica. And, you know, I had an opportunity then to kind of lead the charge of getting them into the Acumatica space. And, again, it was great, it was exciting, it was refreshing.
David Dozer 32:26
A lot of things that were tough and were a struggle with the Macola product – I mean, even installing it took half a day, and that’s if you knew what you were doing; whereas, Acumatica, you click a couple buttons, and then in 15 minutes you’ve got a site up and running. So just stuff like that. It was really a breath of fresh air, and it was exciting to start getting exposed to that.
Tim 32:53
So you say refreshing. And you also specifically talked about the install; that was my exact experience as well, coming off a Legacy product. Getting involved with Acumatica, first thing I noticed was the size of the install file. I’m like, “This is tiny. There’s no way this could actually be the whole install.”
David Dozer 33:11
“Yeah, this can’t be a real product.”
Tim 33:13
It’s installed and then hey, I’m logging in. Wow, that’s amazing. It was refreshing. And it all just comes down to modern technology, right? They they did it from scratch, rather than putting lipstick on a pig, as they say, you know, trying to make an old product look new.
David Dozer 33:28
Yeah, and it’s tough when you get into a product that’s 30-35 years old, and you can’t say, “Well, we’re going to rebuild this from the ground up,” because then it’s gonna take you 15 years to get everything in it. So, you know, it’s a tough proposition that companies work themselves into.
David Dozer 33:44
But, man, seeing Acumatica for the first time and really getting involved, and it was like, this is what an ERP system should be. Because at the end of the day, everything does debits and credits, keeps track of your inventory, you’re cutting POs, you’re receiving inventory, you’re making shipments, but it should be easy, it should be intuitive; it shouldn’t be crazy hard to go look up a sales order.
David Dozer 34:09
And it was just all the things that I kind of, frankly – you know, as we were kind of talking about the future of Macola and things like that – what I envisioned an ERP would look like, so it was like I had that aha of eyes wide open type of moments.
Tim 34:26
That’s really cool. That sounds very similar to my first experience.
David Dozer 34:29
Yeah, and with all that said, I had a great experience with that reseller. But a couple years into that – you know, I’ve kind of had the entrepreneurial bug, so to speak, through through most of my life – and the time really felt right to say, “You know what? I’m going to strike out on my own and start my own thing.”
David Dozer 34:52
And, honestly, when I decided to start my own thing, I kind of said, “You know what? I’m done with ERP. I’ve done it for a long time, I want to do something different, I want new challenges.” And we really started the business, really more kind of as a marketing agency and website design and doing things like that.
David Dozer 35:17
And, I’ll be very honest, I found out pretty quickly that those are hard things to do with very low margin. You know, doing websites and things of that nature, it’s just a lot of work. The marketing is tough, and it’s just – I wasn’t good at it, if we’re being very honest.
Tim 35:42
It’s a more crowded space, too, I would think, right?
David Dozer 35:45
It is, I mean, if you’re bidding to get someone’s business for doing a website, I found out, you can go on Upwork, and you can find somebody that’ll do the same thing for 200 bucks, so it’s very crowded, it’s very competitive. And I kind of took a step back and said, “Okay, well, what am I good at?” And ERP was the answer.
Tim 36:09
Well, it sounds like you were also encountering a phenomenon that I heard described by Ed Kless – he’s in the Sage space. I did a three day workshop with him one time. He’s got all this great knowledge bomb type stuff, and one of them was about ERP, the industry itself, and that it’s like the mafia. You can get in, but you can’t get out.
David Dozer 36:33
That is spot on, man. And by the time you get to our age, everybody knows everybody, and there’s no leaving. Yeah, that’s for sure. But, you know, I tried and said, “Well, let’s go back to what I’m good at.” And as a business, my partner and I said, “Before we jump in feet first to something,” and being very transparent, we said, “we’re going to act as if we don’t have any experience with any ERP system and really treat this as a selection process before we decide what product we’re going to resell.”
David Dozer 37:12
So Acumatica was obviously on the list, but we took a real hard look at NetSuite, Acumatica, B1, Microsoft – kind of the big players. And we spent a good eight months evaluating all of those solutions to, at the end of the day, we wanted to say when we sell a deal, when we take someone off of a legacy ERP system that they may be struggling with that hasn’t been updated for a while, what toolset do we want to be able to give them?
David Dozer 37:47
What toolset do we, as consultants, want to have at our disposal to solve problems and help them run their business? And after that due diligence, we came back to Acumatica, and said, “You know what? This really is all around the best product for us to offer to our clients.” And the rest is history, so to speak. I think probably, job wise, that brings us up to almost being current.
Tim 38:21
I’m interested real quick on the NetSuite part, particularly. If you could give one or two reasons why you favored Acumatica over NetSuite, what would those be?
David Dozer 38:31
Well, a couple of the big things with that is, and again, being very transparent, we actually had an opportunity to work on a NetSuite project with with someone that was getting off of their old software, and they had kind of independently decided to go to NetSuite. And honestly, for a totally SaaS web-based product, it feels very clunky.
David Dozer 38:58
You know, it’s something just from a user perspective that it’s sort of difficult to navigate in some areas, just the way menus work; the inability to easily switch out even simple things like filtering by column. So those are big things, but honestly, too, we’re very heavily focused on on manufacturing customers, and the options, that I saw at least, available for NetSuite, as far as manufacturing goes, just really weren’t up to the same level as what Acumatica has from a manufacturing product.
Tim 39:41
Interesting. I’ve heard the same thing from others. Yeah. Especially with the manufacturing part.
David Dozer 39:46
Yeah, I mean, listen, I’ll be honest, it’s not a terrible product. You know, obviously tons people run their business on it. But when we’re looking at folks that have really specific needs around manufacturing, they need their user base to be able to quickly adopt it. And frankly, too, from a services side, I like having a product that we can tailor very easily as well. And, you know, Acumatica fits the bill on all of those.
Tim 40:18
It’s funny about NetSuite. I feel like Acumatica has always tethered themselves to NetSuite from a marketing perspective, like they’re chasing NetSuite, but, I don’t know, I never really saw them as that comparable in the sense that NetSuite was always on the Oracle path, and then eventually they did get acquired by Oracle. And that’s just a totally different, much larger enterprise philosophy.
Tim 40:40
And they always seem to be running in that direction, whereas Acumatica just always seem to be more mid-market focused. And even the fact that they’re sister companies with IFS now, IFS kind of puts that upper bound on them, you know, where it’s like, we’re not going to get into that big of a space, because that’s IFS territory.
Tim 40:57
And to me, that’s always been a very clear distinction from a business standpoint between the kind of customers Acumatica is looking for versus the kind of customers that NetSuite is looking for.
David Dozer 41:07
Yeah, I tend to agree, just from that profile of customer and who that customer is. And even honestly, I’ve found as we’re in competitive deals and we’re going up against NetSuite, sometimes those customers really aren’t a great fit for us and for Acumatica, just because they maybe don’t need as much functionality, and that’s just kind of how it shakes out sometimes.
David Dozer 41:35
But I think from a marketing standpoint, and really kind of where to position the product, I see Acumatica fitting very nicely in that mid market. And folks that do have more complex processes, you know, you’re not just looking to get off QuickBooks. Maybe you are doing a lot with engineering, you’re making things to order; whatever your process looks like, it’s a great fit for that. And if you’re looking at both, maybe one of us is in the wrong spot, you know?
Tim 42:10
Yeah, I feel the same way. It’s maybe a little more oil and water than it tends to be marketed. But I don’t know, I wonder if that’s the case that other VARs find the same thing, how much overlap there is in the deals.
David Dozer 42:21
And maybe it kind of boils down to NetSuite being the first cloud ERP, so to speak. And maybe that just natively puts us both in the same stratosphere.
Tim 42:35
But you did go with Acumatica – and I’m going to drill down to a month – do you remember a month in a year that you officially signed up?
David Dozer 42:44
I do; we officially became a VAR in October of 2020.
Tim 42:51
Okay, so that fits the timeframe. I’m going to read this off of a recent acumatica.com blog post. So your company, Blaze IT, has been nominated for a Fast Start Partner Award. There’s only three nominees, so you got a 1/3 chance, at least. I’ll read the blurb: “The Fast Start Partner Excellence Award recognizes the partner who closes their first deal in the first six months and quickly acquires multiple customers in the first 18 months of partnership.” So you’re still in that 18 month window there, huh?
David Dozer 43:29
We are, yeah, and I don’t know if that’ll qualify us for the award again next summit or not, but we’ll see. I’m very, very proud of our team here. I’m very happy that we got nominated. I pulled open open the same article, and I was like, “Oh, hey, look, we got a nomination.” So, you know, it’s just a testament to to the hard work that our whole team here at Blaze IT have put in over the last year.
David Dozer 43:58
I’ll be very transparent; it was pretty grueling year in a positive way. You know, we sold a lot of sites, we’re helping a lot of clients get off of their old, outdated, won’t-name-any-names software, and on to a scalable, usable, ERP system. And we enjoy doing that, and it’s really nice to see that recognition back from from Acumatica as well.
David Dozer 44:29
And from a business standpoint, we’re gonna keep doing what we’re doing, and my goal is next year at Summit, we’re on the list of top manufacturing partners and then two years from then we’ll be on the list for partner of the year. So I like to set my goals high. But we’re gonna work hard and provide the best service we can for our clients and shoot for those goals.
Tim 44:34
And sounds like you are are still focusing on Manufacturing Edition with Acumatica.
David Dozer 45:04
We really are. I don’t want to say we’ve necessarily drilled down into a specific vertical, but we’re very focused on the manufacturing. We have a couple distribution customers, but we’ve really found our bread and butter is manufacturing. It’s what we know. It’s what we live. I did it for years with Macola.
David Dozer 45:28
My partner, she comes from an aerospace background and manufacturing, and so it’s the things that we know, it’s the things that we do. So really, we’ve been very focused in that area, really a lot around industrial goods, manufacturing – kind of in that area. But again, just manufacturing in general is where we’re really focused and, from a company perspective, bring a lot of experience and values to our clients.
Tim 46:02
Yeah, that Acumatica Manufacturing Edition does really seem to be hitting its stride. I mean, one recent piece of news, Jessica Gadbois – I hope I’m pronouncing her last name correctly.
David Dozer 46:14
I just always – I avoid saying her last name.
Tim 46:18
But she used to do all the demos of the summit, and this will be the first summit in a while where she won’t be on stage. But she’s now running an Acumatica practice for a VAR also focused on manufacturing. And to me that says a lot that you got someone from Acumarica who knows the skeletons, the things that aren’t working great, that she would go out and do that. I think it really seems to be hitting its stride and doing well out there.
David Dozer 46:46
It really is. And I think we’re – not to toot our own horns more than I already have, but I will – I think, too, we’re kind of helping Acumatica, us and the other manufacturing VARs, to find that spot and find that sweet spot, because it really is. I mean, it’s better than a lot of the other manufacturing softwares out there, especially for the the target market that we’re serving and the price point and all of that.
David Dozer 47:17
It’s a really good blend and fit. And, frankly, even things like the different deployment options; there’s just a lot of reasons for folks to go with Acumatica and, again, why it’s kind of become our hammer of choice in building out someone’s ERP.
Tim 47:39
Well, congrats on that Fast Start nomination. Are you going to be going to the summit next week to hopefully get the award in person?
David Dozer 47:46
We are, yeah, my partner and I are both going. And then we’re taking a few of the folks from the office. So I think we’ll have, thinking off the top of my head, we’ll have five of us there at the summit. So, you know, some some of our kind of greener people. I think it’s going to be a great opportunity for them to really see Acumatica in full stride and will be great for them to experience the conference for the first time.
David Dozer 48:16
So we’re very excited, ready to see everybody in person. You know, we’re just kind of now getting back and seeing people face to face. We didn’t make it to the one over the summer, so, very excited to be there.
Tim 48:33
Yeah, it’s funny that being on LinkedIn quite a bit myself, you were one of the more active LinkedIn people – I’m going back a few years – I think I first met you at the summit in San Diego, if I remember right.
David Dozer 48:45
That sounds plausible. Yeah.
Tim 48:48
It is kind of weird, you know, that you sort of feel like you know someone online, although you really don’t, and then you meet in person. It’s sort of this, like, you were going 90 miles an hour online, and all of a sudden, it’s start from square one. Hi, my name is Tim. Good to meet you. It’s kind of a weird experience.
David Dozer 49:05
Exactly. Yeah. It’s like, “Oh, I know everything about you. But okay, nice to meet you.” Yeah.
Tim 49:11
But it is great to be able to have in-person events. I won’t be making it this year, but hopefully, next year, I’ll be back into the summit routine myself.
Tim 49:19
Well, we’ll definitely miss seeing you there. I always like when we get a chance to sit down and have a drink and chat. So yeah, hopefully next year for sure. We’ll have an opportunity to hang out some.
Tim 49:33
Well, before we wrap it up here, any other tidbits you’d like to share with us?
David Dozer 49:37
Oh, I just appreciate you having me on, and I’m glad I guess I get to be the first guest of 2022. So depending on when this airs, you know, if it is before the before the summit, I’d be happy to sit down and chat with everyone out there. We’ll be the ones in the very gaudy Blaze IT bomber jackets, so it should be easy to find us. And, again, it’s been very exciting, and I’m very appreciative of the recognition from Acumatica.
David Dozer 50:13
And we’re just excited as a business, and me personally, I’m excited about the direction that that we’re going with Acumatica and as a business and really going out and helping those clients that are stuck on old, outdated software that was made 25 years ago, 30 years ago, and helping them transition their operations to a real scalable, future proof solution like Acumatica.
Tim 50:47
Well, hey, congrats again on the Fast Start nomination. Have a great time at Summit next week. And thanks for coming on today.
David Dozer 50:55
Oh, really appreciate it. I’ll have an extra drink for you, Monday night.
Tim 50:59
Sounds like a deal.
David Dozer 51:01
All right. Well, hey, I really appreciate it and always great catching up, and we’ll talk real soon.
Tim 51:09
All right. Well, that’s it for now. We’ll catch you on the next episode of augforums.com Real Talk. Thanks for listening and take care.